Week Two: True Love always Protects through forgiveness and grace

Transcription

1 Unit: True Love As you wish Week Four Review: Week One: What is true love? Love is described and identified and commanded, but never defined. Its source is a mystery apart from God. Our response to love As You Wish! Week Two: True Love always Protects through forgiveness and grace Week Three: True Love always Hopes and Believes. Set Up - Music in the Hallway o Love will keep us together (Captain and Tennille) o l-o-v-e (by Nat King Cole) o I will Always Love You (Whitney Houston) Two trees are set up in the Large Group Classroom o one a decorated Christmas tree in a Christmas tree holder, o the other potted or in a ball. Decorate the cut one only. Opening Activity (15 minutes) Game of Preparation In order to be able to persevere when your Love Test comes you have to prepare. o Have the students get in groups of three and agree to pick one of the following assignments: Run a marathon Playing in a chess tournament Playing cello in a symphony Dancing in a ballet Becoming a surgeon Playing on a professional football team

2 o Have them come up with a plan for training themselves over the next five seven years for accomplishing the goal they chose. SUMMARY POINT: o Have the kids come in around you. o Have a couple of the groups share their plan. o Have the others agree or disagree if the plan would take perseverance. (YES) o Have them discuss what the test of their plan would be. Marathon day or finally running a marathon in a certain time frame Being able to successfully compete against opponents of substance in chess. Making first seat in the cello section of the symphony orchestra in Nashville. Etc. o Today s lesson is about how True Love perseveres. We are willing to give it all and are able to stand strong on our day of testing if we have trained ourselves to love purely. The test of true love came for God on the cross of Calvary. Their will also be a time when each of us will face the test of persevering because of True Love. If we prepare for it by preparing our hearts for God to live fully in us and through us, then we will succeed in that day. o Remind them of the Christmas trees we can only persevere if we are rooted in God. o Talk about how the Good Samaritan is a story of salvation for one man because his enemy chose to persevere for him. Introduce Worshipo Hook the idea of Love to worship: the god we love who also identifies himself as the one who loves us is indeed worthy of our worship. He persevered on the cross for us and is not only worthy of our worship but worship Him requires us to prepare our hearts Don t take his sacrifice for us lightly worship is a precious thing a holy thing. Worship (15 minutes) Worship is usually three songs

3 Shepherd Time: (10 minutes) Shepherds know shepherd time is over when they hear the music in the hallway. Check in on the class roster. Make sure visitors are signing in. Question - have the kids think and share about something they are preparing for the New Year. (New Year s Resolution) Fill out the Blue Bucket cards and Shadow cards. Talk about them as you share and sign Pray with your group. Blue Buckets/tithe/announcements (5 minutes) WATCH all year long as the time symbol decreases and the heavenly reward earning cards increase! Students come into the large room to music picked by the tech people unless you give them something specific. Upfront teacher will pick someone to throw a rock out the door. The worship team sets out the buckets of rocks for you. I sometimes pick a person who has the most Advance Team points, or from a certain grade, or has a birthday, or shows the most enthusiasm You might ask them if they want to throw the rock?. IF they say, Yes ; then you could respond with as you wish. The rock thrower is given a drum roll by the rest of the class and then runs to the door and tosses the rock out. Upfront teacher makes reference to SOME of the following points each week, but not all of these points each week: You have thrown the rock out the door to symbolize that another week is gone the question is how did you spend it? Were you a living prism for God this week or were you overcome by shadows? Jesus will ask you if your have given your life to following him and if you have said, yes then he will let you into heaven. AND THEN he will ask you for your blue bucket. Blue buckets don t get us into heaven. There are no do-overs. We do this to help you train yourself to do two very important things: to intentionally earn reward for yourself in heaven while living on earth and to routinely think about what you need to confess to God to keep your heart free from sin and burdens of despair.

4 Mention where the bucket are and that the tithe bucket is in front on the stage. ALWAYS: say the poem.. You say ONLY ONE LIFE They say WILL SOON BE PAST You say ONLY WHAT S DONE They say FOR CHRIST WILL LAST Tech person will play some music and let the kids go freely to the buckets and drop their cards in them the white cards are often shredded up so no one can read them. If you can get the kids to clap or dance to the music that sometimes adds fun. Large Group (15 minutes) Upfront introduction of the theme True Love (Point to it on the ceiling) We cannot define Love: Love is described 1 Corinthians 13 think MT. Bike! Love is illustrated Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) Love is commanded (Luke 6:27-35) But love is never defined by God in any other way than to say God is Love The definition of love in the bible always points to God himself as the very definition. o Christmas Trees a tree not rooted and grounded is dead, even if decorated. Love not rooted and grounded in God is dead, even if it looks good. o We can only know love in context of Jesus - (just as Buttercup can only understand love in view of Wesley). o Apart from God True Love is just a fairy tale. Love has tremendous value: Love protects (Grace + Forgiveness) (Wesley in the fire swamp/mt. Bike shocks) Love hopes and believes (Have fun storming the castle! They do win!) This week True Love perseveres. Perseverance Game. So what is perseverance and how does it relate to true love?

5 Everyone gets a partner they can at least imagine they have true love for. Tell them that this means they will have to persevere for one another because true love doesn t fail. Then begin the game first one partner goes through the test and then the other. Catch is that you get your partners score. Did they persevere for you? Did they have real Love for you? Do this in a very loud atmosphere. Upfront leader will be taunting through the whole thing from the microphone. do you love your neighbor?. will you endure the pain?. and so forth. Have a metronome playing to exaggerate the times. Teachers need to own this and play into it to make it effective. Partners: Representing true love for one another. Complete three tasks: 1. Wall sit a. One partner goes to the wall and gets into a sitting position with feet on the floor and legs bent at the knees thighs parallel with the floor. This is hard! Start the timer. Score as follows: Wall sit = under one minute 5 points 1-2 minutes 10 points More than 3 minutes 15 points b. Switch roles and score again. 2. Holding arms out- must keep arms out, palms up and arms straight! a. Holding arms out = same as above b. Switch roles and score again. 3. Holding breath: a. 30 seconds 5 point 30 seconds 1 minute = 10 points Over 1 minute - 15 points b. Switch roles and score again. Your partner gets your score..! WHAT! Yes that s right. Debrief at your tables: True love is about enduring/persevering. But it is about persevering for the benefit of the other person. Shepherds Discuss with your tables: How did it feel when your partner did really well for you? How did it feel when your partner didn t do well for you? What if they were really trying but still didn t do well? What if they just goofed off and didn t care.

6 Have the Kids do the Story Journey- the Good Samaritan Have a competition between the grade levels. The winning grade receives candy. Good Samaritan Story Where is the perseverance in this story? That even the robber would have been worth saving. That the Samaritan didn t give up That the inn keeper was willing to wait for payment That the inn keeper was willing to take care of him That the good Samaritan was willing to take him on that road and give up riding his own beast Show Movie Clip of torture scene (remind them it is fake).3 minutes and 27 seconds (everybody move) chapter 19 Brief Set Up: Wesley has been taken to the Pit of Despair. He is to be tortured since he is a mere criminal. Prince Humperdinck is upset because Buttercup has held out for Wesley s true love continuing to tell him, My Wesley will come for me true love hopes! She has caught him in his own lie he said he would send his four fastest ships to get Wesley if he wanted to marry her. He never did and she figures this out. Humperdinck runs to the Pit of Despair determined to put Wesley to death. But true love perseveres! The Spaniard and the Giant come to his rescue and Miracle Max revives nearly dead Wesley and he does go and rescue his Buttercup! Debrief from the front The ultimate sound of perfect sacrifice for true love was heard by all in the movie clip. Jesus could have given up on us but he didn t he lived for us, died for us, and lives again for us. His sacrifice sounded across the world. Just before he was crucified he prayed for you. John 17. Read the prayer for them o 20 My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one 23 I in them and you in me so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24 Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. He loves you and he wants you to be with him. He wants to protect you, he wants you to trust him, and he wants you to give his love to others.

7 He can t force you to love him. He is helpless to do so. But he can pick you up and put you on his own back as he goes to the cross and he can take care of you. You are like the beat up guy (the cut off Christmas tree) You can do nothing to help yourself, except to accept his help. Three parts to this invitation: o You are either like the priests who refused to love no time, no care interested in other things. All about you. Or o You are like the beat up guy who needs Jesus to come and help you Or o You are the Inn Keeper in charge of taking care of people God brings to you because you have already asked Jesus to take you to the Inn and you have accepted his help in the past. Plan of Salvation Call for receiving the Lord to the wall by the windows. Call for prayer for those who are inn keepers to the wall by the girl s bathroom. Priests can be dismissed across the hall. Teachers divide up and meet with these kids and pray with them prayers of salvation for the beat up guys /prayers for quality conduit with the inn keepers/ prayers for mercy with the priests.