Object:
a bag of cookies (You can decide in the lesson whether or how you want to share the cookies with the children gathered.)
First Thoughts: As we enter this celebration of Ascension and prepare for Pentecost, we're going to use this lesson to focus on the mission of the church. Because we know that when Christ ascended it wasn't the end of God's mission on earth, but a new beginning. We are able to understand something the early disciples struggled with, which is that the kingdom of God wasn't going to come through Jesus' efforts alone but through the faithful commitment of his followers. It's important for us to keep in mind that Jesus' actual ministry involved only a small area of the world.
