Open class with a video
Get ready
Put the five flatbreads and two fish crackers in the paper lunch bag. Keep the basket of extra crackers out of sight.
Teach it
Hold up the lunch bag.
"Somebody packed this lunch for a boy about your age. Let's see what's inside."
Take out the bread and the fish one at a time and count them out loud with the kids: five loaves, two fish.
"Now let's count how many people are in this room."
Count together. Then ask: "Could this lunch feed all of us?" Let them laugh at the idea.
"One day, more than five thousand people followed Jesus up a hillside. They were hungry, and they were a long way from any town. Jesus's friend Andrew found a boy with a lunch just like this one. He said, 'There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these among so many?' (John 6:9)"
Tell the rest of the story from John 6:10-13 in your own words: Jesus had everyone sit down on the grass, gave thanks, and handed out the food. Everyone ate as much as they wanted, and the disciples gathered twelve baskets of leftovers.
Now bring out your basket of extra crackers and share them around while you talk.
Did you know?
In Jesus's day, bread was the main food. Historians think it made up around half of everything an ordinary person ate. Loaves were small, round and flat, baked by slapping dough onto the hot inside wall of a clay oven.
John says the boy's loaves were barley. Barley was the cheaper grain, the bread poorer families ate. This wasn't a fancy picnic. It was an ordinary kid's ordinary lunch, and he gave all of it.
The big turn
The next day the crowd came looking for Jesus again, hoping for more bread. Jesus told them:
"I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will not be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty." (John 6:35)
Hold up one flatbread.
"You ate breakfast this morning, and you'll be hungry again by lunch. Bread fills us up for a few hours. Jesus is saying he is the kind of bread that fills the part of us food can't reach."
Talk about it
- What did the boy give Jesus? Was it a lot or a little?
- Why do you think Jesus used the boy's lunch instead of making food appear from nothing?
- What is something small you could give Jesus this week (your time, a kind word, your help)?
- What do you think Jesus meant when he called himself "the bread of life"?
Pray together
"Jesus, thank you for giving us everything we need. Help us give you what we have, even when it feels small. Thank you for being the bread of life. Amen."
Take it further
- Preschool: Let each child hold a flatbread and count to five with you. Then color the Bread Day coloring page.
- Elementary: Give small groups a paper bag and ask them to draw what they could "give Jesus" this week inside it.
- Preteen: Read John 6:26-35 together. Why was the crowd following Jesus the next day, and what did he want them to understand instead?
Questions teachers ask
What is the Bread of Life object lesson about?
It teaches John 6, where Jesus feeds a huge crowd with a boy's five barley loaves and two fish, then says "I am the bread of life." Kids learn that Jesus multiplies what we give him and that he satisfies us more deeply than food.
Why does it matter that the loaves were barley?
Barley was the cheaper grain in Jesus's day, the bread of ordinary and poorer families. John 6:9 is the only Gospel account that mentions it, and it shows that Jesus worked with a very ordinary lunch.
Can I do this lesson with a gluten-free class?
Yes. Use gluten-free tortillas or rice cakes for the loaves and any safe snack for the fish. The point is the small lunch, not the exact food.
