1. Bread of Life The Season of Lent John 6 texts
For five Sunday’s the gospel readings are from John 6, the first four focus on Jesus as the Bread of Life. A wonderful opportunity to bring a multi-generational lens to one’s educational experience and worship.

2. Sing
Back of the loaf is the wheat and the flour. And back of the flour is the mill. Back of the mill is the rain and the shower and the Son and God’s good will. (Sung to tune of Michael Finnegan)
Singing builds community. Each week, like at camp, teach a new table grace that can be sung to familiar tunes. Print them in the bulletin, place them on your web site, sing them in worship as part of the liturgy for Communion. Send them out in texts for households to use during the week. It is the role of the congregation to equip the household to learn how to pray – practice at church what you want people to do at home.

3. Welcome & Introduce the Theme
The first Sunday, 17 Sundays after Pentecost, Jesus feeds the 5000 with five loaves and two fish. Whether it is for worship or for an educational gathering, the theme should be obvious form the time people enter the gathering space. Set a table or the altar with baskets and loaves of bread. A Bible open to the text for the day and any other objects that create the focus. This could include materials for anything you will be making as acts of service for the community or to take home as reminders of the Story.

4. Identify & Celebrate All the Generations
By placing colored dots on people’s nametags or simply having people stand in a circle by decades, from oldest to youngest – acknowledge ALL the generations present in the interactive learning environment and/or worship. A faith community it the only institution that can gather all the generations through all the milestones of life. Celebrate this! It is a big deal.

5. Honor Oldest and Youngest
Make a big deal out of the eldest present (who gets to claim title of wisest!) and the youngest. They complete your “Circle of Blessing” for creating a community of faith where stories are shared and faith is nurtured.

6. Caring Conversation Invite people to introduce themselves to those of another age: What is your favorite kind of bread? Favorite meal? The strangest sandwich you have ever made or eaten?
Have people of various ages introduce themselves to one another with a question someone of any age can answer. Create questions that reflect God’s Story for the day.

7. High’s, Lows, and Do Over’s
There are many ways to demonstrate Confession and Absolution. How does a congregation equip households to practice forgiving one another in daily life?

8. Hear God’s Story
Read the Feeding of the 5000 from The Jesus Storybook Bible. Then, give each small group (5 in a group, each representing a different decade or generation) a few lines of the story. Each group has 3 minutes to come up with a way to act our their part of the story for the entire group - using no words. Lights… Camera… Action!

9. Reflect on God’s Story. My Story…Your Story
A time you were really hungry…
A time someone surprised you with lunch!
Who is the most generous person you know?
A time you experienced extraordinary abundance?
In small groups of five, representing a mixture of decades/generations, make God’s story your own.

10. Interact with the Story
Distribute 7 sheets of construction paper among seven of your small, mixed-age groups (five brown sheets with a loaf of bread drawn on each and two yellow, with one fish drawn on each). If more than 7 groups, combine groups to make 7. Announce that there are hundreds, even thousands who need to be fed. Instruct them to tear the paper (representing bread and fish) into as many small pieces as possible in one-minute. No talking! Call time. Invite someone to take the baskets from your Gathering Table/Altar and using their hands sweep the pieces into the baskets. Set the filled baskets back on the Gathering Table. (f time, each table/group could count the pieces of paper and add up the total.) Almost nothing has become something!

11. Prayer Come, Lord Jesus, be our Guest. and let all these gifts to us
be blessed. Use us to make a goodly
share, for every table, everywhere.
Blessed be God, who is our Bread;
may all the world be clothed and fed.
Amen
Have household units (have singles join a household as “aunt” or “uncle” or “grandpa/ma”) and pray together. The role of the congregation is to model faith practices in the gatherered community so the practices continues in daily life. Consider reading and teaching the Lord’s Prayer as presented in The Jesus Storybook Bible.

12. Sharing A meal Sharing a Meal
We gather at the Lord’s Table and in church basements, fellowship halls and at household tables. Sharing a meal is always a time to practice our faith. All of the ideas presented here can be utilized over a meal.

13. Blessing One Another in the home and congregation
With palms up, mark the hand of another with the sign of the cross and say, “You are the child of a generous God. You have gifts to share!” Note: it is initially more comfortable for people to bless one another on a hand than on the forehead.

14. Sending Like the little boy with a small lunch, what is the “gift” God has given you to share? How will God use it to give life to a hungry world?
Like the little boy with a small lunch, what is the “gift” God has given you to share? How will God use it to give life to a hungry world? Give each person a paper plate. Ask them to draw or write words that symbolize a “gift ”or ability they have been given or knowledge they have developed, Invite each one to add their “gift” to the Gathering Table or Altar, Saying, “We are the children of a God who in the very beginning made everything out of nothing. So it is the most natural thing in the world for God to use what each of has been given to serve the world – to use of to turn darkness into light. When each of us contributed what has been given to us - together there is more than enough. There is bread for the world.”

15. In the Home, Community & Congregation
Live God’s Story
In the Home, Community & Congregation
As acts of service by the faith community – bake bread, make sandwiches to give to homeless on the street or at a shelter with whom you have a relationship, decorate lunch bags for use during the week- include a prayer inside.

16. Linda Staats www.homegrownfaith.net Facebook: Home Grown Faith