‘Should I Help?’ Childrens Lesson on The Good Samaritan

BIG IDEA: I CAN HELP OTHERS

AIM: The aim of the ‘Should I Help?’ Childrens Lesson on The Good Samaritan is to remind the children that they can choose to help other people, just as the Samaritan chose to help the man on the street.

SONG IDEAS:

1. ‘You Make Me Brave’ by Bethel Kids
2. ‘You Are Good’ by Bethel

GAME IDEAS:

1. Bandage Man Game. Wrap a child or leader in toilet roll and judge who has the best wrapped person.
2. Medical Run Relay. Use a couple of medical toy kits and have the children relay to pick each piece up and bring it back to ‘save’ the ‘ill’ person on their team.
3. Bandaid Blast. (Plaster Blast). One child goes around the room tagging other children. If they are tagged they must stand still. One person has bandaids that can save the tagged people, but only once. The band aid person must give one of their bandaids to the ‘sick’ person. If they already have one (from being tagged and saved previously) then they must sit down (they are dead!).
4. Slurp Relay. Each child is given a straw and must run to the drink on a table and slurp as much as they can before the whistle is blown or the music is paused. Then they should run back and tag the next person until all the drink is gone. The first team to finish their jug is the winning team.
5. BandAid Relay. Children take turns to run up to a pile of bandaids and grab one. They stick it on one person in their team and the next person is tagged and runs. The winning team is the team with the most bandaids on their teammate at the end.
6. The Hand Tap Circle Game.

 

SET the Scene:

Read Luke 10:25-37. Explain to the children that Jews and Samaritans were not friends and often hated one another. Yet Jesus loves everyone.

VIDEO IDEAS:

1. ‘The Good Samaritan’ by Saddleback Kids
2. ‘The Good Samaritan’ by Max7.org
3. ‘Johnny Rogers:The Good Samaritan’ by Kidmo
4. ‘Good Samaritan’ Narrated lego version
5. ‘Good Samaritan’ instrumental lego version
6. ‘The Good Samaritan’ another great instrumental lego version
7. ‘The Parable of the Good Samaritan’ from the classic McGee and Me program

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Why does Jesus tell this story?
2. What happens to the man when he is attacked?
3.  Who sees the man and what do they do?
4. What does the Samaritan man do?

 

SPOT the Simple Meaning:

1) I CAN CHOOSE IF I WANT TO HELP OR HURT

What would you do? Make up some scenarios and have the children run to four corners of the room to decide what they would do. a) help the person myself b) go and get help from an adult c) don’t help at all d) tell the person how to help themselves

Suggested scenarios could be: a) a child is hurt on the playground.  b) a child is crying in the park. c) another child wants to learn a new language d) a child in my class is feeling lonely e) an adult gets hurt on the street

[Don’t assume there is a right or wrong answer for this game. If you change the scenario slightly it may be unsafe for a child to step in and help or it may be best to help in a different way. Allow the children to think through the different situations and to ask more questions when needed.]

Say: The Good Samaritan is a story Jesus told and it has many choices within it. We may think that the only people in this story that chose anything were the ones who walked on by. Yet there are lots of choices made in this story. The story starts:

Jesus said, “A man was going down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Some robbers attacked him. They tore off his clothes and beat him. Then they left him lying there, almost dead. (Luke 10:30)

The robbers chose to rob the man. They chose to think about themselves and not the man they were hurting. The people passing by chose to walk away and the man who helped chose to stop and help.

We can choose when to help someone and how we help them. The choice is ours.

When we follow Jesus we will want to choose the things that he would choose to do. We can ask ourselves what Jesus would do in a situation. If we don’t know what to do we can always ask an adult for help. We don’t have to struggle on our own. We can ask Jesus to help us make the right choice.

2) I CAN CHOOSE TO WALK ON BY

Use the Ice Cream or Homeless social experiment video.

Say: There were two people that walked by in this story:

It happened that a Jewish priest was going down that road. When the priest saw the man, he walked by on the other side of the road. Next, a Levite came there. He went over and looked at the man. Then he walked by on the other side of the road.

(Luke 10:31-32)

Sometimes something is sad or difficult to look at or see. The Priest and the Levite did not like the look of the man that had been robbed. They knew that if they were to help him then they would become dirty and unclean. There were many rules for a religious person that God had given that meant they would not be able to do certain things if they became unclean. They probably thought that the right thing to do was to walk away.

We can choose to walk away from a situation just like the religious people did. God does not force us to help anyone. Sometimes we may decide not to help someone. We may even pretend not to see them.

The children had a choice in the social experiment video. They could have chosen to walk on by, yet they chose to help the homeless man. We always have a choice. Which choice do you think is best?

3) I CAN CHOOSE TO HELP ANYONE I MEET

For older children/teenagers: Watch the video of the little boy that sews for children in hospital.

For younger children you could show this video of the little girl who helps children at a Colorado hospital.

Hand the children in small groups a large piece of paper and ask them to write or draw all the things that they can do to help other people. What ideas can they come up with?

Say: God loves people. He cares about people. John 3:16 says “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son. God gave his Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life.” That’s why we should want to help others. We should care about people too. If we love God and we know that He loves people then He can give us His love for other people too.

Then a teacher of the law stood up. He was trying to test Jesus. He said, “Teacher, what must I do to get life forever?”

Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?”

The man answered, “Love the Lord your God. Love him with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.” Also, “You must love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

Jesus said to him, “Your answer is right. Do this and you will have life forever.”

But the man wanted to show that the way he was living was right. So he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

Luke 10:25-29

Jesus told this story to show us that everyone we meet is our neighbor; even those we don’t like or get along with. The Samaritan is the hero in the story. The least expected person to help anyone! Those listening to the story were Jews and they hated Samaritans. To learn that even Samaritans could help others would have been a shock to the Jewish listeners. Especially when the Jewish Priest had walked on by. It ends:

Then a Samaritan traveling down the road came to where the hurt man was lying. He saw the man and felt very sorry for him. The Samaritan went to him and poured olive oil and wine on his wounds and bandaged them. He put the hurt man on his own donkey and took him to an inn. At the inn, the Samaritan took care of him. The next day, the Samaritan brought out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. The Samaritan said, ‘Take care of this man. If you spend more money on him, I will pay it back to you when I come again.’”

Then Jesus said, “Which one of these three men do you think was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by the robbers?”

The teacher of the law answered, “The one who helped him.”

Jesus said to him, “Then go and do the same thing he did!”

Luke 33-37

We can choose to help anyone and when we do it pleases God.

There are so many different ways to help people. Everyone needs help in different ways. We can pray and ask Jesus how we can help others and what we should do. He may just surprise you! Perhaps the person that you thought never needed any help is the person that God wants you to help today. You can choose to help anyone you meet, just as Jesus chooses to help you.

 

SEARCH the Scriptures:

How does the bible encourage us to help others?

Encourage the children to choose one of the bible verses about helping and make a ‘I Choose to Lend a Hand’ picture by drawing around their hand or making a handprint and cutting it out. Then adding the bible verse.

Hand Relay. Alternatively put the bible verses on several cut out hands and hide them around the room. Have the children take turns to run and find a hand in a small amount of time before running back and tagging the next player.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. How can I help? a) at school: someone that is being bullied b) online: someone who tells me they need help c) your parent tells you they need help with the washing up d) your teacher needs the class to be quiet
2. Do you feel good at helping others? Why/why not?
3. How do you help other people each day?
4. Do you think you could do better at helping others? How?
5. What one thing will you do today or this week to help someone else?

 

SENSE How You Feel:

How would it feel to be left on the street alone and hurt?

How would it feel to help someone who was hurting?

1. Hand out bandages and encourage your children to wrap each other up in bandages.
2. Create your own first aid kits adding bandaids (plasters), chocolate and bandages.
3. Create the ‘I Can Be a Good Samaritan’ craft from Crafting the Word of God
4. Make bandaid cookies (plaster biscuits) for your children to munch! Simply take a rectangle cookie, add white icing and a blob of red icing or a red candy on top.

 

SEEK God:

1. Write a prayer of help or ‘how can I help?’ and post it in a letter box or stick it on a prayer wall or washing line as a response.
2. Make handprints or draw and then cut around your hands, writing a prayer of help or how you can help others.