BEATITUDES VIDEO WORKSHOP

Transcription

1 BEATITUDES VIDEO WORKSHOP Bible reference: Matthew 5:1-12 Objectives: 1. The children will discuss in depth Matthew 5:8 (Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.) 2. The children will craft a yarn and chenille stem heart. 3. The children will view the McGee and Me video: The Not-So-Great Escape. Arrival activity materials: Assorted neon colored chenille stems, 1 per child Assorted colorful skeins of yarn Paper-Shaper scissors, regular scissors Clear Scotch tape Verse papers to attach to heart Staplers Lesson Plan: 1. Demonstrate how to take a chenille stem and slightly twist the ends together. Gently shape into a heart. 2. Children cut a 48 length of yarn. Tie this yarn to the chenille heart. Younger children will need assistance with the knot-tying. Leftover end needs to be trimmed away. 3. Children need to stand while weaving. GENTLY wrap yarn across the heart shape in any design desired. 4. When reaching the end of the yarn, try to end up at the bottom of the heart so the yarn can be twisted around the pointed end. 5. Use Scotch tape to secure yarn to the bottom point of the heart. 6. Use Paper-Shaper scissors to trim the verse to fit on the heart. 7. Staple verse to yarns in the middle of the heart. 8. Tell the children that you will all talk about this verse when you gather for the Bible story today. 9. At 9:35 a.m., gather the children together for the Opening Ritual. Opening Ritual The shepherd starts the lesson in prayer. Take the attendance sheet so each child can be prayed for by name. Gracious God, All around us we see people doing things that are not pleasing to You. We want to live good lives, Father. Give us hearts that please You and fill us with your Spirit. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.

2 Prayer of Thanksgiving and Offering (Children will have placed their offering in the basket as they arrived. Bring the basket to the circle and thank the children for their offering for helping, sharing and caring. Then bless the offering with a prayer of thanksgiving like the following.) Always Loving God, For hands and feet, and head and heart For family and friends, and enough to eat For Jesus, my church, and the world all around For all I can be and do By helping, sharing and caring, I say Children may sing the doxology afterward: Praise God from whom all blessings flow Praise him all creatures here below Praise him above all ye heavenly hosts Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost Amen Bible Lesson (Adapted from Blessed Are the Pure in Heart by faithkidskentwood.blogspot.com) Materials needed: CEV Bible for teacher marked at Matthew 5 and Romans 12 1 clear glass filled with clear water; 1 clear glass filled with dirt and water 3 pairs of kids sunglasses all kept in a bag: one pair with clean lenses, one pair with oily smudged lenses, one pair with lenses covered with masking tape Chalk for the chalkboard 3 index cards. a says: God blesses people b says: whose hearts are pure. c says: They will see God.

3 Hold up the two glasses of water. Ask the children to indicate by a show of hands which glass they d rather drink from: the clean one or the dirty one. I wonder why that is? Allow for responses. There s a word to describe something that is clean from any dirt; something that s not mixed in with anything else. That word is pure. Print the word pure on the chalkboard in large letters. Which of these two glasses is pure water? Allow for response. It is 100% water and it s not mixed with anything else. Jesus used the word pure when he was teaching his disciples about the best ways to be truly happy, or blessed. We call these teachings the Beatitudes. This is in the book of Matthew in the New Testament which has the stories of Jesus. Open your teacher s Bible to Matthew 5. Jesus was sitting up on a hill, teaching his disciples. Listen to some of the words Jesus was saying; listen especially for the word pure. Read Matthew 5: 1-4 and 8. Did you hear it? Pure? Draw a big heart on the chalkboard around the word pure. Jesus wasn t talking about keeping our clothes clean and not getting dirty. What did we say pure meant? Clean from any dirt and not mixed with anything else. He s talking about our keeping our hearts pure. If I write this on the chalkboard: Susie (heart) Bill, what does that heart mean? Allow for responses. Sometimes we tell a person that we love them with all of our heart. So when Jesus said, God blesses people whose hearts are pure, he meant that to be truly happy, we should have a pure love for God. It should not be mixed in with anything else. We should love GOD more than anything else. But Jesus said something more. Ask a volunteer to come up and read all of verse 8.

4 To see God means that those who love God and trust in Jesus with all their hearts will be able to spend forever with God. Those whose hearts are pure will get to see God! Let s try something to help us remember this. Ask one child to come up front. Take out the clear pair of sunglasses for the child to wear. These are the pure sunglasses. Hold up index card a about 4 feet away; ask the child to read it. Was that easy to see? Remove sunglasses. Ask for another volunteer. Reach in bag for the smudged sunglasses. These are slightly dirty, or just a little bit impure. Hold up index card b about 4 feet away; ask the child to read it. How well could you see the words? Remove sunglasses. Ask for another volunteer. Reach in bag for the taped sunglasses. These are completely impure. Hold up index card c about 4 feet away; ask the child to read it. How well could you see the words? Remove sunglasses. Just like having the pure glasses made it easy to see the words, loving God and trusting Jesus more than anything with pure hearts makes it easy to see God. The apostle Paul tells us how we can be pure of heart. Turn to Romans 12:2. In Romans 12:2 he tells us: Don t be like people of this world, But let God change the way you think. Then you will know how to do everything that is good and pleasing to him. In our video today, a young boy named Nick comes to realize that he must constantly work at keeping his heart pure. He wants to live a life that is pleasing to God, but he lives in a world that makes it hard. Video : The Not-So-Great Escape (about 23 minutes) When words show up on the screen, read them aloud for younger students.

5 After watching the video, have the students answer the following questions about the story. Younger children may need prompting. 1. What did Nick want to do that his parents said no to? He wanted to see a movie about bloody monsters. 2. Why did they say no? The movie had bad content: bad scenes of bloody deaths, etc. 3. Did Nick s parents want to spoil his fun? Just the opposite; they knew that the movie could not make him a better person, and it might disturb him. 4. Why was Nick sent to his room? He spoke rudely to his parents, even after being warned. 5. What did Nick do when he was grounded? He decided to disobey and go to the movie anyway. 6. How did Nick feel at the movie? He didn t like it -- and he left before it ended. 7. Why did Nick leave the movie early? He realized how awful it was. 8. When Nick came home, how did his parents respond? He had to do chores as punishment. 9. What did Nick decide to do finally? Avoid garbage like the movie from now on. 10. Did you listen to the song? What does the song tell us? Be careful what you choose -- it s gonna stay in your heart; all the things you see and hear come back to you. Let s read out loud together what it says on the heart you made:, I wonder what are some ways we can do that? Allow for responses.

6