communion crafts revisted

Ok...communion crafts. . .

Make bread, break bread, eat it, share it...
Find out all you can about bread. Once, it was a staple.

Age appropriately, talk about the role bread played in the culture of the people in the scriptures from gathering the seed to planting to harvesting to storing to grinding to baking and eating ...talking about the market would be another topic for another story.

Visit a vineyard. Learn about grapes & find out how wine is made. Again, age appropriately explore the process that the people of the scriptures were familiar with from planting to tending to harvesting to making and drinking the wine. Invite a vinedresser or take a field trip. Where did they get the plants to start with? Wine represents the blood of Christ...

We live in a culture vastly separated from the process and hands-on interaction with the foods that nourish our bodies. People in ancient cultures (even my culture 50 years ago) were on more intimate terms, if you will, with the life of the things they ate and drank. Why did Jesus choose bread and wine? Why not fish and water? Herbs, salt? Or lamb? I don't know...

Learn about blood...

Learn about blood in the scriptures or as part of Jewish tradition...Learn about the role of wine & bread in the scriptures.

Make a clay challis and a clay plate.

Act out the story... talk about how all the characters are related - the experiences they shared over the three years they spent together. . .How much did they see each other? What did they do together? How long is three years to your audience? Is there someone you've known for 3 years? Is there someone you've known for 3 years who has had as dramatic an affect on your life as Jesus did?

The men with Jesus celebrated Passover every year of their lives. What was that like? How was this time different? What did Jesus say to them?

If a friend asks to use a room in your house what do you do to get ready?

Any of these possibilities with give you more material than you were looking for. You can either explore it on your own first and think about what you might want to focus on with the particular group you have. Or go in cold with your kids and offer open-ended questions for your kids so they can ponder and share their experience with one another and see what God shows you that you didn't see before.

In it's simplest form? God is Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Jesus is God. God the Father made man and grain and grapes. He gives us food to eat. He gave Jesus, His own Son to us. Jesus said, This is my body, this is my blood. Eat it and remember me. He said Unless you eat my body and drink my blood you have no part in me...wait...that wasn't the communion story. I'm paraphrasing. Go back to the text...

...but you get the idea...if you want to catch a grain harvest or grain planting or  grape pruning or grape harvest you have to plan ahead and time your field trips or speakers to catch the process in season...like now...