Followers of Jesus Archives - Let their light shine!

Followers of Jesus – Tabitha (Dorcas)

In Acts 9:36-43 we meet Tabitha (her Aramaic Name) or Dorcas (her Greek name), a follower of Jesus who sews clothes for the women in the church. The simple craft is a printout of a T-shirt that the children can decorate with fabric pieces. Use any fabric that you have!

When Tabitha dies the church leaders send for Peter. He comes to visit and seeing the sadness of the women he sends them out of the room, kneels down and prays. He takes Tabitha by the hand and says to her, ‘Tabitha, arise’. And Tabitha opens her eyes and sits up! It is a wonderful story.

Tabitha Bible Story Idea

To tell the story to young children have some dolls/puppets to represent Peter and Tabitha. Show something that has been sewn (a dress, or blouse). Take the items out of the story bag as you need them.

‘Say hello to Tabitha! She was a follower of Jesus. She cared very much about the other women in her church and she made them beautiful clothes. But one day something very sad happened – Tabitha died.

Everyone was very upset. They sent for Peter – one of the friends of Jesus. He came to see them straight away. He was sad too. He saw how much everyone missed Tabitha. He knelt down and he talked to God. Straightaway something amazing happened. Peter looked at Tabitha’s body and he said, ‘Tabitha, get up.’ She opened her eyes, she sat up! Peter took her by the hand and helped her. Then he called out to the women – Come and see, Tabitha is alive and well again!’

How could Peter do that? Peter didn’t bring Tabitha back to life. Jesus did. And many people who heard about what had happened believed in Jesus.’

Tabitha Craft Idea

This is an idea I’ve posted about before but this time it’s a download! A simple T-shirt outline for the children to cover in fabric.

t-shirt Download

Lydia hears about Jesus

Lydia hears about Jesus when Paul and Silas visit the town of Philippi where she lived. The story of Lydia is from Acts 16:11-15.

Here are Lydia (with her purple cloth) and Paul and Silas.

Lydia hears about Jesus Bible Story

Bible Truth for toddlers – Jesus is for everyone

Say hello to Paul and Silas! (everyone say ‘hello Paul’, ‘hello Barnabas’ and wave – get you puppets to wave too!) Paul and Silas believed in Jesus and so they went to all sorts of different places to tell everyone that they met that Jesus was the Saviour sent from God. They went to big towns and small villages, they told men, women and children all about Jesus. And today in our story they were travelling to a new place – and they weren’t walking there, they weren’t running there, they were sailing in a boat!

When they arrived at the town of Philippi (a very important place) they told people about Jesus.

One day they decided to go down to the river – they were sure that there would be a place by the river where people went to pray. They found a group who were praying to God and so they sat down with them and began to tell them all about Jesus.

Now one of the people sitting by the river was Lydia. She was a rich successful woman who had money and a lovely home and a great job selling purple cloth (which was very expensive!) but still, something was missing in her life.

She sat and she listened. She realised that she needed to believe in and follow Jesus. So that is what she did! Lydia now knew Jesus as her Saviour. Jesus came to save all sorts of people – people just like you and me.

A simple craft idea – we had a washing line and purple pieces of material.

All you need – printout of washing line, purple cloth cut into different shapes, lollipop sticks (optional), glue.

Lydia hears about Jesus craft. Purple cloth on a washing line.

Lydia-made-purple-cloth-Washing-line Download

Followers of Jesus – Nicodemus

Nicodemus is mentioned several times in the New Testament. He first appears in John 3, then again in John 7 and then finally in John 19. He came to be a follower of Jesus over time. Quite different to Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus but no less real.

For our Toddler Group story we’ll be thinking about the events of John 3. Nicodemus was a very important man with lots of questions. He was also wanting to see Jesus when the crowds had gone home and so he found Jesus at night.

The story

I’ll be using two ‘people’ from my storystack – www.storystack.co.uk

Jesus had done lots of amazing things. He had made sick people better, he had made blind people see again. No one else could do something like that.

Lots of people heard about the things that Jesus did and they wondered, ‘Who is Jesus?’ ‘Is he a good man?’ Yes, he is. ‘But is he sent from God?’ Some people believed that Jesus was God’s Son sent from heaven.

But some people weren’t sure what to think. One of those people was a man called Nicodemus (everyone repeat the name). Now Nicodemus was an important man who knew lots and lots of things. But he didn’t know if Jesus really was God’s Son or not.

What could he do?

One night when the stars were shining in the sky (make star shapes with your hands) and most people were at home in bed and fast asleep (pretend to be sleeping) Nicodemus crept out of his house (walk on the spot on tiptoe and everyone shush) and went to find Jesus.

‘Jesus, you are a great teacher sent from God or how else could you do the amazing things that you have done’ said Nicodemus.

Then Jesus said something that Nicodemus found hard to understand, ‘You must be born again!’ Jesus didn’t mean that we all have to become brand new babies again. He meant that when we believe in Jesus he makes us brand new inside.

It took Nicodemus a long time to understand what Jesus meant. But he thought about who Jesus was and he believed that he was God’s Son. Everyone who wants to be a follower of Jesus needs to believe that Jesus is God’s Son.

Craft Ideas – one is a collage of the night sky and the other is a silhouette of Jesus and Nicodemus.

Followers of Jesus – Tabitha

We started a new set of Bible stories at Toddler group today. Each week we are going to meet someone from the Bible who followed Jesus. Today we started with Tabitha (or Dorcas) from Acts 9. She came along in our story basket together with a few sewing related items.

We begin by saying hello to Tabitha and then I talk about how she helped others because she followed Jesus. The way she helped was by making clothes. As items are taken out of the story basket they are named. The children listened really well!

The puppet is new and was from E W Education via Amazon. They come as a set of 10 different puppets in a lovely hessian sack with several accessories.

Our craft was decorating people shapes with fabric and wool.

On a slightly different note – I will be leading a seminar/workshop about craft at toddler group at the Care for the Family Playtime Conference in September. It’s going to be all about crafts for different seasons. I am chuffed to bits to have been invited. Here’s a link to the info. There are lots of seminars and great speakers. It’s going to be a really good day 🙂