Faith Kids: John the Baptist

Story

John the Baptist prepares people for Jesus. (Matthew 3:1-12, Mark 1:1-8, John:19-28)

Big Idea
Tell the good news about Jesus.

Bible Verse
Romans 10:15b- "It is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"" (NIV)

What We Did
1. We traced the outline of Kaleb's body on a large sheet of paper hung on the wall. We then used this outline to draw John as we learned different things about him. We gave him a hairy camel robe and drew some bugs and honey for him to eat. We added some people in the crowd and a big speech bubble from John's mouth saying "Repent!" We talked about how John dunked people under the water (baptized them) to help them understand that they needed to live a new life: they needed to repent, to stop doing all the bad things they were doing and start doing all the good things God wanted them to do. We talked about how John's job was to tell people the good news about Jesus, and that he was successful. When Jesus came, people started leaving John and following Jesus. And just like John's job was to tell people that Jesus was coming to save them, our job is to tell people that Jesus has already come to save us from our sins.

2. Our memory verse taught us that the people who bring the good news of Jesus have beautiful feet (because their feet are what they use to help bring the message to others). So, as we learned the verse, we traced the feet of each child on a piece of construction paper and wrote a word of the verse inside their foot.

3. We talked about what the good news about Jesus actually was by going over the wordless book: a book made up of only colored construction paper with no words. The first page, which was black, stood for sin and death because we've all sinned and the punishment for sin is death and being apart from God forever. The second page was red and stood for Jesus' blood. God's perfect Son, Jesus, died on a cross to pay the punishment for our sins. The third page was white, which stood for the fact that our sins could be forgiven and the "dirt" of our sins could be washed white as snow if we believe that Jesus died for us and make him our Master. The fourth page was green, which stood for the fact that God wants us to grow to be more and more like him. The last page was gold, which reminded us of the streets of gold in heaven and that one day we can spend forever with God in a perfect place.

4. To help us remember what the colors of the wordless book stood for, we played a modified game of Uno, where the regular cards were replaced by cards that corresponded to the colors from the wordless book. Each time we played a card, we had to say what that color represented in the story of the good news about Jesus.

Materials We Used
1. Lesson Plan
2. Small Group Leader Sheet
3. Verse Activity

4. Wordless Book Activity

Faith Kids: Young Jesus at the Temple

Story

Young Jesus spends time at the temple. (Matthew 2:39-52

Big Idea
Nobody's perfect, except Jesus.

Bible Verse
Romans 3:23 - "...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. " (NIV)

What We Did
1. To understand that perfectly obeying God's laws is like perfectly following instructions, we created a list of instructions on how to create a peanut butter sandwich.

2. As we told the story of Jesus spending time at the temple as a kid, we doodled out the different parts of the story on a really big mirror (a change of pace from the chalk board.)

3. Our verse, Romans 3:23, taught us that we've all fallen short of God's glory and have not followed all his commands perfectly. To understand what what it means to "fall short," we each did a long jump as we learned our verse and marked where we landed on the ground, measuring the length of each jump with a measuring tape. We then talked about how obeying God perfectly our entire lives, from a little baby to an old person, would be like trying to jump a million miles. It's impossible, and we'd always fall short. Only Jesus could obey God perfectly his entire life because he's God, and God can do the impossible.

4. In small group time, we put together puzzles that taught us about sin and what God has done about it. Romans 3:23 taught us that everyone has sinned. Romans 6:23 taught us that what our sin earns us is death. Romans 5:8 taught us that God sent Jesus to pay our penalty for sin by dying for us. And John 3:16 taught us that our sins can be forgiven and have new life in Jesus if we believe that Jesus died for our sins.

Materials We Used
1. Lesson Plan
2. Small Group Leader Sheet
3. Verse Activity

4. Handshake Activity
5. Resource: Verse Puzzles

Faith Kids: Magi Visit Jesus

Story

Magi visit Jesus. (Matthew 2:1-2)

Big Idea
Jesus is King of the Universe

Bible Verse
Matthew 28:18 - "Then Jesus came to them. He said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. " (NIrV)

What We Did
1. We talked about the stars since the magi were people who looked to the stars for wisdom. We talked about how scientists estimate that there are around 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the universe. We showed the kids different constellations and had the children guess what kind of animal or person they were supposed to represent.

2. We told the story of the magi visiting and worshiping Jesus by packing a bag as if we were going on a trip. Each item in the bag told us a little bit about the magi and what they did. We talked about how the magi gave Jesus gifts that were more for a king than a little kid because that's what they thought he was. We finally talked about how, though the magi were impressed by the stars and believed in them, Jesus is King over everything: Israel, America, England, planet Earth, and all of those 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars.

3. As we learned our verse, we talked about that, since Jesus is King of the universe, he's in charge of everything. He has authority over us. It's like he holds the keys to the universe. As we learned the verse, each kid picked a key from a big bowl of keys. Only one key opened the locked door in the Faith Kids room, and that one was selected by Libby!

4. To make sure the kids didn't forget the big idea, with played a game with a laser pointer as we worked on memorizing "Jesus is King of the Universe." We darkened the room and had two kids hide glass pitchers of water while another kid left the room. When he/she returned, we gave him/her a laser pointer to move slowly around the room until it hit one of the glass pitchers, which would really light up in the dark room. We then asked the same questions after each round: Who is the person with the laser pointer? The magi. What do the pitchers of water represent? The stars. Who is the king of the universe? Jesus.

Materials We Used
1. Lesson Plan
2. Small Group Leader Sheet
3. Verse Activity

4. Activity: Laser Stars
5. Resource: Super Mind Map

Faith Kids: The Shepherds Visit Jesus

Story

An angel tells the shepherds Jesus is born. (Luke 2:8-20)

Big Idea
Jesus came to save us from sin.

Bible Verse
Luke 19:10- "The Son of Man came to look for the lost and save them." (NIrV)

What We Did
1. We talked about the kinds of trouble we'd find ourselves in where we'd need a savior. We came up with things like hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, fires, and bad guys.
2. We told the story in the dark around a fake campfire to try to recreate the night when the angels appeared to the shepherds. We fake-roasted marshmallows and made little figures out of them and toothpicks to help tell our story, things like a marshmallow sheep, marshmallow angel, and marshmallow baby Jesus.
3. As we learned our Bible verse about Jesus looking for the lost and saving them, we played the shell game, where the children looked for a lost marshmallow hidden beneath one of three moving cups. Apparently I'm really bad at moving the cups or the kids are really good at this game because they guessed correctly every time!

Materials We Used
1. Lesson Plan
2. Small Group Leader Sheet
3. Verse Activity

4. Activity: Tennis Savior
5. Resource: Super Mind Map

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Faith Kids: Angels visit Mary and Joseph

Story

God's Son, Jesus, is born. (Luke 2:1-7

Big Idea
God's Son, Jesus, came to live with us.

Bible Verse
John 1:14a - "The Word became a human being. He made his home with us." (NIrV)

What We Did
1. Since our story was about a baby being born, we talked about all the things we'd have to buy if we were going to take care of a baby.
2. To tell the story of Jesus' birth, we threw Mary, Jesus' mom, a baby shower. Her baby shower gifts were all things that helped us tell the story of how Jesus was born. A few of these gifts were a key for the hotel room that they were unable to find, a little barn animal for the place they stayed, and a baby blanket for the swaddling clothes Mary wrapped Jesus in.
3. As we learned our Bible verse about the Word (Jesus) becoming a human being, we took a lump of playdough and slowly turned it into a playdough person. See the attached picture for the progression of our playdough man.
4. We answered True/False questions about the story by swatting True and False cards with fly swatters.

Materials We Used
1. Lesson Plan
2. Small Group Leader Sheet
3. Verse Activity

4. Resource: Census Sheet
5. Resource: Ticket

Faith Kids: Angels visit Mary and Joseph

Story

Angels visit Mary and Joseph. (Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 1:26-38)

Big Idea
When God asks, say "Yes!"

Bible Verse
Luke 11:28 - He replied, "Instead, blessed are those who hear God's word and obey it." (NIrV)

What We Did
1. Because, in our story, the angel was going to give Mary and Joseph news that some might have thought bad news and others might have thought good news, in the first small group time we discussed the phrase, "I've got good news and bad news" and which news they'd rather hear first. A majority of our kids said they'd rather hear the bad news first and get it out of the way!
2. As we told the Bible story, we played a game called Noisy Choices. During key parts of the story, we stopped and gave our contestant (Carter) three choices as to what happened. To indicate his answer, he had to play one of three musical instruments: a maraca, a recorder, and a ukelele. Carter chose the correct Noisy Choice almost every time. He correctly decided that Jesus' parents weren't named Big Bertha and Billy Bob, as well as determining that the angel didn't appear to Joseph to deliver him a pizza.
3. During the story, we focused on the fact that, when God sent his messengers to Mary and Joseph, they both said "Yes" to God by agreeing to do what he asked them to do.
4. In the second small group time, we talked about how the way we can say "Yes" to God now is to read his Word (the Bible) and do what it says. We played a board game where we drew cards with God's commandments and instruction for us written on them and flipped a coin to judge whether or not our game character said "Yes" to God. We then discussed what it would mean to say "Yes" to God in regards to that commandment. If our game character said "Yes" to God, he/she was allowed to move forward, but if he/she said "No," then they had to move backwards.

Materials We Used
1. Lesson Plan
2. Small Group Leader Sheet
3. Verse Activity

4. Resource: Game Board
5. Resource: Game Cards
6. Resource: Choice Cards

Faith Kids: Zechariah and Elizabeth

Story

Zechariah and Elizabeth have a baby. (Luke 1:5-25, 57-75)

Big Idea
God means what he says.

Bible Verse
Psalm 105:8 - "He will keep his covenant forever. He will keep his promise for all time to come. "(NIrV)

What We Did
1. As we told the story, we hung paper strips from the ceiling in a long chain. We added a new strip to the chain each time we came to a new fact in the story. We started with blue and pink paper strips for Zechariah and Elizabeth, added a yellow strip when the angel appeared to Zechariah, and so on until the entire chain was as tall as me (Mr. Andy)!
2. We played a game of Win, Lose, or Draw on wipe board tablets to simulate how Zechariah had to communicate with others when God rendered him unable to speak.
3. We all did our best impersation of what it would like if an angel appeared to us. We all fainted dramatically onto the floor. Luckily, we had a nice big mattress to land on.

Materials We Used
1. Lesson Plan
2. Small Group Leader Sheet
3. Verse Activity