All-Age Service Plan: Jesus: superhero and wine maker

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Pre-service set-up

If set-up and hospitality is an important part of your service, you can go with a wedding theme, serve drinks (of a non-alcoholic variety) in plastic champagne glasses, along with bite-sized biscuits, cakes or canapés. You could decorate your building with wedding-inspired decorations. And if you have some people willing to dress up as part of the bridal party, let them!

Prayer / Worship Activity

Option 1 10 MINS

Resources: food magazines (the free ones you get from supermarkets), big pieces of paper, scissors and glue on each table.

Set up enough tables for people to gather in groups of eight to ten of mixed ages. Ask the groups to create a collage of a really good banquet or meal using the materials on their table. Once the collage is complete, the groups can pray short prayers thanking God for the things they see pictured.

Option 2 5 MINS

Before the service starts create a PowerPoint presentation of really extraordinary things and places. It might include incredible photographs of the natural world – animals and plants as well as views and vistas. You might also include man-made things – vintage wine, a diamond ring, a bespoke evening gown, a fast car. Ask people to reflect on the extraordinariness of both God-created and man-made things.

Story

John 2:1-11 10 MINS

If you can line up some volunteers to come in wedding outfits - ideally a bride, groom and bridesmaids - that would be amazing. If not, try and get hold of some wedding pictures to display. Get the bridal party to come to the front (or put up a photograph) and pose as if they are mid-way through the ceremony. Say that this story is about a wedding that Jesus was invited to before anyone really knew who he was. Ask the congregation to suggest things that happen at a wedding in our culture. Basically, you have the ceremony and then a big party. Say that in Jesus’ time it was a little different: a wedding could go on for a whole week and everyone in the area would be invited. During that time, the bride and groom’s families were expected to keep on feeding everyone and giving them plenty to drink.

But at this wedding… disaster! They ran out of wine! This wasn’t just a hiccup: it was a big, massive, magnum-sized problem! Jesus’ mum Mary was at the wedding and she came and said to him, ‘Son, they’ve run out of wine!’ Jesus told his mum not to get him involved but she went to the servants and told them to do whatever Jesus told them to.

In those days, God’s people had a special way of getting cleaned up before they ate and there were six enormous stone jars where they would have got the water for this kind of washing. These jars were really big. (Draw a big jar about a metre high before the service and have it on display at this point. Display this jar against a table so that it hides a good-sized bowl, which you will have behind it. This bowl should have a good glug of blackcurrant squash in the bottom of it.) In fact, one of these jars would have held about 1000 litres of water - that’s as much water as you use in a deep bath! Draw attention to the size of the jar - see if there are any children in the congregation who are about the same size as it.

Jesus told the servants to fill up all of the jars, right to the very top, with water. Pour water from a clear jug into the jug with the blackcurrant, which is hidden behind your cardboard water jar. The servants did what Jesus told them. Then Jesus told them to take some to the person in charge of the food and drink. Ask if any of the children can think how the person in charge of the food and drink is going to feel when the servants take him water?!

The servants did as Jesus said, they dipped a cup into the water (dip a wine glass into your hidden bowl of juice) and… Out came wine! Display your glass of ‘wine’. The food and wine man was super impressed! He was so impressed, in fact, that he called the groom over and said, ‘Most people serve the best wine first and then later on they give the stuff which doesn’t matter, but you have saved the very best until last!’

Reflective response to story

Option 1

Resources: red grape juice or ‘fake wine’ (Schloer or similar), plastic cups

5 MINS

Set up a table with your choice of drinks. Let people pour themselves a glass (or you could have someone acting as bartender if you are going for the wedding theme throughout). As people drink the ‘wine’, encourage them to consider how Jesus might transform very ordinary things in their lives into extraordinary things. You might like to create some simple cards with a picture of a wine glass on, where people can write down some of the things they want to give to God to transform in their lives.

Option 2 5 MINS

Have someone read the story from the Bible (ideally an easy to understand version like the Good News or Contemporary English Version). It can be found in John 2:1-11. After each section, add the following reflections and questions for people to consider quietly:

~~ v1-3: Sometimes we feel that we’ve run out of things – time, energy, money, patience. What do you feel you’ve run out of today? Can you go to Jesus and ask him to find a solution?

~~ v4-8: Sometimes Jesus appears to ask people to do crazy things. Are you willing to do what Jesus asks, even if it seems silly? Can you trust that he knows what he is doing?

~~ v9-10: Jesus didn’t just turn the water into any old rubbish, his wine was of a fine vintage and the master of the banquet was impressed. When Jesus takes the things we offer, he can turn them into quite extraordinary things. What can you offer him today?

~~ v11: Thank you Jesus that you continue to reveal your glory among your people today. Help us to put our faith firmly in you. Amen.