Come Follow Me 2026 · Week 31
Family Activities
July 27–August 2 - Ezra 1; 3–7; Nehemiah 2; 4–6; 8
This week's one thing
When you are doing God's work, He gives you what you need to finish it.
Opener: How Much Would It Take?
Write one obstacle on each slip: (1) People are publicly laughing at your work. (2) Your best helpers all quit. (3) Someone powerful is telling you to stop. (4) The job is taking far longer than anyone expected. (5) Enemies are threatening to hurt you if you continue. Lay all five face-up on the table. Everyone votes for the ONE obstacle that would be hardest to push through. Tally the votes, then ask: What if you were facing all five at the same time?
Nehemiah faced every one of those obstacles at once while rebuilding Jerusalem's walls, and his answer every time was the same: 'I am doing a great work. I cannot come down.' (Nehemiah 6:3)
Scripture Story
Nehemiah lives far from Jerusalem, serving as cupbearer to the king of Persia. One day, news arrives: Jerusalem's walls are broken down and the people are in trouble. Nehemiah cries. Then he prays. Then, shaking, he asks the king if he can go rebuild. The king says yes. Nehemiah arrives and slips out at night with a few men to see the damage. What he finds is rubble. In the morning he gathers the people. 'Let us rise up and build,' he says. They start that same day. Enemies show up right away. Sanballat mocks the workers. Tobiah sneers, 'If a fox walked on that wall, it would fall down!' Nehemiah prays and keeps building. When enemies send message after message asking him to stop, his answer never changes: 'I am doing a great work. I cannot come down.' The wall is finished in 52 days. What do you think Nehemiah was feeling when he set that last stone in place?
Discussion Questions
Little Kids (ages 4–7)
- Have you ever been building something and someone told you to stop? What did you do?
- Why do you think it made Nehemiah so sad to hear that Jerusalem's walls were broken?
Big Kids (ages 8–11)
- Nehemiah's enemies kept asking him to come down from the wall and just talk. Why do you think he kept saying no, again and again?
- The people who came back to Jerusalem had been gone for 70 years. Some of them had never even seen the city. What do you think made them want to work so hard to rebuild a place they had never lived in?
Teens
- Nehemiah said he was doing 'a great work' while stacking rocks in a ruined city with enemies circling him. How do you tell the difference between genuine conviction that something matters and just telling yourself a story to avoid hard feedback from people who might be right?
This Week's Challenge
Tonight, close with a silent scripture hunt: each person opens to Ezra or Nehemiah and finds the one verse that stands out to them. Go around the circle, each person reading their verse aloud with no commentary. After all verses are read, each person shares one word that captures what they felt. Write all the words on a piece of paper, tape it to the fridge, and notice it at least once before next Monday.
Song Suggestions
Build the Wall
Ages 3-10~10 min- 1
Step 1: Tear or cut paper into small rectangles to make stones. Aim for about 10 stones per child.
- 2
Step 2: On each stone, draw or write one good thing your family is building together: a tradition or a kind thing you do for each other.
- 3
Step 3: Tape or glue the stones onto a bigger piece of paper in a staggered brick pattern to make a wall, then hang it somewhere visible for the week.
Nehemiah built Jerusalem's wall one stone at a time; we build our family and faith one small choice at a time.
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