Children's Story - Feeding a Multitude of People

I would love to extend the opportunity to you to use this idea for your next Children's Story that deals with Jesus Feeding a Multitude of People (Feeding of the Five Thousand).

Preparation Required:

1. Buy a fresh loaf of bread - preferably one that is circular (or spherical)
2. Cut a small hole in the top of the loaf of bread and use two fingers to pull out as much of the insides of the bread as possible
3. Stuff the inside of the loaf with candy through the small circular slot you first cut.
4. Replace the circular cover of the bread

The most familiar telling comes from all four Gospels - Matthew 14:31-21, Mark 6:31-44, Luke 9:10-17, and John 6:5-15 but there is also a lesser known story from Mark 8:1-13 (Jesus Feeds Four Thousand) and Matthew 15:29-39.

Today our text was Mark's version of the story and so here's what I said.

I would like to invite all of our children to gather around the Table.

Today I want to tell you a story some of you are already familiar with about Jesus.  Jesus was in the middle of a crowd and he just felt that there were too many people around.  Have any of you kids ever been in the middle of a mosh pit?  (congregation laughs)

Well, Jesus was in the middle of a crowd and just wanted to get away from the thousands of people gathered around.  So they all got into a boat and began rowing to the other side of the lake.  The problem was that the crowds seemed to know where they were going.  The crowd met the disciples and Jesus on the other side of the lake.

And it was late into the day when people should've gone home for supper, but they were far from town so the disciples told Jesus to send the crowd away.  Jesus told those disciples to give them food themselves.

The disciples get upset saying, "That would take eight month's wages!  Are we going to spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?"

(At this point I pull out my wallet and hand it to a child in the crowd and ask him, "How much is in there?"  The kid fumbles so I tell him, "Ah...there's not much in there...you won't find anything...This is what they do to you when you're in ministry!"  Of course the congregation laughs)

The disciples realize that among the crowds they can find bread like this (the one that has been prepared) - how many loaves do you think there were?  (The kids eventually say "5!") and they also had some fish.  How many?  ("2!")

Then Jesus takes one of the loaves and gives thanks to God for it.  That means he says grace.  And here's how he broke it...(At this point I hold up the bread so that everybody can see and I begin to break the bread, and as it tears apart candy explodes out of the loaf and the children go nuts at that point.  Let them scramble till the candy is gone and make sure that every child is able to get their hands on a few pieces)

When Jesus broke the bread and gave thanks they realized that there was enough for everybody.  And the Bible ends the story this way:

They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish.  The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.

This is the Word of the Lord!

Thanks be to God!

Amen!