Real Treasures of Heaven

Transcription

1 Real Treasures of Heaven Bible: Real Treasures of Heaven (Treasures in heaven) Matthew 6:19-24 Bottom Line: Live like you know what really matters. Memory Verse: Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. Luke 16:10a, NIV Life App: Stewardship: taking care of what you have because it all belongs to God. Basic Truth: I can trust God no matter what. Social: Setting the Tone for the Experience (9:00, 10:15, 11:30) 9:00 & 11:30 Early Arriver No supplies needed 10:15 Thief! A quarter Bible: Communicating God s Truth in Engaging Ways (9:15, 10:30, 11:45) Bible Presentation in Large Group Groups: Creating a Safe Place to Connect (9:40, 10:55, 12:10) 9:00 & 11:30 What s Missing? Bible Stuff Cards Hula-hoop 10:15 Money Hop Bible Pennies; 1 for each kid Quarters; 1 for each kid Note: Kids will be keeping these coins after the activity. Prayer (9:50, 11:05, 12:20) Hula-hoop Dismiss (10:00, 11:15, 12:30) 1

2 Real Treasures of Heaven Bible: Real Treasures of Heaven (Treasures in heaven) Matthew 6:19-24 Bottom Line: Live like you know what really matters. Memory Verse: Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. Luke 16:10a, NIV Life App: Stewardship: taking care of what you have because it all belongs to God. Basic Truth: I can trust God no matter what. Social: Providing Time for Fun Interaction (Small Groups, 15 minutes) Before kids arrive, spend a few minutes praying that God would help make the abstract concept of treasures in heaven very real and concrete for your few. Pray that you would be able to facilitate an environment in which kids learn how to make wise choices with their time, money, and talents. Pray that kids would leave today with some tangible ways to live like they know what really matters. 9:00 & 11:30 Early Arriver Idea Made to Move: an activity that increases the oxygen in the brain and taps into the energy in the body What You Need: No supplies needed What You Do: Name an item from the list below and let kids share how they would feel if they no longer had that item. They can indicate their answers by standing if they would be very upset and sitting if they would not be upset at all. If their answer is somewhere in between they can scrunch down to whatever height expresses their answer. Items: o Pet o TV o Candy o School books o Your piggy bank and all your money o Computer o Toothbrush o Crayons and markers o 1 sock o Your favorite toy o Broccoli o The shoes you re wearing right now What You Say: If you ve ever had something of yours lost, broken, or even stolen, you know how sad it makes you feel. Did you know that there are some things that can never break, get lost, or stolen? It s true! [Transition] Let s go to Large Group and you ll find out what I mean. 2

3 10:15 Thief! Made to Play: an activity that encourages learning through following guidelines and working as a group What You Need: Quarter What You Do: Choose one kid to sit a few feet away from the group with his back turned and eyes closed. Then place the coin behind that kid. Point to someone in the group to silently sneak up and steal the coin and then return to where he was seated. Instruct all the kids to pretend they are holding the coin. Signal the child in front to turn around and take two guesses to name the thief. Repeat, letting each kid take a turn guessing or being the thief. What You Say: Taking the coin was part of our game, but real stealing is always wrong. If you ve ever had something of yours lost, broken, or even stolen, you know how sad it makes you feel. Did you know that there are some things that can never break, get lost, or stolen? It s true! [Transition] Let s go to Large Group and you ll find out what I mean. Lead your group to the Large Group area. 3

4 Real Treasures of Heaven Bible: Real Treasures of Heaven (Treasures in heaven) Matthew 6:19-24 Bottom Line: Live like you know what really matters. Memory Verse: Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. Luke 16:10a, NIV Life App: Stewardship: taking care of what you have because it all belongs to God. Basic Truth: I can trust God no matter what. Bible: Communicating God s Truth in Engaging Ways (Large Group, 35 minutes) 1. Opener/Closer What You Need: Host GETTING READY 2. Bible Truth What You Need: Historyteller Clock Tablet (fake or real) Money (fake or real) Globe 4 sheets of poster board Marker Tape Bible Sheet or towel 3. Worship What You Need: Power Praise Team Music and Sound Effects (SFX): This Love This Little Light Glory to God Forever 4

5 Real Treasures of Heaven Bible: Real Treasures of Heaven (Treasures in heaven) Matthew 6:19-24 Bottom Line: Live like you know what really matters. Memory Verse: Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. Luke 16:10a, NIV Life App: Stewardship: taking care of what you have because it all belongs to God. Basic Truth: I can trust God no matter what. Bible: Communicating God s Truth in Engaging Ways (Large Group, 35 minutes) Engage kids hearts through a dynamic and interactive Bible Truth, worship, and prayer experience in a Large Group setting. CG: Theme Slide Host welcomes kids as they enter. HOST: Hello, hello! It s your friend, [Host s name], and I am so pumped to see everyone here today! You re in one of the best places ever The Treehouse and we are gonna have some fun together. If you like having a good time with friends, point to your neighbor and say, We win! Let s hear it! (Point at audience.) HOST and KIDS: We win! HOST: We DO win. We win at so many things, like praise and worship! Let s get the Power Praise team in here! Worship SFX: This Love SFX: This Little Light SFX: Glory to God Forever Power Praise team enters as Host joins the audience. Power Praise team exits as Host retakes the stage. HOST: Yeah! That was winning at praise and worship for sure! We win at having fun AND at learning cool things too. Speaking of learning cool things, today we re talking about a super important Life App. On three, I want everyone to yell out the name of the Life App. Yell it so loud your parents hear you all the way in the worship center! Ready? One, two, three. (Hold hand to ear.) You got it! It s stewardship. And what is stewardship? Let s read this together! 5

6 CG: Stewardship Slide HOST and KIDS: Stewardship is taking care of what you have because it all belongs to God. HOST: Come on, guys. I think you can do better than that. Let s really hear that definition one last time! HOST and KIDS: Stewardship is taking care of what you have because it all belongs to God! HOST: Whoa, whoa, whoa! I think the people down the street just heard the definition of stewardship. Great job. Let me ask you this: What are some things that you have? (Pause for a few responses.) Those are great! Did you know that all those things, even though you have them, are not really yours? It s true. God allows us to have these things. And because they re really His, we should work really hard to take care of them. [Historyteller s Name] is here to tell us more about it. Historyteller enters as Host exits. SETTING UP THE BIBLE TRUTH HISTORYTELLER: What s going on, everybody? How are you doing? If you re having a super awesome time, wave the okay sign (make the okay sign) in the air back and forth. (Wave your hand in the air back and forth.) That s so cool! Do you know what the word valuable means? When something is valuable to you, it means it s important to you. And sometimes we can value some surprising things. For example, who had a favorite blanket or toy when they were little? (Acknowledge responses.) You may even still have it! It might be rather old looking at this point with holes or tears in it. It may even smell like dirty socks! But to you, it was or maybe still is super valuable. If you left it at a grocery store, someone might look at it and think, Whose yucky old blanket is this? But to you, it s a precious, wonderful, beautiful thing! That s what it means to place value on something. Today, we re going to talk about all the things God tells us we should value. BIBLE VERSE HISTORYTELLER: We know what God thinks about things by reading the Bible. We re going to read to you something that was written by a guy named Matthew. (Pick up Bible and open it.) Matthew was one of Jesus closest followers. He wrote down different moments from Jesus life and things Jesus said so people would believe that Jesus was real and came to save them. Our verses for today come from a teaching Jesus gave that we call The Sermon on the Mount. You can find them in Matthew 6: Could I have our volunteer come onstage to read our verses today? We re going to put the verses up on the screen so everyone can follow along. CG: Matthew 6:19-21 Slide HISTORYTELLER: Do not gather for yourselves riches on earth. Moths and rats can destroy them. Thieves can break in and steal them. Instead, gather for yourselves riches in heaven. There, moths and 6

7 rats do not destroy them. There, thieves do not break in and steal them. Your heart will be where your riches are (Matthew 6:19-21 NIrV). CG: Matthew 6:24 Slide HISTORYTELLER: No one can serve two masters at the same time. You will hate one of them and love the other. Or you will be faithful to one and dislike the other. You can t serve God and money at the same time (Matthew 6:24 NIrV). HISTORYTELLER: Great job! That was a LOT to read, wasn t it? What Jesus says in these verses gives us some ideas about how we can live for what really matters. We ve been talking all day about things that matter and have value. But did you know there are things that God thinks we should value things that matter the most? To do that, let s take a look back at what we ve been learning the past four weeks. On this table are four objects. (Uncover objects.) There s a clock, a tablet, a globe, and some money. REVIEW: EARTH AND TIME Pick up the sign that says Earth, but don t reveal it to the audience yet. HISTORYTELLER: There is something that God made that is super important and it belongs to God. It s round. It has land and oceans on it. It s the planet we live on. The what belongs to God? (Pause for response.) The earth! Right! Tape the sign to the front of the table, below the globe. The earth and everything in it belong to God. The sun, the moon, the trees, the plants, and even you belong to god. We should take care of the earth because it belongs to God and it matters to God because it s part of His creation! He created it as our home. Move over to where the clock is sitting on the table. There is something else that belongs to God. It s something we spend, but it s not money. Sometimes we waste this. Sometimes we use it wisely. AND it s something we can never get back. Some times we can hear it ticking away. Who thinks they know what it is? Sure! It s our time! Our time belongs to God. Reveal the Time sign. Tape the sign to the front of the table, below the clock. God wants us to think about how we spend our time. We can waste our time on things that don t matter, or we can choose to use our time wisely and make the most of the time we have every single day. REVIEW: THINGS AND MONEY 7

8 HISTORYTELLER: The earth and time are definitely things that matter to God, but we didn t stop there, did we? The NEXT thing God asks us to use wisely is some of our favorite stuff: stuff we play with, stuff we keep in special places, stuff we love. It s true. Our THINGS belong to God. Reveal the Things sign. Tape the sign in front of the tablet. If we treat our things poorly if we throw them, leave them outside in the rain, mistreat them then we re not taking care of them, and we re not showing good stewardship. When we treat our things with respect, we re treating God s things with respect. Now, I don t have to tell you what our last item is. It s the only one left! Tape the Money sign in front of the money. Money! The way we use our money matters to God. We talked about this last week, right? God loves a cheerful giver. And we can give cheerfully when we have a plan for our money. There are three steps to our plan, right? Can anyone remind me what those are? (Pause for response.) That s right! We give a certain amount, save a certain amount, and spend a certain amount of all the money we get. WRAPPING UP THE BIBLE TRUTH HISTORYTELLER: Why do you think God wants us to take care of these four things? Why is it so important? Well, let s look back at our verses for today. CG: Matthew 6:21 Slide One verse says: Your heart will be where your riches are (Matthew 6:21 NIrV). Wow. Our hearts will be where our riches are? In other words, we will love, think about, and treasure the things that we value. And if we re valuing the wrong things, that could be really bad for our hearts. The other thing that God knows is that we can be all about loving Him and all about loving our stuff at the same time. CG: Matthew 6:24 Slide That s why Jesus says this: You can t serve God and money at the same time (Matthew 6:24b NIrV). Either one or the other will win our attention. But when we live like we know what really matters, we can use the time, things, and money in ways that honor God and show God that we love Him. When we live our lives like everything we have and everyone we know belongs to God, we live our lives like we know what really matters. That s our Bottom Line today. CG: Bottom Line Slide 8

9 [Bottom Line] Live like you know what really matters. KIDS and HISTORYTELLER: [Bottom Line] Live like you know what really matters. HISTORYTELLER: One more time! How should we live our lives? KIDS and HISTORYTELLER: [Bottom Line] Live like you know what really matters. HISTORYTELLER: It s been an awesome month talking about stewardship. Let s pray and ask God to help us take care of the things He s given to us. Pray HISTORYTELLER: God, thank You so much for all the things You trust us with. We really don t deserve any of them. As we try to figure out how to wisely use everything we have, please show us what matters most to You. Help us to live like those things matter to us, too. You are a kind and loving God who has given us SO much to be thankful for. We love You. We pray this in Jesus name, amen! If you have an offering, go ahead and bring that on up right now. Historyteller exits as Host enters. Closer HOST: Live like you know what really matters. That sounds cool, doesn t it? But how do we do that? First, we can do what [Historyteller s name] said. We can use the earth, our stuff, our time, and our money wisely. We can be generous, responsible, and obedient. Walk down the table, pointing to each object as it relates to what you re saying. When it comes to taking care of the earth, we can recycle. We can plant trees and flowers. We can choose not to be litterbugs. We can help make the world a better place for the people who will live in it long after we re gone. And how about our time? We can spend some of our time helping others. We could use our time to walk our neighbor s trashcans back to their house after the garbage truck comes. Or we could wait to open the door for someone walking behind us into a store, your school, or church. Or we could spend time to help a classmate figure out a hard math problem. What about our stuff? There are all sorts of ways we can use our stuff for what really matters. We can share our things or use our things to help others. When we re done with them, we can donate them so other people can enjoy them. When we share or help others, we re using our things to help others feel like we care about them. And lastly, there s our money. We can be generous with our money. We can help people go on mission trips, and we can help sponsor kids who need food and shelter. We can use our money to support building projects. There are all sorts of ways we can use our money for what really matters. When we give away our money, we show God that we KNOW it all belongs to Him and He can use it 9

10 better than we can. It all comes down to what we ve been talking about all month: stewardship. When we practice good stewardship, we live like we know what matters. Let s look at our Bottom Line for today one more time. CG: Bottom Line Slide [Bottom Line] Live like you know what really matters. That s right. And now you ll get a chance in Small Group to talk more about what it means to live like you know what really matters. Have fun together! I can t wait to see you guys next week! CG: Small Group Slide Dismiss children to their Small Groups. 10

11 Real Treasures of Heaven Bible: Real Treasures of Heaven (Treasures in heaven) Matthew 6:19-24 Bottom Line: Live like you know what really matters. Memory Verse: Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. Luke 16:10a, NIV Life App: Stewardship: taking care of what you have because it all belongs to God. Basic Truth: I can trust God no matter what. Groups: Creating a Safe Place to Connect (10 minutes) Create a safe place to connect and learn how the Bible Truth applies to real life experiences, through interactive activities and discussion questions. 9:00 & 11:30 What s Missing? [Live for God Application Activity] Made to Connect: an activity that invites kids to share with others and build on their understanding What You Need: Bible, hula-hoop, Stuff Cards What You Do: Set the hula-hoop on the floor and have kids gather around. Place the Stuff Cards one at a time inside the circle of the Hula-Hoop. As you add each card, let kids hold up 1-10 fingers to indicate how big of a deal that item is to them. o 1 finger = meh, no biggie o 10 fingers = can t live without it Read Matthew 24: Most kids don t have a lot of money, so help them see their possessions/toys/favorite clothes as their money or treasure. Let kids look at the treasures in the hoop and decide if they are earthly treasures or heavenly treasures. Explain that if something can be broken, stolen, lost, or end up in the trash, it s not a heavenly treasure. Heavenly treasures are given to us when we use what we have for God. Tell the kids to take a close look at the cards, and then have them close their eyes. Remove one or two cards and let kids open their eyes and guess what s missing. Don t replace the cards after you remove them. Play until all the cards are gone. What You Say: Eventually everything that was inside this hoop will be gone. It will break, get lost, or no longer be important to us. So, [Bottom Line] live like you know what really matters. When you give away stuff you don t need to someone who does, that becomes a heavenly treasure. When you don t hold on to your stuff but are willing to share, that becomes a heavenly treasure. When you use your stuff in ways that please God and help others, you re storing up the kind of treasure that lasts forever. That s a heavenly treasure. 11

12 10:15 Money Hop [Hear from God Memory Verse Activity] Made to Move: an activity that increases the oxygen in the brain and taps into the energy in the body What You Need: Bible, pennies, quarters What You Do: Look up Luke 16:10a and say the verse as a group. Give each of the kids a quarter and a penny. Tell them to place the coins on the floor a few inches apart. Lead the group in reciting the memory verse by standing on the penny as they say the first part. Then have them hop onto the quarter as they say the second part. After they finish the verse, ask everyone to move their coins a little farther apart and say the verse again, hopping from one coin to the other. Continue several more times, each time letting kids move their coins farther apart. What You Say: When you [Bottom Line] live like you know what really matters, you spend time learning God s Word. Great job remembering this month s memory verse. Take your penny and quarter home to help you remember Luke 16:10a. The penny will remind you to do little jobs well, and the quarter will remind you that little jobs done well can lead to even bigger and better things. All Service Times Pray and Dismiss (10 minutes) [Pray to God Prayer Activity] Made to Reflect: an activity that creates space for personal understanding and application What You Need: Hula-hoop What You Do: Place the hula-hoop on the floor and have everyone circle around it. Give each of the kids a chance to stand or kneel inside the hoop as the remaining kids place a hand on his shoulder and you pray a prayer similar to the one below for each child. What You Say: [Child s name], I pray that you will [Bottom Line] live like you know what really matters. Dear God, help [child s name] to use his time, money, and treasures to please You. Help him to love YOU more than anything else. Amen. Parent Cue 12