Wherever Jesus went there were crowds of people wanting to see him. This story comes not long after the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law when people had heard about the healing and had come to the house with their family and friends who wanted to be made well.

In this story Jesus is teaching the people God’s word but there is a crush so he gets into a boat and teaches the people.

To tell the story you could use a toy boat, puppets or knitted dolls to represent the main characters, a net some paper or plastic fish and a blue cloth for the water.

The Story Idea

One day Jesus was talking to lots and lots of people about God. But there were so many people that it was difficult! There was pushing and shoving and people standing on tip toe and trying to get near the front to see and hear Jesus.

What could he do?

Right by Jesus there was an empty fishing boat. The fishermen were busy washing the fishing nets so Jesus got into the boat and they pushed it just a little way into the water. Then there was no more pushing and shoving and Jesus talked to the people about God.

When Jesus had said all he wanted to say he told one of the fishermen to put the boat into the really deep water and throw the fishing net over to catch fish.

Now the fisherman’s name was Simon Peter – he just wasn’t sure that they would catch any fish. They had been working all night and had caught nothing! But because Jesus told him to he got into the boat and rowed out to deep water and threw in the net.

And then something amazing happened!

The boat began to tilt a little bit, the net was so full it was almost breaking! They had caught so many fish that they needed help!

Maybe we would think that Simon Peter would be really excited and be happy. But he wasn’t. He knelt down in front of Jesus and said ‘ You need to go away Jesus because I am a sinful man.’

Jesus didn’t go away he said to Simon Peter ‘Don’t be afraid, from now on you won’t be catching fish but telling people about me.’

Simon Peter bought the boat back to the land and he left it and all the fish and he followed Jesus.

Craft Idea – fish collage using tissue paper and sugar paper