25 minutes 10 minutes

Transcription

1 25 minutes 10 minutes 15 SOCIAL: Providing time for fun interaction. 25 : Communicating God s truth in engaging ways. Opener Game Worship Story Closer 10 WORSHIP: Inviting people to respond to God. Fully Alive Everywhere I Go 25 GROUPS: Creating a safe place to connect. WHAT YOU DO 1. Go to myfreedom.org/kidsleaders to do the following: 1. Read through K-5th large group leader guide several times throughout the week to familiarize yourself with what to say, how long it should take, and the order of activities. 2. Watch the Bible story video. 3. Preview the worship songs and get familiar with the motions for this weekend. 2. Follow up with your campus lead with any questions about the weekend! 3. Arrive on time to tag in briefly with the team, gather your materials, and connect with early arrivers. 4. Teach kids about God s Word with energy! WHAT YOU NEED (provided for you) -Bible (bring your own) -inflatable mallet -blue streamers -white streamers -black streamers -paper bags (1 per group) -blue tarp -squirt bottle (fill up with water)

2 CUE: Play high energy music as kids enter. CUE: Freedom Kids Logo (#1) / Start AMPED countdown (#2) at gathering start time. OPENER The room is set up with two simple obstacle courses, with a clearly marked starting line. Host is on stage welcoming kids as they enter. CUE: Amped Logo (#3). Welcome, everyone! Are you excited to be here? Are you AMPED? I know I am! All summer we ve been talking about what it means to live with confidence. CUE: Confidence Slide (#4). Confidence is living like you believe what God says is true. When you really trust God, that changes the way you live. You [Basic Truth] make wise choices. You [Basic Truth] treat others the way you want to be treated. You can face even tough things because you know God is with you. That s good to remember, because sometimes life is full of problems. You can t find your shoes. Your bike chain slips off. Your cat had an accident on your bed. Life s a mess! It seems like problems pop up all over the place. But when you remember what God says is true, you can smack those problems right back down. Like this! Pick up one of the inflatable mallets and bop three or four Small Group Leaders on the head. It s like Whack-a-Mole! Has anyone ever played Whack-a-Mole before? Great! But honestly, those games are too small. We need to kick it up a notch. And it wouldn t be [your environment s name] if we didn t AMP things up! Let s play life-sized Super-Duper Extreme Whack-a-Mole! GAME Super-Duper Extreme Whack-a-Mole We ll need two small groups up here to give it a try including your Leaders. Bring up two small groups. If groups are larger than 8, have leaders select 8 kids from their groups to join them. [Leader s name] and [Leader s name] will be the ones doing the bopping using these! Hand an inflatable mallet to each Leader. Move the Leaders in place behind their groups cages (tape square on floor) during this next part. Make sure the Leaders are facing toward the audience. [First Leader s name] s group, you ll be kneeling down in here. (Point to the first cage. ) You ll randomly stick your heads up and down, over and over again... while [First Leader s name] tries to whack you with the mallet. It only counts if he hits you while your head is all the way up. [Second Leader s name] s group, you ll be kneeling down in here. (Point to the other cage. ) You ll stick your heads up and down while [Second Leader s name] tries to whack you. I ll be out here in the audience watching, and I ll a declare a winner at the end. I ll put 30 seconds on the clock (set a timer on your phone)... and GO! CUE: 30 second countdown (#5). Call out the play-by-play as you watch. There s no way you ll be able to keep track of points, so just try to notice which team is doing a better job overall so you can declare a winner at the end. Whoa that was intense! Both groups did a great job, but [Leader s name], you really laid the smack down. The victory is yours! Dismiss both groups to their seats.

3 WORSHIP LEADER: That s pretty cool that they got to be inside the game, right? We re continuing that trend with the Bible story all of you will be right in the middle of it. And as long as you stay focused, you won t get wet. Well, not TOO wet. Before we get into it, let s worship God together! Get up on those feet! CUE: Fully Alive (#6) CUE: Everywhere I Go (#7) LEADER: Great job singing today! You guys are totally amped! Find 3 people and give them a totally extreme highfive! Read, set, go! CUE: Amped Logo (#8). Illustration LEADER: Hey, friends! I need your help for our story today everyone s help! We ve got a bag full of streamers here for every group. Leaders, when you get your bag, go ahead and pass them out to your kids. Start handing out the paper bags full of streamers to the Small Group Leaders one bag per group. The bags will be full of a mixture of white, gray, and blue streamers. Some of you will get white, some black, and some blue. Don t worry about getting your favorite color, because every kind of streamer will get to do something different! Oh and one group will be using this tarp instead of streamers [Leader s name] s group right here. Hand the large blue tarp to one small group near the front. (This needs to be a group with a male Leader if possible since he ll help play the role of Peter.) All right! If you have a white streamer, hold it up. Your move is going to be waving them in a circle. (Demonstrate with your white streamer.) Try it! (White streamers wave.) Okay, let s try the gray streamers. Your move is going to be back and forth, back and forth. (Demonstrate with your gray streamer.) Try it! (Gray streamers wave.) Nicely done! Now for the blue streamers... your move is going to be up and down, up and down. (Demonstrate with your blue streamer.) Go for it! (Blue streamers wave.) Excellent! Kids with the tarps, spread them out side by side on the floor, right next to each other. Each of you sit at a corner and grab onto it. Now stay seated and shake it up and down! (Kids shake the tarp.) Great!

4 Now everyone all streamers, all tarps go for it! Let the kids go bananas with their streamers and tarps for seconds, and then get their attention. All right, hands down! Tarps on the floor. Awesome! Do you think you can listen closely now and hold your streamers totally still until I give you the signal? I know you can! I m glad you re all AMPED up this morning, because this story is absolutely epic. That s why we re telling it in a BIG way. It s totally amazing, so let s dive in. Jesus did lots of miracles when He was here on earth. He helped blind people to see. He made sick people instantly better. People would come from all over to hear Jesus teach. One time, Jesus fed an entire crowd literally thousands of people with just a few loaves of bread and some fish. The bread and fish just kept multiplying and multiplying until everyone was well fed. And not only that, but there was also enough left over to fill 12 baskets of food! The disciples were amazed at what they saw. I mean, pretty much everything Jesus did was amazing, but they just couldn t believe their eyes... or their stomachs. Little did they know that Jesus was just getting started. After all of the people were fed, Jesus began to dismiss the crowd. Since the crowd was large, and they had gathered on the banks of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus told His disciples to get into a boat and meet Him on the other side. He was going to help everyone get on their way and then spend some time alone talking with His Father. The disciples got into the boat and started sailing, but then they ran into a problem. A windstorm was coming! A windstorm! That means white and black streamers... but slowly and quietly, as if you re a storm off in the distance. Remember, white means circles, and black means back and forth. Kids with white and black streamers wave them slowly and quietly. The winds started blowing just a little bit nice and easy but the disciples could tell that it was going to be worse later on. They were fishermen, so they knew these things. As the hours passed while Jesus was on the mountainside praying, the boat with the disciples was getting farther and farther from the shore, out into the middle of the sea. And the windstorm it was getting stronger! White and black streamers, can you wave a little faster? Kids with white and black streamers wave them more quickly. JESUS ON THE WATER The windstorm was really rocking now! And those strong winds made some pretty big waves. Blue streamers and blue tarps, that s you you re the waves! Remember, wave your blue streamers up and down... and shake the tarps from the corners. Kids with blue streamers wave them, while the kids with the tarps shake them from the corners. The disciples were really getting pounded by this windstorm. It was a whopper! Spray the audience with squirt bottles from the sides of the room.

5 Hang on wait a second. It kind of died down a bit (have kids make smaller moves)... but then it kicked up again! Bigger this time! (Have the kids make bigger moves). All right, great! Hands down. Nice job. For now, hold on to your streamers and tarps and give your arms a rest. I ll tell you when to start them up again. Shortly before the sun came up, the disciples noticed something strange on the surface of the water. Jesus had finished praying and He had come down from the mountainside. He had decided to meet the disciples... start walking onto one of the blue tarps... ON THE WATER. Jesus was walking on the surface! He wasn t sinking! The disciples, rightly so, were terrified. They thought it was a ghost! Open the Bible to Matthew 14:27 and read. Jesus told them: Be brave! It is I. Don t be afraid (NIrV). The disciples probably couldn t get a good look at who was actually out on the water, because of the wind and the waves, so Peter decided to speak up. Move around to the Leader of the tarp group (your pre-selected Peter ). Have him stand up. He said, Lord, if it s you, tell me to come to You on the water (paraphrase of Matthew 14:28). Jesus simply replied: Come (Matthew 14:29 NIrV). Well, you can maybe imagine what was going through Peter s mind when he stepped out of the boat onto the water. Move to the opposite side of the tarps from the Leader playing Peter. Gesture to him to follow your directions. He took one step... Leader takes one step onto the tarp.... and then another. JESUS, THE LIFE PRESERVER He started to walk toward Jesus, and for a moment he forgot about the storm. Storm! Streamers! Wind! Waves! Let s kick this storm up again! (Kids start waving and shaking their streamers and tarps.) But soon Peter remembered again. He started looking around at the wind and waves, he got scared, and he started to sink! AHHH! Start to squirt Peter with water. Stand up, and get the kids around you (holding the tarps) to stand, too. That will make the water level rise so the Leader (Peter) looks like he s waist-deep in the water. Lord! Save me! (Matthew 14:30 NIrV), Peter cried. At that very moment, Jesus reached out and grabbed him. Walk around to the gap between the two tarps and grab the Leader s arm. Listen to what Jesus said. Open the Bible to Matthew 14:31 and read. Your faith is so small!... Why did you doubt me? (NIrV). The two men got back on the boat...walk with the Leader back to the outer edge of the tarps... and immediately the wind and the waves stopped. Let me hear you get totally still. Kids stop waving and shaking the streamers and tarps. Think about what it was like for Peter to go through this whole amazing experience actually walking on the water with Jesus! The moment he took his eyes off of Jesus, he began to sink. But he knew he was going to be fine the moment Jesus grabbed him. (Grab your wrist.)

6 CLOSER Bottom Line You and I are a lot like Peter. The moment we start to look at our problems, we sink. We get worried and stressed out. We start to forget that Jesus is in control of our lives even when things don t make sense. But when we focus on Jesus, He helps us stand firm. CUE: Bottom Line Slide (#9). Stay focused on Jesus. Sometimes it s hard to do that, especially with lots of wavy distractions around us. But if we can learn anything from Peter, it s that nothing else matters more than focusing on Jesus. Hold up inflatable mallet from today s game. It was so fun when we played Whack-a-Mole at the beginning. Believe it or not, that game is a picture of how life can get sometimes. We think we ve fixed some kind of problem (swing the mallet) and another one pops right up. So we focus on that one. (Swing the mallet.) Then another problem pops up, and we take a swing at that one too. (Swing the mallet.) Pretty soon, we take our focus off of Jesus, because we re just looking around for the next problem to pop up. We forget that Jesus is right there with us through it all. We forget that He s in control even if we re going through something that seems OUT of control. We may not understand it all but no matter what, stay focused on Jesus. How do you do that? How do you focus? Well, start by reading His Word. (Hold up Bible.) Use your eyes to read what God says instead of looking at the distractions around you. Shut out all other devices, noises, and distractions when you pray. You ll talk more about this in your small groups! Have a great time and we ll see you next week! Dismiss kids to their groups. CUE: High-energy music as kids exit.