Parable of the Lost Sheep

 A few weeks ago, we were talking about Jesus as the Good Shepherd and also discussed the Parable of the Lost Sheep. You might think those are two very different stories, but they do go hand-in-hand.
First off, I started by bringing a sheep to class. Before you start calling me Mary, no. It was only a stuffed animal I found in a closet in the church building. But it worked to help me make my points. Then, I discussed various aspects of sheep.

• Did you know sheep cannot get themselves up again if they fall over on their backs? They have to have help.
• Did you know a sheep has no way to defend itself? When it gets scared, it literally runs in circles or falls over.
• Did you know if a sheep gets lost, it has no sense of direction and can't find its way back?
• Did you know a sheep actually recognizes its shepherd's voice? It can literally distinguish it from everyone else and trusts it but not others.
• Did you know a sheep can get bugs in its wool and the shepherd anointing it with oil protected it from that?
• Did you know if a sheep falls in the water, even though it can swim, it will probably still drown because its wool gets so heavy?

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What do all of those facts have to do with Jesus? Well, when we talked about him being the door to the sheepfold, we talked about how a shepherd would literally lay across the opening to the pen so that nothing bad could get in and no sheep could get out. And Jesus is the same for us. He protects us from the bad and keeps us from getting lost.
We talked about how we need protection from evil and can't always help ourselves. And we talked about how Jesus loves us so much that he would literally come find us away from all the others if we got lost.
And to help emphasize the story, my co-teacher hid some sheep around the area and took a couple kids at a time (we have between eight and twelve usually) to go hunt for a sheep and bring it back.
We also did a couple of crafts.

I printed a couple of activity sheets for the extra time left over at the end, but first we did this one pictured below. To make this, I printed out the template from this site. I only used the first page. Then, we cut out sheep head shapes from some card stock and glued one behind one of the bushes. We picked a different bush for each page so the kids wouldn't think theirs was the same place as the one next to them. Then, we glued that on some construction paper.
You give one to each child and show them to use the side of the crayon or pencil to rub over each bush to look for the missing sheep. This is a super fun craft idea you can use for so many stories (Balaam and his donkey with the angel hidden comes to mind). The kids thought it was pretty fun, although the one who found his behind the first bush was a little disappointed.

Have you ever taught your Sunday school kids about being a sheep in need of Jesus as a shepherd? What ideas might you add to this class?