This meeting plan helps the children to unpack the facts that God is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient!

Transcription

1 WHO IS GOD?: AWESOME GOD! 5-6 BIBLE VERSES: Genesis 1:1-2:4, Job 38-41, Luke 12:7, Romans 11: This meeting plan helps the children to unpack the facts that God is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient! LEADER'S NOTES Who is God? As if we could even begin to answer that question! I think the problem is that sometimes we think we can. Sometimes we re guilty of putting God in a nice, neat box and saying, There we are, that s God all figured out. But how could we ever fully know anyone who created infinity?! I think the best thing you could do before you prepare for this session would be to read Job chapters Our God is so huge! His understanding knows no bounds. He is limitless! And yet He chooses to be intimately involved with tiny little me! I think there are three important words we can use to help the children understand that God is too big to understand! These words are omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing) and omnipresent (everywhere at the same time). The activities I have devised all work on this theme sometimes more explicitly than others. The other major theme in this session plan is Creator God. Eugene Peterson sums this whole thing up better than I ever could: Have you ever come on anything quite like this extravagant generosity of God, this deep, deep wisdom? It's way over our heads. We'll never figure it out. Is there anyone around who can explain God? Anyone smart enough to tell him what to do? Anyone who has done him such a huge favor that God has to ask his advice? Everything comes from him; Everything happens through him; Everything ends up in him. Always glory! Always praise! Yes. Yes. Yes.

2 Romans 11:33-36 (The Message) DRAW HIM! CRAFT IDEAS WARMING UP Give everyone a piece of paper and ask them to draw God! After 5 minutes or so, draw everyone together and ask them to show their pictures and explain why they have drawn God in the way they have. The Point: For fun and to get going on the subject matter. Paper, felt tips or colouring pencils. DURATION: 10 MINS. WHAT CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT GAME WARMING UP I think this game will work best if you get leaders to do the describing older children may manage it themselves. Make a list of 5-10 people that the children will know these might be real people or celebrities. Try not to pick anyone obscure. Ask 3 or 4 leaders to each come up with a short description of each person. Have the leaders describe the person to the children, one after another. See if the children can guess who they re describing. Hopefully four different descriptions will highlight an awful lot about the person being described! The Point: Just for fun, begins to think about people s characteristics. None DURATION: 10 MINS. MAKE IT! ACTIVITY WARMING UP Provide Lego or other bricks and ask the children to create something amazing! They should work alone and then present their creation to the group.

3 When all the creations have been shared, say that they are all amazing and unique and that today we re going to be thinking about the most amazing creator of all! The Point: For fun and to think about the process of creating. Lots of Lego or other construction type toys. DURATION: 15 MINS. OMNI... CRAFT IDEAS TEACHING TIME Although these words are difficult, and the children may not be able to remember them, this activity teaches the children three important concepts describing God: Omnipotent - almighty, all-powerful, able to do anything and everything, unlimited in power and authority Omniscient - complete and unlimited knowledge of all things, aware of everything, understanding everything Omnipresent able to be everywhere at the same time Start by explaining the words to the children. Divide the group into three smaller groups and give each group a big sheet of paper and paints or felt tips. Ask one group to draw pictures that explain Omnipotent, another group to do pictures to explain Omniscient and the third group to do Omnipresent. Make sure each group has a leader that can help the children to unpack the ideas. You might like to have some ideas of what to depict omnipotent could be symbols of royalty (crowns, etc.), omniscient might be lots of thought bubbles with situations inside, omnipresent might be lots of situations with God in every one. With younger children, you might get the leaders to draw the pictures and the children to paint or colour them. At the end of the activity, the children should know that omnipotent means all powerful, omniscient means all knowing and omnipresent means everywhere all at the same time. Ask the children what they think about God being these three things. The Point: To learn some important truths about God. Large sheets of paper, felt tips or paints. DURATION: 20 MINS.

4 BIG AND SMALL DISCUSSION TEACHING TIME Choose the child with most hair in your group and another child. Ask the second child to count the hairs on the head of the first child as you carry on with the activity. Keep checking back to find out how they re getting on. Give out the 7 creation cards and ask the children to put them in the correct order to show the story of creation. Read Genesis 1:1-2:4 to get the children started and then talk through the cards. Let the children help you as much as they can. Ask the children which is their favourite picture. What s their favourite thing that God created? Did God deserve a rest after all that? Ask the children to suggest the biggest things that God created make a list. Ask the children who created us. God did! That makes Him our Heavenly Father. Imagine having a dad who created the whole universe! Ask if anyone knows how many people there are in the world at the moment. There are about 6 billion! Can they imagine a number that huge? Now ask them to imagine how many people there have ever, ever been A number too big to count! Ask how the child counting hairs is getting on. Did they manage? Of course not! Say that the Bible tells us that God knows exactly how many hairs we have on our heads (Luke 12:7). He knows how many hairs there are on the heads of everyone who has ever existed! He knows how many ants there are and how many blades of grass and grains of sand Wow! So God created the huge things and the tiny things but the thing He is most interested in is us! How amazing is that? Ask the children to tell you what they have learned about God from this activity. The Point: To show the enormity of who God is! Creation cards (attached) printed out preferably on A3 paper, flip chart, marker pens. DURATION: 20 MINS. CREATION CARDS DISCUSSION TEACHING TIME DOWNLOAD 56CF01creationcards.pdf

5 ASK ME ANYTHING! DISCUSSION TEACHING TIME Ask the children some questions: What is 2+2? How do you spell cat? What animal does bacon come from? What s the capital city of England? How many people are there in your group? How many wheels on a car? Say that some questions are easy and we know the answers. Now ask some harder questions: Who invented electricity? How do you make perfect Yorkshire pudding? How many months is an elephant pregnant for? How many books are there in the Bible? Which country in the world has the most people living in it? Say that some questions are harder and not everyone can answer them in fact you might know the answers to the last set of questions. How can we find the answers to things we don t know? Say that there are some questions that only God knows the answer to. Can the children think of any questions like that? If you think the children will be able to listen well enough, you could read some bits to them from Job chapters 38 to 41 (not all of it!). Tell the children that God knows the answers to all these big questions but He also knows everything about us what we think and feel and do all day everyday! How does that make them feel? Say that God created them He is their Heavenly Dad and He loves them very much and He is never too busy to be interested in them and what they re up to. You might like to tell them that God knowing everything has a special word omniscient. The Point: To show that God knows everything! Paper, pens, Urban Saints Bible. DURATION: 20 MINS. CREATION KEY RINGS CRAFT IDEAS TAKE AWAY This activity will work well with the following Teaching Time activities: all. Remind the children that God created everything in the universe. Let them make a small model of something that God created out of the modelling material encourage them to be as creative as possible! The model should be no more than 3cm tall.

6 When the models are completed, carefully push a headpin through the middle of the bottom of the model to come out at the top. Try to get it pass through as much of the model as possible. Make sure that there is at least 1cm of pin poking out of the top. A headpin is like a long pin with a flat disc at one end to stop it going right through. Remove the headpin so that you leave the hole you have created intact. You will need to be very careful now that you don t squeeze the model and destroy the hole! Cook the models as detailed on the packaging and let cool. Now put the headpin back through the hole you created earlier, passing it from bottom to top. If there is more than 1cm of the wire showing at the top, cut off the excess. Now take a key ring finding (that s a key chain without any sort of decoration ideally it will be the key ring plus a bit of chain with a small ring at the end) and loop the extra wire at the top of the model through the small ring to attach it. The easiest way to do this is to use needle nose pliers available at craft shops. Make sure that you create the best loop you can try not to leave a gap. The Point: To give a take home reminder of all the amazing things God has created. Modelling material that can be hardened in the oven (e.g. Fimo), modelling tools, tin foil, key ring findings and headpins (both available at jewellery pliers (needle nose). DURATION: 20 MINS. NAMES OF GOD CRAFT IDEAS TAKE AWAY This activity will work well with the following Teaching Time activities: all. Give each child a small canvas and access to the paint. Print out the Names of God sheet and tell the group that the Bible tells us lots of different names for God. You could either give everyone a different name or let them choose it would be best if everyone did a different one, though. Ask the children to paint the letters of the name onto their canvas and to decorate them any way they like. If you think the children might struggle with this, you could draw the outlines of the letters on each canvas before the session and then just pass out the canvases for the children to paint. Make sure that the children understand and talk about what the different names might mean make sure the leaders have a heads up on this activity beforehand so that they can help explain! When the canvases are dry, you could put them up on the wall to look like bricks in a wall. The Point: To show the children how many different names God has. Small canvases (postcard sized), paint (acrylic or classroom), brushes, aprons. Names of God sheet -attached.

7 DURATION: 15 MINS. NAMES OF GOD SHEET CRAFT IDEAS TAKE AWAY DOWNLOAD Microsoft_Word 56CF01namesofgod.pdf GRASS HEAD ACTIVITY TAKE AWAY This activity will work well with the following Teaching Time activities: Big And Small. Remind the children that God knows how many hairs there are on our heads! Give everyone a pop sock or foot from a pair of tights (25cm-30cm long). Put a good amount of grass seed in the toe and then stuff the sock with potting compost until you have the size of head you want. Either tie a knot in the sock underneath the stuffing or fasten with an elastic band. Turn it over so that the knot or elastic band is at the bottom. You can form noses and ears by pinching some of the stuffing in the relevant places and putting small elastic bands round to hold them in place. Stick on googly eyes and put any other features on with a felt tip pen. Place the head in a saucer of water on a sunny windowsill the hair will begin to grow in about a week. Make sure your head always has plenty of water and don t forget to give him a haircut! The Point: To remind the children that God knows the number of hairs on our heads! Natural coloured pop socks (or tights), potting compost, rubber bands, grass seed, googly eyes, felt tip pens, small plant pot saucers. DURATION: 10 MINS. INDESCRIBABLE! WORSHIP AND REFLECTION RESPONSE Ask the children to find a comfortable space on their own and tell them that they re going to spend a few minutes thinking about the universe God created and about Him too. If you have pictures to show, encourage them to look at them. If not, ask them to close their eyes and imagine they can see what the song says.

8 Play the song. The Point: To give some space to reflect on God the creator. Recording of Indescribable by Laura Story (usually recorded by Chris Tomlin) and the means to play it. [Optional: some way to project or show still and moving pictures of creation.] DURATION: 5 MINS. GOD KNOWS EVERYTHING! WORSHIP AND REFLECTION RESPONSE Help the children to learn this song and then use it to worship God. If you wanted to expand this worship session, you could use songs such as Great Big God (Great Big God Vineyard) and God s Love is Big (Great Big God 3 Vineyard) and anything else appropriate. The Point: To respond to our amazing God. Recording of the song God knows everything from the album Down to Earth by Fischy Music ( or the sheet music and a friendly musician. DURATION: 10 MINS. YES, YES, YES! MEMORY VERSE RESPONSE Everything comes from him; Everything happens through him; Everything ends up in him. Always glory! Always praise! Yes. Yes. Yes. Romans 11:36 (The Message) Do this verse as a call and response: Leader: Everything Children: comes from him Leader: Everything Children: happens through him Leader: Everything

9 Children: ends up in him Leader: Always Children: glory! Leader: Always Children: praise! Everyone: Yes, Yes, Yes. The Point: To learn scripture. None DURATION: 5 MINS.