The Lesson on the Four Gospels

On Sunday went really well. 6th and 7th graders need action and movement --esp since some of these kids are in 8:30 worship, 9:30 SS and THEN confirmation.

I started out with a discussion of the Four Gospels.
Matthew and John were probably disciples.
Mark and Luke were not.
Who each of the writers were -- made sure that the words "point of view" or "different voice" came out.
Discussed the different backgrounds of the writers. Placed the writing of each in a general timeline.

Then, started with the film "Gospel of John" and showed the prologue. We looked at the Bibles and they decided it looked and sounded like poetry.

Showed "Mr. Krueger's Christmas" -- great scene with Jimmy Stewart with the Baby in the Stable -- the stable is a cave, btw. Discussed about how all this imagery is from Luke -- that the birth narrative with the angels and shepherds is only in Luke. They asked about the wise men -- I showed a clip from "Jesus of Nazereth" with the wise men. Pointed out this is only in Matthew. They concluded that maybe Luke is more concerned with the Mary story and women's stuff and that Matthew is concerned with Kingly stuff and earthly power structures.

Showed them the Matthew 16 section from "Cotton Patch Gospel" -- again they picked up on the power language. The looked it up in different translations and we discussed it a while.

Next we began to look at John the Baptist -- from "Greatest Story Ever Told," "Jesus of Nazereth" and "Last Temptation of Christ" (note: full frontal nudity in this scene, be VERY CAREFUL about in and out points). The began to say things like "Ooo Ooo, let's look it up!" and then began a spontanous comparison on the John the Baptist accounts in each gospel.

And then we ran out of time. They now want to watch ALL my Jesus movies.

I reviewed by making sure they could tell me what the 4 gospels were, who wrote them, their background and something the author had that the others may or may not have had -- Like Luke has the Birth Narrative, Matthew has the Wise men, John has no parable, and Mark has the word "immediately."

Next will be Baptism and Communion -- I'll queue up all the communion bits and baptism bits. I'm going to add "Oh Brother" for the Baptism scenes and "The Notebook" at the very very end for communion. For the Crucifixion, I'm going to add the final scenes from "Spartacus." Any other suggestions?