Week 1001 · about 45 minutes
Mark 12
Mark 12 · Memory verse Mark 12:30
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Queues the lesson plan, this story’s coloring page (Mark 12), the matching word search and answer key (Mark 12 word search), the memory-verse tracer, and a parent slip.
Five-minute object lesson
Prop: a wooden spoon
Hold a wooden spoon. Read Mark 12 in about four minutes, stopping at Mark 12:30: “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.” Ask, “What does this prop have to do with Mark 12?” Let two children answer, then say the memory verse together.
Story script
Mark 12 is a real chapter from the New Testament. It starts, “He began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a pit for the wine press, built a tower, rented it out to a farmer, and went into another country.” That is not a motto invented for a poster. It is the first sentence a family hears when this page is opened at night.
Keep going a little further. The chapter also says, “In the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be of them? For the seven had her as a wife.”” Mark 12 opens with these words: “He began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a pit for the wine press, built a tower,…” The line to keep is Mark 12:30: “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first…” Carry the word “love” from that verse into the rest of the day.
The line worth learning out loud is Mark 12:30: “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.” If the rest of the chapter feels crowded, hold that one sentence until the room is quiet.
What happens first in Mark 12? Then try this: Read “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and…” once more. What does it show you about God? You do not have to finish every verse. You can close the book after the memory verse and still have read the Bible together.
Group game
Walk the room as if you are moving through Mark 12. Every time you freeze, a child says one word from Mark 12:30. The last child says the whole verse.
Craft
On a US Letter sheet, draw one picture from Mark 12 and write Mark 12:30 under it. Send it home as tonight’s reminder, not as a decoration contest.
Memory verse
Mark 12:30
“you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.”
Take-home prayer
Father, thank you for Mark 12. Help us remember Mark 12:30 when we wake up, and teach us to notice you in an ordinary night. Amen.