Man healed at poolside

Today's selected reading: – John 5: 1-9,

Kids Address
• How patient are you? (Discuss)
• Who would be the most patient person in your house? (Discuss)
• My guess it would be Mum.
• There are those times when Mum has to pick up after you (even when she has asked you to do it). Or when you were asked to help with the dishes and they were done by the time you arrived to help.
• Most of the time Mum will show her disappointment, but somehow she still keeps her cool.
• This doesn't mean it does not annoy her. It just means that because of her love for you, she just remains patient in the hope you will see the error of your ways.
• That you will see that you are simply selfish and not concerned about other peoples feelings.
• Today being Mother's Day let us give thanks for our special, very patient, mums.
• But also today we see an example of what happens when you are patient.
• The man waiting at the side of the pool to put him in the water when it swelled up, had waited there for years and years. No-one offered to put him in first so the waters could heal him, as was the belief of the day.
• Jesus could see the great patience of the man at the side of the pool and offered him his greatest gift. Healing.
• There are many times when we have prayed to Jesus and asked his help for this need or that need and nothing seems to happen.
• We need to remember things happen in Jesus' time and not ours.
• We need to be patient because Jesus knows what is best for our prayer needs and we should leave it up to him.
• The man and the side of the pool was patient, and Jesus says to us, if we too are patient, his assistance is always there.

Kids Church Activity:
To creates happy and sad faces so when they are turned up the other way it will be happy or sad. Add hair as well so becomes hair or a beard. When children bring their creations into church, Priest squirts them with a water pistol (to create a little levity into things) and to reinforce the happiness the man at the poolside would have experienced. A game could also be played to see who gets to the water first and if any of the slower ones were helped to get to the finish.

What you need to get ready:
Paper plates, Textas, cotton wool, craft glue, Water pistol or water spray

The plan of how the pools were arranged