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(WT) Palm Sunday ~ Storytelling and Stone Art Workshop

Rotation.org Writing Team

Palm Sunday: Jesus is the One!

Storytelling and Stone Art Workshop


Lesson Summary:

jesus-rocksStudents will design and create a "parade of stones" that maps out the various types of responses and levels of faith people have in Jesus. Some will announce, Jesus is the One!, while others represent the spectrum of belief and practice found in Jesus' parade: naysayers, faders, "seekers and once-a-weekers," etc.  They will include their own personal "stone" in the parade and consider where they stand in it. And they will learn the great promise that even if their faith feels like a dense rock, God can even make stones sing. 

Scripture:

Luke 19: 28-40  Luke's account of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Of the four gospel accounts of this scene, Luke's is the only one that remembers his response to the Pharisees, "the stones will cry out!"

Key Verse: Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples!" "I tell you," he replied,"if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out."  Luke 19: 39-40

Note: Some of the lessons in this Writing Team set use Matthew as their scripture. All are very similar. Only Luke has the "stones" quote.

Objectives for the Rotation

See Bible Background at rotation.org for this set's complete list of objectives. 


Description of the "Parade of Stones"

Adjust the number of rocks, signs, and meanings to fit your time and age range. During your discussion, you or your students will likely come up with new ideas worthy of adding to the parade.

The story-telling/lesson concept:  

Think of the parade route as a sort of "MAP" of where people are "AT" in their relationship with Jesus.  Students will decorate and place different "stone people" along a sandy parade route that will serve as the focal point for your study and discussion. After reading through the scripture the second time, you will assign "stone" characters from the story to your students and have them make signs that identify the different character(s) attitude towards Jesus.  See the Lesson Plan below for the list of characters. 

During the retelling of the story, you and your students will move the stones along the route as you discuss the various types of followers who are part of Jesus' parade. A stone that keeps its distance or falls behind, for example, is moved to illustrate that idea.

Materials needed (details for each provided below):

  • large shallow pans and sand1
  • variety of stones2
  • googly eyes, hot glue gun(s), permanent markers (variety of colors)3
  • index cards, tape, plastic straws, rubber bands4
  • cloth, green paper, and scissors5


¹ You will need a large shallow pan filled with an inch of sand
to serve as the "staging area" for your stones. The sand allows them to stand up and be moved.  Two or three cookie sheets filled with sand will do, or better yet, have a handy-person make you a 2 foot x 4 foot long "tray" out of thin plywood with 1x1 molding around the edge to hold in the sand. 

² You will need a variety of stones to create the "stone people" for your parade. Gather a selection of different types, large, small, smooth, rough. Include a bag of "river stone" or tumbled decorative stone from your local garden and/or craft store for the parade people that the students will take home with them as a reminder of their lesson.  Remember that size and shape can convey meaning. For example, you may want to pre-decorate a couple of large stones to stand in the way of the parade, and mark them with names or signs, such as, "Pride: I don't need God," and "Disbelief: God isn't real," and, "My sins are too big to let me join Jesus' parade."

³ Decorating the Stones: Instead of painting on the stones (which will take too long and be too messy to move them), you will need a bag of "googly eyes," hot glue gun(s), and permanent markers to make their faces. 

TIP:  At the very beginning of your lesson, have the students pick out eyes for 10 to 15 stones that will form the crowd at the parade, AND ALSO eyes for stones that they will be able to take home. Hot glue the eyes on the stones then set them aside on the sand tray in front of you for about ten minutes, as they set, while you dive into the scriptures.

4 Stone Signs: Many of the stones will be carrying "signs" in the parade, made by your students. The signs are small pieces of index card on which students will write a slogan, and then taped to the end of a plastic straw.  Students will then fasten their straw sign to a stone using a rubber band. These signs are a major point of discussion between you and your students. 

Cut the sign board and straws ahead of time. You'll want them to be different sizes, but large enough for students to write a slogan on (approx 2" x 3"). 

5 Prepare a few pieces of cloth to represent the "clothing" people spread before Jesus. Also cut some palm leaves (or green paper).

Note:  Luke doesn't mention the palms. That's found in Matthew's version of the story (chapter 21), however, Luke's version mentions the stones crying out!

Ahead of time:

1. Prepare a few rocks of your own with eyes, faces, and signs:

  • "Boring" rock  --Jesus must be boring since church feels boring to me.afraid-rock
  • "Don't believe" rock --Jesus isn't really The One because I just don't think he is.
  • "Judgmental" rock --I'd follow Jesus, but don't want to have to be with these other dorks.
  • "Too Busy" rock --I'm a believer but don't have time to act like one!
  • "Rough" rock --I say I follow Jesus, but I treat these other rocks like dirt.
  • "Dense" rock --I don't understand all this Jesus stuff very well.

You will bring these out in the second phase of your lesson to reflect on "problems on the parade route."

2. Prepare a few props for the parade

  • A Jesus rock. You can paint this one to stand out if you'd like. Make it special!
  • A flat donkey rock for Jesus to ride on.
  • Palm trees and leaves.   Many of the rocks will be holding a palm leaf (using a rubber band around the rock to secure them), and you can also make palm "trees" by sticking a few of the leaves into a lump of clay or playdough to sit in the sand.



Lesson Plan

You will go through the story three times:

1.  Initial Reading --as the story is read, place your stone people onto the sand parade route to match the story.

2.  Second Reading --begin exploring the different kinds of people along the parade route, and assign "signs" to various rocks for students to make and place them in the parade. Then bring in some of your prepared rocks for discussion.

3.  Third Reading --deciding where YOU are along the parade route.  
 

Open

As mentioned in the preparation, have the students quickly help you glue eyes on approximately 15 to 20 stones, including one stone for each student to take home.    Rotation churches will re-use stones made one week in following weeks, so adjust how many you need accordingly.

Dig

1.  Initial Reading

Seated around the sand parade route, read Luke 19: 28-40 as a group, pausing to place your props and stones onto the parade route. The stones do not yet have signs. You can draw a road in the sand and add a few bricks or large stones at the end to represent the gates of Jerusalem.

Remind them that "riding through the city gates on a donkey" was something the people expected their king to do, and it excited the crowd to think Jesus might be the One!

One what?  The Messiah, Their Savior. The one sent from God to become their king.

2.  Second Reading

Before reading the story a second time, begin asking questions about some of the "rock disciples" and people gathered along the parade route.

  • Why were they there?
  • What were they hoping would happen next?
  • What were they shouting?  
  • "Hosanna" means, "Save us now."  Save them from what?
  • Did everyone have the same strength of belief? Or were some just caught up in the excitement and didn't know much about who Jesus was?

Take some of the rocks off the parade route and hand them to your students. As you give them, ASSIGN a SIGN to that student to create for their rock.  You may assign more than one rock and sign per student.

Some Suggested Signs:

- Hosanna!rockpeople
- Save us Now from the Romans!
- Save me from my sins!
- I want to believe, help my unbelief!
- It's not cool!

Have them each write their sign onto a card, then tape it to a piece of straw, and then use a rubber band to hold the straw to the rock. 

Now pull out some of your PREPARED ROCKS. Especially for older students, these are designed to take you deeper and open up more points of discussion.  

3.  Third Reading

As you read the story a third time, have the students add their rocks w/signs.  

Now ask, "who's missing in this parade?" Answer: YOU ARE!

Give each student a new rock and have them decorate it as themselves, and create their own sign of something they want to say about Jesus or to him. Then one-by-one, have them place their rock near or somewhere on the parade route which describes how close they feel to Jesus, or how close they WANT to be.   

After everyone is done, suggest a few ways of how they can get closer to Jesus (prayer, scripture, service, Sunday School!)  Then, end with the important reflection about STONES....

Reflect

Say: No matter what kind of stone you are (point out a few from your discussion), Jesus made an amazing promise that day. He told the people that God could make even the stones to cry out "Hosanna!"    This is a great promise because:  

(A)  God promises to make himself known even if his followers don't do it well or are silent.

(B) If you are one of these "not so great rocks," –An unbelieving rock, a rough rock, a "know nothing" rock —Jesus is saying that God's power can transform YOU to shout his name.  

Jesus is the One who can make your faith shout!



Written by Neil MacQueen based on a lesson by Anne Camp

Copyright © 2016 by Rotation.org
Printed from https://www.rotation.org

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Last edited by The Writing Team
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