Stewardship of Creation Curriculum - First Communion: Bread


First Communion and Stewardship of Creation Week One: Bread Rakel Evenson Overall Scope The overall scope of my four-week class is constructed within a First Communion four-week class. The primary focus will be about sharing food and the theological/church connection will concern Holy Communion. The four weeks are loosely described as Bread, Grapes, Food Distribution in the Local Community, and Bread for All. Week One: Bread Basic Concept The basic concept is food is a gift from God to be shared, in order that we might know God’s presence among us. More specifically, there are three basic concepts. Food was important to Jesus and often stories about Jesus involve food. Food shared in meals was important to Jesus and the sharing demonstrates God with us and how to act in community. Jesus only knew local foods; knowing our own local foods is important because it leads to another level of sharing food within the local community. Objectives By the end of the session, learners will have had the chance to: Meet and gather in community with fellow church members. Reflect on the importance of sharing food for Jesus and the sharing of bread and wine during Holy Communion. Eat bread, make dough to bake at home and share with others. Background for the Teacher A few things to pay attention to: try as best you can to know your audience of youngsters preparing for their First Communion and their adult guardians. Will there be grandparents present? Or stepparents? Divorces to be aware of? Also, check to see if there are any wheat or gluten allergies. Adapt as best you can with inclusive terms and ingredients (e.g. “family groups” and using rice flour). As you announce this class, make sure family groups know to bring their own aprons, mixing bowl, and mixing spoon. (This can also be another area to be sensitive about—would each family likely own this? See if the church owns a few bowls and spoons.) Make bread ahead of time to share with the group as it gathers, as far in advance as you want (bread freezes wonderfully.) Be sure to warm it in the oven before your group arrives. Bread mixes are easy, especially if you don’t have bread ingredients on hand. Any kind of bread will do for the gathering time: sweet, French, whole wheat, etc. Write/type out the bread recipe that you’ll have your group make and photocopy sheets for everyone. Recipes galore and tips on baking bread are found on breadrecipes.com and allrecipes.com. Also, the cookbook, More with Less by the Mennonite Community has great recipes made for reducing impact on the earth. Do some local investigation and also use the search site localharvest.org. This site helps you look up health food stores, food co-operatives, farmer’s markets, and community supported agricultures ( CSAs) that are in your area. Many of these places might have grinders for grinding one’s own flour, hopefully with local or organic wheat. ( HyVee in western Illinois and Iowa is even a chain grocery store with flour grinders.) If your class is in spring or fall, there could be a farmer’s market in town that could also yield local wheat flour. Any information you find can also go on the sheet with the recipe you send home with the family groups. You will have to go out and procure the ingredients, again, anything you can do local is best and part of the learning of this class. Method The method used in this session is a four-step method. Gather, Engage, Respond, and Bless. Process Gather The group will gather in a circle of chairs. You can play music in the background to create a lively atmosphere. The bread you baked should be in the center, on a lower table. Everyone should be encouraged to wear a name tag, have some bread and mingle. One everyone has arrived, have everyone sit down and have the third-graders (or whatever age your church has for First Communion) introduce themselves and their parents to the group. This should take about 15 minutes, depending on group size. Engage As teacher, you become a discussion leader for a bit. Have two or three questions written on a chalkboard or dry erase board. These questions should be basic, like, “Where does your food come from?” and “How many meals do you eat each day?” Listen to answers given. The goal here is to begin talking about food and know what our daily connection to food is like. Then, the next question asked is something like, “What is the meal we have every week at church?” (Your question will be different depending on how often your church has Holy Communion at worship.) Listen to answers given. Next, place on the lower table in the middle of the circle, a cup and plate. Best is something colorful and something resembling the chalice and paten used at your church. Anything pottery is great. Ask for volunteers to act out what they see the pastor do on Sundays with a cup and plate—even see if they can remember any of the words the pastor says. You can end this acting with applause or cheers or prompts, whatever seems appropriate. Next, transition from talking about Holy Communion to the stories from the Bible the ritual of Holy Communion comes from. Luke 22:19-20, Matthew 26:26-28, and Mark 14:22-24 are the gospel’s words of institution. Invite a youngster to read the different verses aloud. Retell the story of the last supper Jesus had with his disciples, again emphasizing that Jesus shared food with his friends, his community. Make the theological connection that Jesus commands us to share the bread and wine, like he did, to remember that Jesus is about forgiveness of sins. (Depending on your tradition, you can do more here about what the theological significance of Holy Communion for your tradition. For Lutherans, for example, you will want to mention that the promise is that Jesus’ real presence is in the bread and wine at Holy Communion.) Next, transition from the bible story of sharing food to introducing how the group will make food to share. Introduce the ingredients of bread, especially and hopefully, your locally ground flour. Here you can talk about another level of sharing food in community, eating the food grown locally and supporting farmers; using less gas to have this food shipped to you, etc. You can talk about this all positively—how cool it is that food to make bread is grown close by, how fun it is to grind the flour, how interesting farmer’s markets are. The whole time for engagement should be roughly 20 minutes; again longer if the group is big and people are chatty! Respond This is the mixing time dough time! Hand out recipes but have one main station of ingredients. The family groups can come to the station with their bowls, youngsters can measure out the flour and sugar and water and help mix it all together. Adults and youngsters can do the kneading. This is about 15-20 minutes. Bless Once all family groups have finished mixing, it’s time to bless the food to be shared. But before blessing, review the time spent together. Ask questions like: So why is food important to Jesus? So why do we have a meal of bread and wine at church? So why did we just make some dough to bake into bread? Then go into a thanksgiving blessing. Have the family groups hold the bowl of dough together. You can create your own blessing or say something like: Creator God, you have give us the food we eat. Help us to share food with everyone around us. Thanks for good food, like bread. Please bless the dough we have made and everyone that we will share bread with. And thanks so much for Jesus, who loves us and shows us how to share. Amen. This should be short, about 5-10minutes. Whole time: about 1 hour, though longer if groups are bigger. Key to keeping it an hour will be room and ingredients prep. Room Set Up If possible in your church, use a fellowship room adjacent to the kitchen, or the room in which groups regularly gather. Set up a circle of chairs, and tables around the outside of the circle with no chairs. Chairs are for Gather, Engage and Bless. The tables are for Respond. In the middle of the circle, put a small/lower table on which you’ll put the bread for gathering and also the pottery plate and cup. In the kitchen/ingredients station you will have to set up the ingredients. Some place with easy access and flow is best. Resources Tables and chairs Baked and warmed bread for gathering (optional are butter, spreads, drinks, etc.) Bread recipe (again, try allrecipes.com or breadrecipes.com) Ingredients for dough-mixing Chalkboard/dry erase board to write Engage questions on Boombox for music (optional) Nametags Pottery plate and cup or other colorful paten-chalice set Tablecloth for small/lower table in the middle of chairs Extra sets of mixing bowls and spoons

First Communion and Stewardship of Creation
Week One: Bread
Rakel Evenson

Overall Scope
The overall scope of my four-week class is constructed within a First Communion four-week class. The primary focus will be about sharing food and the theological/church connection will concern Holy Communion. The four weeks are loosely described as Bread, Grapes, Food Distribution in the Local Community, and Bread for All.

Week One: Bread

Basic Concept
The basic concept is food is a gift from God to be shared, in order that we might know God’s presence among us. More specifically, there are three basic concepts.

Food was important to Jesus and often stories about Jesus involve food.
Food shared in meals was important to Jesus and the sharing demonstrates God with us and how to act in community.
Jesus only knew local foods; knowing our own local foods is important because it leads to another level of sharing food within the local community.

Objectives
By the end of the session, learners will have had the chance to:

Meet and gather in community with fellow church members.
Reflect on the importance of sharing food for Jesus and the sharing of bread and wine during Holy Communion.
Eat bread, make dough to bake at home and share with others.

Background for the Teacher
A few things to pay attention to: try as best you can to know your audience of youngsters preparing for their First Communion and their adult guardians. Will there be grandparents present? Or stepparents? Divorces to be aware of? Also, check to see if there are any wheat or gluten allergies. Adapt as best you can with inclusive terms and ingredients (e.g. “family groups” and using rice flour).

As you announce this class, make sure family groups know to bring their own aprons, mixing bowl, and mixing spoon. (This can also be another area to be sensitive about—would each family likely own this? See if the church owns a few bowls and spoons.)

Make bread ahead of time to share with the group as it gathers, as far in advance as you want (bread freezes wonderfully.) Be sure to warm it in the oven before your group arrives. Bread mixes are easy, especially if you don’t have bread ingredients on hand. Any kind of bread will do for the gathering time: sweet, French, whole wheat, etc.

Write/type out the bread recipe that you’ll have your group make and photocopy sheets for everyone. Recipes galore and tips on baking bread are found on breadrecipes.com and allrecipes.com. Also, the cookbook, More with Less by the Mennonite Community has great recipes made for reducing impact on the earth.

Do some local investigation and also use the search site localharvest.org. This site helps you look up health food stores, food co-operatives, farmer’s markets, and community supported agricultures ( CSAs) that are in your area. Many of these places might have grinders for grinding one’s own flour, hopefully with local or organic wheat. ( HyVee in western Illinois and Iowa is even a chain grocery store with flour grinders.) If your class is in spring or fall, there could be a farmer’s market in town that could also yield local wheat flour. Any information you find can also go on the sheet with the recipe you send home with the family groups.

You will have to go out and procure the ingredients, again, anything you can do local is best and part of the learning of this class.

Method
The method used in this session is a four-step method. Gather, Engage, Respond, and Bless.

Process
Gather
The group will gather in a circle of chairs. You can play music in the background to create a lively atmosphere. The bread you baked should be in the center, on a lower table. Everyone should be encouraged to wear a name tag, have some bread and mingle. One everyone has arrived, have everyone sit down and have the third-graders (or whatever age your church has for First Communion) introduce themselves and their parents to the group. This should take about 15 minutes, depending on group size.

Engage
As teacher, you become a discussion leader for a bit. Have two or three questions written on a chalkboard or dry erase board. These questions should be basic, like, “Where does your food come from?” and “How many meals do you eat each day?” Listen to answers given. The goal here is to begin talking about food and know what our daily connection to food is like.

Then, the next question asked is something like, “What is the meal we have every week at church?” (Your question will be different depending on how often your church has Holy Communion at worship.) Listen to answers given. Next, place on the lower table in the middle of the circle, a cup and plate. Best is something colorful and something resembling the chalice and paten used at your church. Anything pottery is great. Ask for volunteers to act out what they see the pastor do on Sundays with a cup and plate—even see if they can remember any of the words the pastor says. You can end this acting with applause or cheers or prompts, whatever seems appropriate.

Next, transition from talking about Holy Communion to the stories from the Bible the ritual of Holy Communion comes from. Luke 22:19-20, Matthew 26:26-28, and Mark 14:22-24 are the gospel’s words of institution. Invite a youngster to read the different verses aloud. Retell the story of the last supper Jesus had with his disciples, again emphasizing that Jesus shared food with his friends, his community. Make the theological connection that Jesus commands us to share the bread and wine, like he did, to remember that Jesus is about forgiveness of sins. (Depending on your tradition, you can do more here about what the theological significance of Holy Communion for your tradition. For Lutherans, for example, you will want to mention that the promise is that Jesus’ real presence is in the bread and wine at Holy Communion.)

Next, transition from the bible story of sharing food to introducing how the group will make food to share. Introduce the ingredients of bread, especially and hopefully, your locally ground flour. Here you can talk about another level of sharing food in community, eating the food grown locally and supporting farmers; using less gas to have this food shipped to you, etc. You can talk about this all positively—how cool it is that food to make bread is grown close by, how fun it is to grind the flour, how interesting farmer’s markets are.

The whole time for engagement should be roughly 20 minutes; again longer if the group is big and people are chatty!

Respond
This is the mixing time dough time! Hand out recipes but have one main station of ingredients. The family groups can come to the station with their bowls, youngsters can measure out the flour and sugar and water and help mix it all together. Adults and youngsters can do the kneading. This is about 15-20 minutes.

Bless
Once all family groups have finished mixing, it’s time to bless the food to be shared. But before blessing, review the time spent together. Ask questions like:

So why is food important to Jesus?
So why do we have a meal of bread and wine at church?
So why did we just make some dough to bake into bread?

Then go into a thanksgiving blessing. Have the family groups hold the bowl of dough together. You can create your own blessing or say something like:

Creator God, you have give us the food we eat. Help us to share food with everyone around us. Thanks for good food, like bread. Please bless the dough we have made and everyone that we will share bread with. And thanks so much for Jesus, who loves us and shows us how to share. Amen.

This should be short, about 5-10minutes.

Whole time: about 1 hour, though longer if groups are bigger. Key to keeping it an hour will be room and ingredients prep.

Room Set Up
If possible in your church, use a fellowship room adjacent to the kitchen, or the room in which groups regularly gather.

Set up a circle of chairs, and tables around the outside of the circle with no chairs. Chairs are for Gather, Engage and Bless. The tables are for Respond.

In the middle of the circle, put a small/lower table on which you’ll put the bread for gathering and also the pottery plate and cup.

In the kitchen/ingredients station you will have to set up the ingredients. Some place with easy access and flow is best.

Resources

Tables and chairs
Baked and warmed bread for gathering (optional are butter, spreads, drinks, etc.)
Bread recipe (again, try allrecipes.com or breadrecipes.com)
Ingredients for dough-mixing
Chalkboard/dry erase board to write Engage questions on
Boombox for music (optional)
Nametags
Pottery plate and cup or other colorful paten-chalice set
Tablecloth for small/lower table in the middle of chairs
Extra sets of mixing bowls and spoons