BIG IDEA: WE HAVE A GOD CONNECTION
AIM: Connection starts with God! If we want to connect well with our family, friends, church and our community we have to begin with a good connection to God. This lesson is the first lesson in the Connect 4 Week Teaching Series.
SONG and BIBLE STORY VIDEO IDEAS available via our dedicated Pinterest Board.
GAME IDEAS:
GAME 1 DONUT CHALLENGE – 5 MINS
Description: One-on-One Game.
Supplies: (regular/widescreen) Sugary donuts (add extra sugar to make it harder!)
Details: Doughnut challenge. The challenge is for the players to eat the entire doughnut without licking their lips or using their hands.
GAME 2 GUESS WHO – 5 MINS
Description: Group Game.
Supplies: (regular/widescreen) List of questions (e.g do you have brown eyes, are you wearing red, do you have a fringe, do you have freckles etc)
Details: Guess Who. All the children begin by standing. After each statement the children sit down if they match what is being said. The statements should be things like: I ate weetabix this morning, I’m wearing blue, I have one brother etc. The last child standing is the winner!
GAME 3 ALPHABET GAME – 10 MINS
Description: Zoom Game
Supplies: (regular/widescreen) No supplies needed
Details: Alphabet Game. Try to say the alphabet as a group. If two people speak at the same time you have to start again. You could add the rule that each per-son can only say one letter at a time.
BIG VERSE: A Spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. 1 Corinthians 12:7
(regular/widescreen) Download the Bible cards here (PDF)
SET THE SCENE: 10-15 MINS
Description: Bible story and questions
Supplies: Bible,
Details: You may want to have some of the children act out the story (using a sleeping bag, torch and a dressing gown) at the same time as you read the passage.
Say: Is anyone here 11 years old? In today’s story we are going to hear about a young boy called Samuel who was only 11 years old. In this story we are going to see how Samuel’s life of serving God and others began with him HEARING and TALKING to God. Read 1 Samuel 3 1- 21.
REVIEW QUESTIONS:
1.Why was Samuel living in the temple?
2.What was Samuel doing when he heard someone call him?
3.How did he discover that it was God speaking to him?
4.What was God’s message to him?
5.Do we need to live in the temple to speak to God?
SPOT THE SIMPLE MEANING:
1) CONNECT WITH GOD ANYWHERE – 5 MINS
Description: Object Lesson 1
Supplies: picture of child praying with eyes closed by bed (regular/widescreen)
Details:
Say: Today we are looking at how important it is that we connect with God! Connecting with God is basically praying and hanging out with him. Tell me about how you do prayer – what do you do with your bodies? (wait for response like close eyes, sitting quietly, hands together). When do you normally pray? (dinner time, bedtime) What are things that we say every time in a prayer (Dear God, Amen, sorry, thank you, etc…) Did you know that you don’t have to do any of that?
You don’t have to (list the things the kids said) close your eyes, sit quietly, pray only at dinner and bedtime, say AMEN (show power point slide) You don’t have to do any of that! Do you know why? When Jesus was on earth he had some friends he hung out with all the time. Do you think they talked to Jesus like we pray? (Act out a disciple saying Dear Jesus – Thank you for this day. Please could you make this storm end. AMEN). Of course not! Do you think they only talked to him at mealtimes and bedtimes? Do you think they sat still and closed their eyes? No! They just talked to him because he was real and loved them and wanted to share life with them. Now that same Jesus who was on earth said that he would be with us always! He’s still with us! And we can chat to him just like his friends did and like Samuel did in our story today.
2) GOD IS CLOSE – 5 MINS
Description: Object Lesson 2
Supplies: A volunteer who is dressed like the children might imagine God to look like. The volunteer begins at the back of the room with his back turned.
Details: Prearrange the leader to be in the specific spots as you do your talk.
Say: So what do you think chatting is ? (allow children to shout out their ideas) Chatting is talking all the time about all the stuff that is important to us…little things and big things. Sometimes we think that God is really far away (Point to your volunteer). He’s really far away with his back turned, ignoring us and we have to yell and beg and hope he maybe he would care enough to listen to us… “HEY GOOOOOOOOOOOD. OH GOOOOOOOOOOOOOD. I’M REALLY RE-ALLY SAD BECAUSE MY PARENTS KEEP YELLING AT EACH OTHER, COULD YOU DO SOMETHING…HELLO? GOD?” (volunteer looks snidely over his shoulder, looking busy, etc…)And we feel like God doesn’t care, or we aren’t important enough, so we should only talk to him about really important things. I’ve felt like that so-metimes, have any of you ever felt like God was like that, really far away and not really caring? (wait for response).
Other times, we can sometimes think that he is like (point to the volunteer who acts like an old person who can’t hear very well saying Eh?) a really old man who just can’t hear us and doesn’t really know what is happening to us! And we try to pray “GOD! IT’S ME – YOU KNOW MY MUM? MY MUM! SHE’S SAD! BECAU-SE… GOD?” But you know what, that’s not true, he’s not like that at all. You know how God really is? (volunteer sits really close with their arms around looking at you) God is this close, with all his attention on us, wanting to hear everything we have to say… and God wants to hear “God I really really wanted to wear my red sweater today, but my mum forgot to wash it and I had to wear my black one instead and I hate it!” As much as he wants to hear “My dad is really really sick and they think he might die and I am so scared”. He wants to hear it all! And there is no place I can’t chat to God…I chat to God on the loo, when I’m shopping! I tell him jokes…have you ever told God a joke? Why not? He loves jokes!
You don’t have to pray out loud at all either, sometimes I pray out loud and so-metimes, I pray in my head. Like this… I want you to say in your head…the sky is blue. Go. See? Easy as that… that’s how I talk to God most. Some of my friends like to whisper, some like to talk right out loud, some do it quietly in their head.
What ever way you chat to God he wants to hear from you all the time about everything you are going through. That’s how one of the ways we CONNECT with God.
My challenge to you is to chat to God during the day… remember that he is right next to you and wants to hear anything and everything. Raise your hand if you are going to give it a go? Amazing!
3) CATCH FROM GOD – 5 MINS
Description: Object Lesson 3
Supplies: Scrunched up bits of paper, Volunteer
Details: (throughout the talk the volunteer needs to be throwing bits of scrunched up paper at the leader who is speaking – around every 30 seconds. The speaker needs to ignore it and let the paper bounce off them)
Say: It’s great chatting to God but what is really great about God is that he chats back to us! It would be really boring if we talked to God all the time and he never talked back! The cool thing is that we get to have a full connection with God, that means we talk back and forth, God asks us questions and we answer and we can ask God questions and he will answer us! We show God stuff, and he shows us stuff. In the bible God says something about this, and it is written down in Jeremiah 33:3. God says, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” Isn’t that cool! When we talk to God, he says that he will an-swer and tell us stuff we’ve never heard before! I think that’s awesome.
(at this point you could “notice” that there is paper on the floor and make a comment about how much rubbish is laying around and collect the papers).
Sometimes we complain, oh God never talks to me, I’ve never heard him. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t. It says in the bible, in the book of Job that God is constantly talking! We just need to learn how to pay attention to the ways God talks to us and catch it…otherwise it can just bounce off of us and we will just think oh boo hoo, God doesn’t talk, he isn’t real, when he is just talking and we aren’t paying attention.
(Insert name of volunteer) has been throwing me messages and I have been completely ignoring them! They were real, but I didn’t notice. God talking to us is kind of like that. He’s communicating with us all the time, we just have to pay at-tention and catch what he is saying. And it isn’t hard at all! When God made us, he made us for the whole purpose of hanging out with him, chatting with him, talking back and forth, and being in relationship with him. So that’s how he made our bodies. He made our bodies to catch everything he wants to say to us, and because he is pretty clever he doesn’t just talk in words, he talks in a whole bunch of ways that our whole body can catch. God can give us pictures, or feelings, maybe a word might pop into your head – that could be from God. There are so many different ways that God wants to connect with you.
God wants to give us special gifts, such as words and pictures for other people but we just need to be ready to catch what he wants to give us!
SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES: CONNECT THE DOTS GAME – 10 MINS
Description: Connect the dots scripture game.
Supplies: (regular/widescreen) Connect the dots printables (PDF), bibles.
Details: Join the dots and then find the scriptures to see the different ways God wants to connect with us. Invite the children to come take a dot to dot printable. Once they have found the bible reference they should look the verse up and share with the rest of the group. Connect the dots verses:
• Jeremiah 33 v 3 Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearch-able things you do not know.
• Revelation 3:20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.
• Isaiah 55:6 Seek the LORD while He may be found, Call up Him while He is near.
Then discuss the questions below.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1.What does it mean to connect with God?
2.Do you find it easy chatting and listening to God?
3.Do you find it hard to listen? Why might that be?
4.How can you spend more time in your day connecting with God?
SENSE HOW YOU FEEL – 10 MINS EACH OR IN TANDEM/ROTATION
Encourage the children to think about the questions above as they do one of the activities:
Description: Craft.
Supplies: Craft boxes (a – PDF, b – PDF), embellishments
Details: Color and decorate the box then write “I can talk to God anytime be-cause he’s listening all the time”.
Description: Moulding activity.
Supplies: Playdough or clay.
Details: Mould the place or time that you most feel connection with God.
Description: Building activity.
Supplies: Lego or construction toys.
Details: Build the scene of Samuel being woken up by God.
Description: Sensory activity.
Supplies: Create a prayer tent space using cushions, lights, a cross and tent if you have one. Have some quiet music playing.
Details: Encourage the children to spend some time chatting and listening to God. Have some scriptures around to help focus them. Allow time to draw or write anything that they have heard.
Description: Activity Booklets.
Supplies: 5-7s (PDF) and 8-11s (PDF) booklets (included in download), markers.
Details: Fill in or color the 5-7s and 8-11s booklets
SEEK GOD: 5 MINS
Description: Prayer/Encounter activity
Supplies: Soft worship music, paper, pens
Details: Ask the children to stand. Play some quiet music in the background
Say: Today we have learnt how God spoke to an 11 year old and this same God wants to connect with you right now. Remember God isn’t too busy or far away but He is so very close to you. While the music plays let’s spend some time chatting and catching from God. Hand out the paper and put the coloured pencils on the floor. Pray for the Holy Spirit to come and then wait. Ask the children that it might help to close their eyes and put out their hands (to help you focus). After several minutes, remind them to catch with all the different parts of their body. Ask team members go around and engage with the kids about their pic-tures, helping those who are struggling to hear, helping kids ask God for interpre-tations, etc… When time is up, ask the children if anyone found it hard to catch and affirm them all that catching from God is about learning to recognize his voice. The more we hear it, the more we will learn to recognize that it is God talking. So it’s okay if some days we find it harder to catch. God is talking to us and we all will get better and better at recognizing his voice as we keep doing it.
Say: Dear God, thank you that you want to connect with us – that you want to listen to me and want me to share my life with you. God help me to remember to share everything with you and listen to you. Please send your spirit to help us feel how close you really are. We love you. AMEN
ZOOM FRIENDLY LESSON:
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