ONE GOD The Bible study looks at the story of salvation a good place to start, because it reveals the depth of God s love for us!

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1 ONE GOD 7-10 BIBLE VERSES: Exodus 20:1-3. The aim of this session is to see why we should worship God alone. LEADER'S NOTES The ten commandments are a mere fraction of the law that God imparted to Moses on Sinai, but they are the most widely remembered. Jews call them The Decalogue and they sum up the way that God wants us, as his people, to treat him and each other. The first four commandments deal with the way we should treat God, the last 6 sum up the main ways we should avoid treating each other - if everyone in society succeeded in keeping all of these laws, and if governments used them as a basis for legislation, then the world would be a very different place! The first commandment really sums it all up: a bit like a GCSE essay, the first commandment sets out what we should do and the last 9 exemplify how we are to do it because everything is summed up in the command to love the Lord your God, to have no other Gods before him. In Mark 12, in answer to a question, Jesus elaborates on the commandment by adding that we should love God with our heart, soul, mind and strength an elaboration we pick up in the application. This session is almost a prologue to the other 9 sessions in the series, looking at God himself and asking why and how we should love, honour and worship him. The Bible study looks at the story of salvation a good place to start, because it reveals the depth of God s love for us! OTHER GODS DISCUSSION GETTING STARTED Divide the children into small groups and give each a piece of paper and a pen. Ask them to think of all the religions they know or have learned about and to write down all the names of gods that they have heard of. Year 5, who often study aspects of Greek mythology, might well be able to come up with names of the Greek and Roman gods: they can add these in here. After 5 minutes see who has the longest list. Say there are innumerable gods that people have worshipped over the centuries the Greeks worshipped about 321! Ask the children what all these gods have in common? Say that God said that none of them should be worshipped! He is the true God and he is the only God that we should worship! In fact, the first of the ten commandments says that we should worship only God.

2 The Point: To think about all the gods there are. Paper and pens. DURATION: 5 MINS. BUT I DID THAT! ILLUSTRATIONS GETTING STARTED You will need to do this skit with 2 leaders. One leader (Tom) brings in a plate of cakes/biscuits/sweets (all the better if they re homemade) and says to the groups, I really want to give (Tony) a nice surprise, so I ve made these for him. Hope he ll enjoy them. I ll leave a note Dear Tony, enjoy! The leader comes in, sees the food and picks up the note. Reads, Dear Tony, enjoy! Oh, that s nice... I ll have one. Mmmm, really nice. (Diane), thanks for giving me these biscuits, they re lovely! Diane comes in and says, That s okay glad you like them. The first leader (Tom) comes in with another gift anything appropriate! And says Tony really deserves to be spoilt he works so hard. So I ve got him this as well. Do you think he ll like it? This time Tom stays in so is present when Tony finds the gift and thanks Diane. Diane accepts the praise without saying she didn t actually provide the gift, and Tom steps in, But it wasn t from Diane - it was from me! Tony replies, No, it was from Diane, I know it was. So grateful, Diane. Thanks again! Tom appeals to the audience Do you think that s fair? Ask the children if they have got examples of when other people have been given the credit for something they ve done? How does it feel? Say that God is often in that position! It is God who created us and looks after us, but too often people give the praise to other Gods, or just say it was a coincidence. Ask the children how they think God feels when other people get the praise for things he has done? Say that the first of the ten commandments says that we should only worship God not anyone else. Why do you think God said that? The Point: to illustrate how it feels when someone else gets the credit for God s goodness. A dramatic leader. DURATION: 5 MINS.

3 ALL GOOD GIFTS CRAFT IDEAS GETTING STARTED Ask the children what God has done for us? He has created a beautiful world, he has given us families, he provides for us and protects us, he sent Jesus to die for us, he has plans for us... I could go on! Ask each child to draw something that God has provided for us on a piece of paper. Cut the pictures out and stick them onto a large piece of lining paper to create a Thanks to God collage. You could write along the bottom, Good reasons to worship the living God! The Point: To see how much God has given us. Paper, pens, small pieces of paper, scissors, glue. THE GOD WHO GAVE IT ALL BIBLE STUDY DIGGING IN Spread out the props and tell the story with confidence. Be interested in the models you are making, rather than making eye contact with the children. The more absorbed you are the more absorbed they will become. Don t pause for discipline let another leader hush noisy kids! Say: In the beginning, God made the world. (You can pick up the clay and mould it into different shapes as you tell this bit.) He took his time creating a beautiful planet, and in the end he made people to live in it, to enjoy it, and to be friends for him. God wanted people to live in his world and to talk to him and obey him... But people decided to go their own way. They started to make up their own rules and to make up their own Gods to worship. This made God sad. But God didn t give up. He gave the people rules to obey, rules that would make their lives happy if they stick to them. But the people didn t stick to them they chose to disobey them. And so their lives got sad and God s beautiful planet was spoiled by wars and cruelty and pollution. (Begin to spoil the shapes you have made from clay.) The men that God had made had chosen to sin. Instead of being God s friends they had chosen to do bad things... these things made them dirty. (Pick up one of the dolls and cover it with the dirt you have.) But God still loved these people and he sent his son, Jesus, to come and live on the earth. Eventually Jesus was killed on a cross. (Show the cross) When Jesus died, God punished him for all the things we had done wrong. So anyone who wants to be God s friend can say sorry to Jesus and ask him to forgive them. Jesus makes them clean and

4 forgives their sin so that they can be friends with God. (Wash one of the dirty dolls in the water.) Even with everything that we have done wrong God still loves us and he loves our planet. How do we repay him for his great love? How should we repay him? Leave time for the children to think here. Discuss these questions. You may prefer to get into small groups for this. The first commandment God gave Moses was that we should not have any Gods apart from him. Why do you think God wants us to worship him? What has he done to ensure that we can worship him? Why might people want a different God when it is God who created everything we enjoy and God who sent Jesus to die for us? Why do some people choose not to worship God at all? The Point: To look at God s ultimate sacrifice for us and to see why he wants us to worship him. A plate of dirt, small dolls, a jug of water, a cross, clay. NAMES OF GOD CRAFT IDEAS RESPONSE Begin by saying that you have a lot of names and go through them: for instance one of my friends, as well as being Auntie Ria and Miss Van de Gaag has a variety of names ranging from her baptismal name of Hendrica to her most common nickname, Charlie and is still known as turtle in some quarters! Ask the children why they think people have more than one name that they are known by? Explain that we are known differently when we are doing different things a doctor, for instance, will be called Doctor at work, but at home he is just one of the family. People give us nicknames to show affection for us, and sometimes to remember things we have done or to differentiate us from someone who has the same name (Steffi with the hair). Say that God has hundreds of different names! Ask the children if they can think of any of them. If they need help provide Bible dictionaries and give them to some of your older children. When they find a name of God they can call it out and you can write it on the white board. Discuss with the rest of the children what these names mean and why we use them to talk to God. Say that God is so great and so amazing that he needs a lot of names so that we can understand and express what he is like! Make a name collage. You can do this in two ways. In a large group, give each child a small piece of paper and ask them to write and illustrate one of God s names... they can write the name in a way that reflects the meaning. Then collate these on a sheet of lining paper. In a smaller group you might want to provide an old sheet and ask the children to paint the names

5 onto it. Say that when we realise how big and great God really is we can t help wanting to worship him! The Point: To see through God s names how great he is. Concordances, white board and pens, paper, pens. Optional for smaller groups large sheet and paint. NO OTHER GOD WORSHIP AND REFLECTION RESPONSE Place buckets of water on towels around the room. Put the worship music on softly in the background. Say that God wants us to worship him and only him. He wants us to put him first and live in a way that pleases him. God has a right to ask us that because he created us and he loves us more than anyone else can possibly love us. Give the children chance to respond to God. While the music is playing, if they want to promise God that they will try to put him first and that they won t worship other Gods, they should come and dip their hands in the water as a symbolic act. The Point: To give time to respond to God. Buckets of water, towels, worship music and the means to play it. DURATION: 5 MINS. WITH ALL OF WHO I AM DRAMA RESPONSE Say that when Jesus was talking to one of the Pharisees he said that the most important commandment was that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul and all our strength: that is the way to worship God! Discuss the way that we can worship God with these different parts of us. See if you can come up with concrete examples. For instance, loving God with your strength might mean doing things to help other people, or it might mean outing out chairs in church or clearing up after a meeting These are ways to serve God! Loving God with our mind might mean spending time reading the Bible and

6 praying. It might also mean NOT exposing our minds to things that God would not like for instance not watching films that are too violent or have too much swearing in them. Heart and soul are quite similar, and can include things like praying, worshipping, and the way that we treat other people as a response to God. Play some music and let the children move to it. When you stop the music they should freeze in a position that shows them worshipping God in one of the ways they have discussed. Play several times so they can think of several poses. The Point: To unpack how we can physically put God first in our lives. Music and the means to play it.