LESSON 5 Can I Count on God? LESSON OBJECTIVES: STUDENTS WILL LEARN THAT: God is trustworthy. God keeps his promises because of his love, his never-forgetting, and his power. We can trust God even when others are not faithful. God gives us many stories in the Bible that show us his trustworthiness. God s best kept promise is sending us Jesus! TEACHER PREPARATION: Watch Week 5 video on DVD Disc 1. Read the Bible story (Genesis 6-9:17) and the Memory Verse (Isaiah 26:4). Other verses for your study: Exodus 34:6, Joshua 21:45, Psalm 9:10, Psalm 28:7, Psalm 108:4, Isaiah 26:4, Acts 13:23, Titus 1:2, Hebrews 10:23, Hebrews 11. Print Exit Ticket cards (1 per child). Print and cut apart memory game cards (1 set per pair/ group of kids). Print out comic strip template (1 per child). Make a comic strip model for the Your Turn activity. Hang Week 5 banner. SUPPLIES: (Boldfaced materials are provided with the curriculum, and you can find them in the Week 5 Folder on Print Materials Disc 1. The videos are located on Disc 1 (DVD) and Disc 3 (DVD-Rom).) Clive & Ian s Wonder-Blimp of Knowledge Week 5 video Exit Ticket Cards (1 per child) Memory game cards (1 set per pair/group of kids) Comic strip template (1 per child) Bible(s) Art supplies for Your Turn activity: pencils, colored pencils, markers Cards or Paper Slips for Banner Banner for Week 5 SCHEDULE: INTRO (5 Minutes) VIDEO (15 Minutes) BIBLE STORY (15 Minutes) MEMORY VERSE (5 Minutes) YOUR TURN (20 Minutes) EXIT TICKET (5 Minutes) Lesson 5/Overview 1
INTRO: (5 minutes) SAY: Who remembers what we learned about God last week? That s right he is more powerful than any superhero! Do you remember what God did to save his people from the Egyptians? Who can tell us? Let s try to say the memory verse from last week together. SAY: Today, we re going to think about a different question. Here s our question: Can I count on God? In other words, does God keep his promises? Is he trustworthy? Let s see what Clive and Ian discover when they ask this question. VIDEO: (15 minutes) Supplies Needed: Week 5 Video, Banner for Week 5, Cards or Paper Slips Watch the Week 5 Video from Disc 1 (DVD) or Disc 3 (DVD-Rom). SAY: Now let s see what truths about God we learned from Clive and Ian s exploration! Break into small groups to discuss the video, with a leader for each group. As the kids talk, write truths directly on a couple of cards. The cards will go on Week 5 s banner. Make sure these questions are addressed as kids recall their knowledge: Q: Parents and friends can disappoint us sometimes does God? A: God will never leave us or betray us. He may not give us what we want, and we may feel disappointed, but we can trust that his ways are best, even when we don t understand. Q: Does God keep his promises? A: Yes, God always keeps his promises. Q: How do I know that God keeps his promises? A: The Bible shows many examples of God keeping his promises to his people. Our biggest example is God sending his promised Son to us! BIBLE STORY: (15 minutes) Supplies Needed: Bible(s) or Storybook Bible(s) Read Genesis 6-9:17. Note: You can ask a volunteer or volunteers to read the story. This is a longer story, so you may want to abbreviate it based on the time and attention needs of your students. You also may want to read the story of Noah from a children s Bible, depending on the age of the children in your class. Discuss this question in small groups or as a whole class: Q: How does the story of Noah and the Ark show that we can always trust God? A: God keeps his word to Noah and his family to protect them in the ark. He also makes a covenant with Noah and the rest of the earth to never destroy the earth again with water the rainbow is the sign of this promise and God s trustworthiness. MEMORY VERSE: (5 minutes) Remind the kids that God tells us that we can know him by knowing his word and hiding it in our hearts. Today s verse is: ISAIAH 26:4 Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock. Read today s verse over with the kids a couple of times out loud and talk about it for a few minutes. Talk about how the idea that God is a rock shows that he is steady, firm, unchanging (unlike a pile of sand), and reliable. You may want to write the memory verse on a poster board or white board for the kids to refer to during the game. MEMORY VERSE GAME: Split the class into two groups. Group 1 will say Trust in the Lord forever, and place their hands over their hearts (for their heart trusting in God). Group 2 will then say, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock and pound one hand that s balled up in a fist into the other hand s open palm (fist = rock). Then all say, Isaiah 26:4 together. Have them do this a few times and then switch lines. For some fun, have them say their lines in silly accents/voices or speed up/slow down their lines. Lesson 5/Overview 2
YOUR TURN: Supplies Needed: Memory Game cards (1 set per group), Comic Strip Templates (1 per child), Art Supplies PART 1: (10 minutes) SAY: God knows it is so important for us to know that he is trustworthy. He has given us many stories in his Word to show us that we can trust his promises. We are going to play a game that will teach us God s promises and how he has kept them for so many people, including you and me! SAY: Who has played the game Memory? The game we ll play today is just like Memory. We ll call our game Remember which is a great name for our game also because God tells us in his Word to remember his promises and his works! SAY: I am going to put you in groups, and each of your groups will get a set of Remember cards. Make sure your set of cards is shuffled. Then set them out upside down on the table in rows. Have the person who is the youngest go first. Then go to your left. The first person to go will turn over 1 card. That card will either be a promise or the way God kept that promise. For example, 1 card might be, God promises to protect Noah and his family in the ark and the partner card is After 40 days, Noah s ark lands on dry land. So, now the 1st player will turn over a 2nd card. If the 2nd card is a pair to the 1st card, you get to keep the pair and go again. If not, it s the next person s turn. You will keep going until your group has found all of the pairs. Look especially for the card pair that is about Jesus it s God s best-kept promise for us! SAY: Think of a time God showed that he was trustworthy in your life - maybe he answered a prayer, or he promised to forgive your sin because of what Jesus did on the cross. Illustrate that story in your comic strip. Have you gone through any of these situations? You may have started a new school and asked God for friends. You may have been sick or had a sick family member and asked God to heal him or her. You may have felt scared after a nightmare, and asked God to be present and help you be less afraid. Note: If some kids are struggling with coming up with examples from their lives (or their family members lives), have them illustrate Jesus coming to earth as God s greatest fulfilled promise. The event boxes might go something like this: 1. Adam and Eve sin, and God promises a savior to come and rescue his people. 2. God sends his Son, Jesus, to Mary and Joseph. 3. Jesus grows up, loving God and others perfectly. 4. God raises Jesus from the dead, breaking the curse of sin. EXIT TICKET: (5 minutes) Supplies Needed: Exit Ticket (1 Per Child) As kids finish their Your Turn projects, have them try to write answers to the questions you talked about today. If you are out of time, tell students to discuss the questions on the Exit Ticket with their parents and share the pantomime you learned for the Memory Verse. Put kids in pairs and have them start their Remember Game. After the students have found all of their pairs, spend a couple of minutes talking about God s fulfilled promise in sending Jesus to us. When we place our trust in Jesus, our sins are forgiven, God is always with us, and we know we will always be with him. PART 2: (10 minutes) SAY: Did you know that God doesn t just keep promises to the people whose stories are in the Bible? He keeps his promises to us too! And he wants us to look at our lives and see how trustworthy he s been to us. This doesn t mean that he gives us everything that we want. We may feel disappointed sometimes. But God tells us that we can know he is always with us and working for us, even when we don t see it or don t understand. And we can always talk to God through prayer and tell him how we feel. Hand out Comic Strip templates and explain how the kids are going to tell the story of God s trustworthiness in their lives. Each child will receive a blank comic strip with 4 boxes. (Show them the example you have completed.) Jellyfish One, LLC grants permission to churches, schools, and other licensees to edit Clive & Ian s Wonder-Blimp of Knowledge Church Edition materials to fit their requirements and needs. These resources are intended to be downloaded and printed for use by the subscribing entity only and may not be electronically transferred or duplicated by other non-subscribing entities. Any unauthorized reproduction of this material or incorporation into a new work is a direct violation of U.S. copyright laws. Scripture quotations are from the ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version ), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. 2015 Jellyfish One, LLC. All rights reserved. Lesson 5/Overview 3
BUCK DENVER & Friends present... CLIVE & IAN S WONDER-BLIMP of KNOWLEDGE WEEK 5 Remember Game Church CURRICULUM God promises to give a child to Abraham and Sarah. Abraham and Sarah have a son, Isaac. 1 2015 Jellyfish One, LLC.
God promises to never destroy the earth again by a flood. God has not destroyed the earth by a flood. 2
she shall call his name Immanuel Isaiah 7:14 God promises to provide a savior. God sends us Jesus. 3
God promises to lead the Israelites out of slavery to a new and free land. God saves his people from the Egyptians and gives them the promised land. 4
God tells the shepherd boy David that he will become King. God protects David from Saul and David becomes king over Israel. 5
Jesus tells his disciples that he will die. Jesus dies on the cross for our sins and then comes back to life 3 days later. 6
Jesus promises that he will send his Spirit to his followers. The Spirit comes upon Jesus followers in Jerusalem. 7
God sends an angel to tell Mary that she will have a baby. Mary has a son Jesus! 8
BUCK DENVER & Friends present... CLIVE & IAN S WONDER-BLIMP of KNOWLEDGE WEEK 5 COMIC STRIP: God Is Trustworthy! Church CURRICULUM 1. 2. 3. 4. 2015 Jellyfish One, LLC.
(Write in the space to the right.) ISAIAH 26:4