The Parables of Jesus – Volume 4

Skit Package 1: “Why Jesus Spoke In Parables” (Psalm 119: 105)

The children discover the reason why Jesus taught in parables, simple stories that explain complex truths. When Tina is put on restriction for lying, she has a hard time understanding the principal’s complicated letter, but when Pastor Rufus tells her the story of The Girl Who Cried Wolf, she understands the importance of telling the truth. She learns that Jesus parables are earthly stories with Heavenly meanings.

Skit Package 2: The Parable Of The Sower (Matthew 28: 19,20; Matthew 13:3-9, 18-23)

Pastor Rufus gives Harvey, Zelda, Clem, and Tina each a Bible to give to a friend. Rufus repeats Jesus’ challenge in the Parable of the Sower to be farmers (sowers) and to plant (or share) the seed (the Word of God) into the soil (hearts) of other people. Tina doesn’t understand what to do, Clem is afraid her friends will make fun of her, and Zelda is more concerned about listening to her new iPod. None of them plant the Word of God into anyone’s heart, except Harvey, who is good soil. He shares his faith with so many people that he has to ask Rufus for more Bibles.

Skit Package 3: The Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-27)

Tina and Zelda come face-to-face with their selfishness and prejudice as they learn a lesson about what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. While the kids from the church do clean-up chores at the apartments, right near the home of the dreaded Mrs. Pickering, Clem becomes very ill. Neither Zelda nor Tina wants to help Clem, for fear of catching her sickness. Who comes to Clem’s rescue? Mrs. Pickering not only cares for Clem, but sacrifices her own treasures for Clem’s well being.

Skit Package 4: The Unmerciful Servant (Matthew 6:14,15; Matthew 18:21-35)

Harvey learns a painful lesson when he refuses to forgive Tina for breaking his one hundred dollar skateboard, even after Pastor Rufus forgives him for breaking the new one thousand dollar stained glass window at the church. As Pastor Rufus lists off the chores Harvey must complete to pay for the window, he makes it clear to Harvey that Jesus’ parable of the Unmerciful Servant warns us to forgive others; otherwise, God will not forgive us when we sin.

Skit Package 5: Lazarus And The Rich Man (Matthew 5:42; Luke 16:19-3)

Clem ends up friendless and lonely because she won’t share her gum with Harvey, or her skates with Zelda, or her iPod with Tina. When Rufus tells the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, he helps Clem understand that selfish people end up separated from God and from others because they care more about their stuff than they do about the needs of the people around them.

Skit Package 6: The Prodigal Son (I John 1:9; Luke 15:11-32)

Harvey learns that he cannot run away from the love of Pastor Rufus even when he forgets to lock up the maintenance shed and all of Rufus’power tools are stolen. When Harvey returns, he begs Rufus’ forgiveness, and to his amazement, Rufus, cancels Harvey’s one thousand-dollar debt for breaking the church’s stained-glass window. Tina, however, gets jealous because she still has to work off her debt of breaking Harvey’s one hundred-dollar skateboard. Both Tina and Harvey learn to celebrate God’s continual love, just like they enjoy Pastor Rufus’ love, no matter who ran away, or who stayed home.

Skit Package 7: The Wise and Foolish Builders (Psalm 19:14; Matthew 7:24,27)

Zelda and Harvey make some very bad choices that get them kicked out of school and placed on suspension. Their lives are a real mess because they have chosen to make sandy choices (selfish, disobedient choices) instead of rocky choices (choices that please God). In the parable of The Wise and Foolish Builders, Jesus warns us not to build our lives on sand, but on the rock instead. Zelda and Harvey learned that lives built on sand will not survive when the storms of life come, but lives build on the rock will survive life’s troubles because God is with those who obey His Word.