Jesus and a deaf man.

Friday mornings are the best

Last Friday morning was a blast… but that is pretty standard. It was awesome seeing some of the new kids from last week come back out, and I look forward to the relationships between them and the leaders growing. 

Pudding pictionary

This week we played pictionary for our game… but there was a twist. Instead of using pens, or markers, kids used their fingers dipped in pudding to draw. Its pretty funny how something like this can get the kids so excited to play a game they have probably played a bunch the normal way. 

Some masterpieces!

Kids got very creative and I was super surprised at how fast they were able to get through all the clues that we had for them. We had to start coming up with harder things for them to draw! In the end it accomplished exactly what we hope for in all our games, it brought them all together, made them laugh,  got them working with leaders, and gave them the opportunity to have fun doing something they didn't expect to be doing on a Friday morning.

I think this may be Winnie the Pooh

Grant shared about Jesus with everyone after the game. He talked about the time when Jesus healed a deaf and mute man. It can be found in Mark 7:31-37.

To get the kids involved, we played a game of "would you rather." Grant would ask everyone something like, "Would you rather eat McDonalds everyday, or Burger King?" It was fun seeing everyone get super into it. The last question was, "Would you rather not be able to hear, or not be able to talk?" It got really quiet when he asked that question and the kids started really thinking about how hard it would be for either option.

Grant talked about a video he had recently seen where some deaf people were given a Cochlear Implant. In this video, people that had never heard before were able to hear. One of the people shown was a two year old boy, and the first thing he heard was his dad saying, "Hey buddy, its your dad. I love you." He said the kids face changed immediately when he heard his dad's voice. 

In Jesus' time there were no Cochlear Implants. If you were deaf, you were deaf. Some people had heard that Jesus was doing some pretty great things, some things no one had ever heard about before, so they thought he might be able to do something for their deaf and mute friend. Jesus took them aside, to a place where there weren't so many other people around.

What he did next might sound a little strange.

He put his fingers in the man's ears, then spit and touched the man's tongue. He looked up to heaven and sighed "Ephphatha!" This word means be opened. Right away this man could hear, and he started talking like a normal person. This man was set free, this man was restored, this man was made complete.

Jesus told the people there not to tell anyone what he had just done, but the author of Mark tells us that, "they kept talking about it… overwhelmed with amazement they said 'He has done everything well, he even make the deaf hear and the mute speak!'"

Jesus brings completion. Jesus restores. Jesus makes incomplete, complete. He did this over 2,000 years ago, and he still does this today.

This week is a very special week for followers of Jesus. It is the week leading to the death of Jesus on the cross, and then his resurrection from the dead. This is the week leading up to Easter, leading to life renewed, life restored. In the same way that Jesus opened this man's ears, he opens our hearts to experience full, real, whole life. 

So, even though its a few days later, if you would like to talk with your child about WyldLife Friday, ask them about pictionary, and why it was different. Ask them what they would rather be, deaf or mute, and then ask them what Jesus did to a person who was both.

Also, if you do not have a church to go to on Easter, but would like to go, please check out the church partnerships on the right hand side of this webpage. I believe that me and my family will be going to celebrate Easter with Common Villages at the Reata Park and Event center in San Juan Capistrano and would love to have you join us.

8th grade boys with the win!