All the stations as part of the Good Friday Family Experience were great hands on environments that introduced kids to the events of Holy Week, but without focus, they could all seem fairly random as well. It was very important that there was an opportunity to bring all the pieces together and connect the dots. That was the point of the station, Meaning of the Mystery.

This was a veyr simple station, We took one of our large group environments, turned down the lights and used colored LED lights to create atmosphere and only light a very small section of the stage so that there were no distractions and only one focal point. Every came in every 20 minutes and sat on the floor around the stage. Our smallest group was about 25-30 and our largest was a little over 100. We did 6 in all though.

It was essentially a 12-15 minute talk that brought all the pieces together. On the stage I had 5 boxes. A heart was in the first, an apple in the second, a stuffed animal lamb in the third, a crown in the forth and a cross in the 5th. Over the 12-15 minutes, a story was told using an element from each box to support the story. This technique kept the kids engaged to the story because there was a new visual every 2-3 minutes with anticipation for the next one and it connected to much of what they had just experienced.

Essentially, the story began with love.

  • Box 1: Love – God is love and he desires to have relationship with his creation
  • Box 2: Apple – God gave all of us a choice to love him and choose him. We chose something different and it broke our friendship with God
  • Box 3: Lamb – God had a plan for restoration. Death is the price of sin, but God allowed a perfect lamb to pay that price. It didn’t fully restore the relationship, but it did cover our sins each year

Slight Transition in the story

  • Box 4: Crown – The Jews were in captivity in their own land. They desired a king that would save them and deliver them and one was promised by the prophets. It became apparent that this Jesus might just be this king
  • Box 5: Cross – Jesus shocked everyone when he died on the cross. He was supposed to be the king, yet he was dead. What they didn’t understand was that Jesus wasn’t just the king, he was also the lamb (pick up the lamb). By being the lamb, he began a new kingdom of love (pick up heart) that exists in our hearts. Jesus was the lamb and king and if we allow him to be our king, our broken friendship with God will be restored.

That’s it. You can download the full script here.