47. Hair or No Hair, God Wants You!

Transcription

1 47. Hair or No Hair, God Wants You! The Course Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 12:11 Does God give you abilities? Judges 13-16; 2 Kings 2; 1 Corinthians 12 The Goals As a result of this lesson the children will: 1. Know God can use anyone to serve Him. 2. Feel they are able to serve God. 3. Go and serve God. The Equipment Room For the following lesson you will need: 1. Three coaches to play the following: a. A person dressed up like a talk show host [The goofier the better: for a male talk show host, a very outdated suit and clashing clothes would be a good choice. For a female host, an old skirt and mismatched blouse would work well. Make sure their hair appears crazy as well.] b. A man dressed up like Samson [If possible, he should be a large, strong man. He could wear a bed sheet with a hole in it for his head, a rope tied around the waist, a long wig, dark sunglasses, and sandals.] c. A man dressed up like Elisha [If possible, he should be a bald man or else wearing something on his head to make it appear that he is bald. He could wear a bed sheet with a hole in it for his head, a rope tied around the waist, sandals and a staff.] 2. Two Bibles 3. Scripts [Give to actors in advance] 4. Visual #1-6 [As PowerPoint] 5. Advance preparation needed to promote this activity. Send home a flyer announcing the Crazy Hair Night at least two weeks in advance of the activity. 6. Advance preparation is needed for 1 Extra Action and 8 Champions Only adaptations. The Warm-up Promotion: Announce at least two weeks in advance that there is going to be Crazy Hair Night. The children and the coaches are to wear their hair in a crazy manner. They can use hair spray, temporary hair dye, a wig, or any other hair accessories to make their hair as crazy-looking as possible. Décor: Decorate the front of the room to look like a talk show set. Have a desk for the talk show host to sit at, with a coffee mug sitting on it. Line two chairs up next to the desk, facing the audience. Christian Service: See GCS-3 in the Olympian Christian Service Manual. Assign children to tasks as they arrive. Hair or No Hair, God Wants You! Theme Night 615

2 Scripture Memory Review Game: Volleyball Balloon. Divide into two groups. Put a line on the floor between the two groups and use a balloon instead of a volleyball. If you have a gym, use a regular volleyball net. The first team puts the balloon in the air and must say the verse complete with the reference before passing it to the other team. Only three hits are allowed per team. Opening Ceremonies Songs: Make Me; Be a Missionary [See Olympian CD Tracks 4 and 10.]; O Where is my Hair Brush? Bible Lesson Review: You will need: 1. Painter s tape to make Tic-Tac-Toe grid on the wall 2. Five x s made of construction paper 3. Five o s made of construction paper Tic-Tac-Toe: Tape a grid on the wall using painter s tape. Divide your group into two teams. Each team will have five qualifiers. Olympians will participate if they fit the following qualifications. Pull qualifications from a hat to build excitement. You are looking for someone on BOTH teams to fit the following statements: 1. An Olympian who is talented in serving and has demonstrated this talent by cleaning a certain part of your home this week or working with a parent on a home project. [The specifics can be explained by the Olympian.] 2. An Olympian who is talented in speaking a foreign language. [Have Olympian demonstrate.] 3. The Olympian who has the most siblings talented in sports [Demonstrated by counting the number of sports teams the siblings play on.] 4. An Olympian who is talented in playing the piano. 5. An Olympian who is talented in humor and can tell the funniest joke. [Have Olympian tell joke.] These qualifiers then play tic-tac-toe while answering review questions from lesson. Supply big x s and big o s made from construction paper. Reward the winning team. The Coach s Corner ADAPTATION > 2 Small Group ( 2) Coach: We have a special treat. We are going to watch the making of a live talk show. Everybody, give a warm welcome to your host! [Talk show host runs onto the scene in a very energetic manner. The coach introducing the host exits the scene.] Thank you! You re too kind. Howdy! Do we have a special show for you! As you can tell by my awesome hairdo, I like hair. You are going to meet two of my favorite characters from the Bible who have some pretty crazy hair stories. [Host sits down at the desk.] My first guest tonight is someone you all are probably familiar with. He was a strong person, at times, and he had long hair. Everyone give a warm welcome to Samson! [Everyone applauds. Samson enters the room, shaking the children s hands and waving. Have him sit in the chair next to the host.] It s great to be here. Samson, you are a very interesting guy. You are a Nazarite. Can you tell us what that means? Hair or No Hair, God Wants You! Theme Night 616

3 Pretty much, it means I am set apart or chosen by God for a special job. [Display Visual #1.] I can t eat or drink certain things that are unclean, and I can t cut my hair. And being a very special Nazarite, God gave me great strength to fight for Him and for Israel. Great strength, huh? [flexing his muscles and looking proud] Oh, yeah. I could bench press 1,500 pounds without even breaking a sweat! Well, I heard that someone cut your hair once and that didn t turn out too well for you. What happened there, Samson? I don t really like to talk about it. But since you asked, here s what happened: I told a bad woman [looks directly at the children, to make the point] that I should not have been friends with, about my amazing strength. I also told her that if my hair were cut, I would lose my strength. And why, exactly, did you do that? [Looking at his feet and talking low, as if embarrassed] She was pretty. Sounds pretty crazy to me! Let s see what the Bible has to say about it. [Host reads Judges 16:4-5.] So this woman you loved, Delilah, was asked by your enemies to find out how to stop your special strength from God. That s right. [Hanging his head in shame.] Wow. Let s see what happens next. [Host reads Judges 16:18-21.] So they shaved your head. That s right. My hair gave me strength, and when I lost my hair, my strength was gone. But worse than that, God had left me. My enemies gouged out my eyes and took me as their prisoner! [Points to his sunglasses] Yikes! That had to hurt! Yes, it did. But while I was in prison, my hair grew back, and when it did, my great strength returned. And because of that, you were able to serve God one last time, right? That s right. One day the Philistines, who were enemies of God and of Israel, were all gathered together worshiping their false god Dagon, and they brought me in to make fun of me. So I prayed to God to give me back my strength so I could kill my enemies. Sounds interesting! Let s see what happened. [Host reads Judges 16:28-30.] God heard my prayer, and He used me to get rid of many of Israel s enemies. Samson, you ve been through a lot in your life. Anything you think we can learn from your life? I will tell you something I learned: you need to serve God. I got into a lot of trouble because I chose not to listen to God s plans for my life. When I didn t listen to God, it was easy to have the wrong friends. Being around wrong friends made it easy to make bad choices, and lose the great strength God gave me. Hair or No Hair, God Wants You! Theme Night 617

4 ADAPTATION > 6a Mostly Girls So, we see that even today having the wrong friends can keep us from serving God. [Display Visual #2.] But I think we can also learn another lesson from Samson s life. [Display Visual #3.] Even when we have made bad choices in the past, we can ask God to forgive us and begin to make good choices and serve God. Thank you, Samson. You re welcome! [They both stand, shake hands, then Samson exits and takes a seat in the room.] Okay, that was great, wasn t it? Now for our next guest. ( 6a) He was a prophet in Israel, and did a lot of amazing miracles. [Display Visual #4.] A prophet is a person who took a message from God and delivered it to the people. He was God s voice for man at a specific time for a specific purpose. Everyone, give a warm welcome to Elisha the prophet! [Elisha enters the room shaking everyone s hand and waving. He shakes hands with the Host and sits next to him.] Elisha: Elisha: Elisha: Elisha: Elisha: Elisha: Elisha: Elisha: Elisha, thank you for joining us. It s great to see you. Thank you. It s great to be here. Why don t you tell us about your bald head? Not much to tell. My hair fell out one day. But I used to have beautiful hair. Everyone liked it. Really? No, not really! But I did have hair when I was younger. I heard someone made fun of you one time because you were bald. Well, just once. But bears took care of them. What! We have to hear more about this. Turn with me in your Bibles to 2 Kings 2:23. [Host reads 2 Kings 2:23-25.] That s crazy. These guys made fun of you and God sent two bears to maul them? Yes. See, I was trying to serve God, and they were making fun of my bald head. They had no respect for God or for God s servants. But you went on to do many great things for God, didn t you? You know it. I love serving God! Let me read for you one of my favorite stories about what God did. [Elisha reads 2 Kings 4:1-7.] Wow. That s pretty cool. God used a miracle to help that poor woman and her children. And I got to be part of it! That s just one of the reasons I love serving God. Elisha, do you have any words of wisdom for us? Well, all I can say is, Serve God. He is worth it. I love serving God. Hair or No Hair, God Wants You! Theme Night 618

5 Thank you for your time, Elisha. [Display Visual #5.] I think we can learn something today from the life of Elisha. We should choose to serve God, even if others make fun or pick on us. That is what Elisha did when those guys made fun of his bald head while he was serving God. God watched over Elisha. Well, that s all the time we have for today. I hope you enjoyed hearing from these two men who chose to serve God, whether they had hair or not. [Bible Coach continues the lesson.] Thank you. Let s give our host, Samson, and Elisha a hand! [Everyone applauds. Host and Elisha exit, waving at the kids.] God used Samson and Elijah in special ways to serve Him. But I hope you know that you can serve God, too. You don t have to be a really strong man like Samson or perform miracles like Elisha. God wants us to serve Him no matter how big or small we are.[display Visual #6.] God uses different kinds of people with many different gifts to serve Him. In fact, 1 Corinthians 12 tells us why God uses different people with different gifts to serve Him. Turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 12, and we ll take a look at it. [Read 1 Corinthians 12:14-20] Imagine if you woke up one morning and your feet had turned into ears! You wouldn t be able to walk. Then the next morning you woke up and your hands had turned into ears, too! You wouldn t be able to pick anything up, or write, or do many other things. That would be silly, wouldn t it? We need our feet and our hands just the way they are. If we had too many of any one body part, it would be a bad thing for us. ADAPTATION > 1 Champions Only In the same way, God gave the church many different people that can do many different things. Can you imagine if all of your coaches decided that all they wanted to do was teach the lesson? That would mean no one would take care of Personal Training Time and no one would be here to run games, either. You would have to listen to the lesson over and over again until the end of Olympians. God gave your coaches different abilities to do all the jobs it takes to run Olympians, not just to teach the lesson. Every part of the church runs that way. Not everyone is a pastor or a musician. Yet everyone who has asked Jesus to be their personal Lord and Savior can serve Him, including you. ( 1) God gives Christians many different abilities, and we should all use our abilities to serve God and do things that please Him. Running the Race ADAPTATION > 9 Challengers Only ( 9) Mostly Unchurched Children Maybe you do not know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. That is the first thing you need to do to serve Him. See, we all do things that are wrong. That makes us sinners, and because we re sinners, God says we deserve to be separated from Him forever. [Read Romans 6:23] But God loves us so much He sent His Son, Jesus, to die on the cross to pay the price for our sins. After three days in the grave, Jesus arose and is alive! Whoever accepts Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior can be saved and go to Heaven to live with Him forever! [Ask the children to bow their heads and close their eyes.] If you would like to know more about how to make Jesus your personal Savior, would you please stand up and go to the back of the room so one of your coaches can talk to you about how to do that? [Give the children time to respond to the invitation.] Mostly Churched Children You could serve God by helping your parents at home, helping the coaches clean up after Olympians, and in many other ways. What are some of the abilities God has given you to serve Him? What are some things you can do right here in our church to serve the Lord? [Allow children to respond.] What are some ways you can serve in your community where you live or at school? [Allow children to respond.] We also have Christian Services that are available for you to do. They are listed in your Student Book so I want to encourage you to look over the list and choose one that you will do this week. Your Personal Training coach can give you the directions during Personal Training Time. Now let s put this lesson into action! [Close in Prayer.] Hair or No Hair, God Wants You! Theme Night 619

6 ADAPTATION > 6b Mostly Girls Now, if you know Jesus as your personal Savior, are you serving Him with your life? I know none of you has great strength like Samson or ( 6b) can perform miracles like Elisha, but God made you the way you are and wants you to use the abilities you have to serve Him. You could serve God by helping your parents at home, helping the coaches clean up after Olympians, and in many other ways. If you d like to use your abilities to serve God, could you raise your hand so we can pray for you? Thank you. In a few minutes we are going to our Personal Training Time to talk about ways we can serve God this week. Let s pray. [Close in prayer.] Personal Training Time ADAPTATION > 8 Champions Only ( 8) 1. How did the Bible characters in our lesson serve God? 2. What are some ways you can serve God? 3. What is one thing you are willing to do to serve God this next week? The Big O vent Tunnel Roll [See Big O vent Mega CD, Page 388.] Explain to the children that just as they had to work together and help each other in the game, they need to help and serve others. Christian Service: See GSC-11 for instructions. Put the lesson into practice by making cards or another Group Christian Service project that the children would enjoy. Closing Ceremonies Look for ways to serve the Lord this week. It could be at home by doing some extra chores, at school by helping others, or in your neighborhood. You can also invite your friends to come with you to Olympians! Lesson Adaptation Explanations 1 2 Extra Action: A few weeks before Olympians, take pictures of various people at your church serving God. This would include missionaries, pastors, office staff, janitors, those helping clean up, Olympians doing Christian Service Projects, etc. Put the pictures in a PowerPoint presentation or print them out to show the children during Olympians. Small Group: If you do not have enough people to do the skit, use Visuals #1 and 7. Hold the corresponding visual up when the person is talking or have an older child hold the picture and read the script. 6a Mostly Girls: [Have a woman play the part of Mary, the sister of Lazarus. She should have long hair and wear traditional Bible attire: sandals, a robe or sheet with a hole in the middle for the head and Hair or No Hair, God Wants You! Theme Night 620

7 tied around the waist with a rope or belt. Remove the section in The Coaches Corner regarding Elisha and add this segment. This will effect some of the answers to the Review Questions.] Mary: Mary: Mary: Mary: Mary: Coach: My next guest is a woman with hair she likes to put on other s feet! She s the sister of Martha and Lazarus, and a great friend to Jesus. Everyone, please give a warm welcome to Mary! [Everyone applauds. Mary enters the room, smiling and waving to the children. She sits in the seat next to the Host.] Thank you for having me here today. Mary, it is a pleasure, and let me say, I love your hair. Why, thank you! Now you have an amazing story in the Bible about your hair and some perfume? That s right. I had some very, very expensive perfume that was made from the very best spices in the Middle East. I had been saving it for a special occasion and, well, I can t think of a better occasion than when the Lord is visiting! Let s look at this story together. It s found here in John 12. [Host reads John 12:1-8.] Mary, that s an amazing story. Well, this is Jesus we re talking about! He is worth so much more than what I was able to give Him. I just wanted to show how much I loved and appreciated Him. It was nothing compared to what He did for me. I wish more people appreciated Jesus the way you do. Too many of us are so busy we never take the time to really give honor and praise to Jesus. It must have been amazing to see Jesus when He was here on earth. It was. We should all be excited and look forward to seeing Him someday if He is our personal Savior. Thank you for coming on the show today, Mary. One lesson we can learn from Mary is that we need to stop and take time to praise Jesus and show Him how much we appreciate Him. We can give Him our very best, can t we? Also, when Mary poured the perfume on Jesus feet, everyone was able to smell it, weren t they? Your praise to Jesus should be like that: you can praise Him quietly, to yourself, but Jesus also likes it when we praise Him to others and tell others how great He is. Thank you. Let s give our host, Samson, and Mary a hand! [Everyone applauds. Host, Samson, and Mary exit, waving at the kids.] Wow, that was really cool how Samson the mighty man and a woman named Mary served God. God used them both in special ways. But I hope you know that you can serve God, too. God wants us to serve Him no matter how big or small we are. God uses different kinds of people with many different gifts to serve Him. In fact, 1 Corinthians 12 tells us why God uses different people with different gifts to serve Him. Turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 12 and we ll take a look at it. [Read 1 Corinthians 12:14-20] [Continue The Coaches Corner at Imagine if you woke up one morning and your feet had turned into ears! ] 6b Mostly Girls: You may not have costly perfume like Mary, [Continue Running the Race at but God made you the way you are and wants you to use the abilities you have to serve Him. ] Hair or No Hair, God Wants You! Theme Night 621

8 8 9 Champions Only: Have the children put into practice what they have just learned by preparing a Christian Service opportunity. Use The Olympian Christian Service Manual and turn to the Group Encouragement Ministry Opportunities section [See GPS #1-7] for ideas to use. Challengers Only: Divide the children into groups of three or four children per group. Have each group plan out a skit showing how they can use their God-given abilities to serve God. Have them present their skits to the rest of the Olympians. Hair or No Hair, God Wants You! Theme Night 622

9 Hair or No Hair, God Wants You! Visual #1 Theme Night 623

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