Gratitude is with You... Always

Gratitude is with You... Always Bible: Gratitude is with You... Always (Give Thanks In all circumstances) 1 Thessalonians 5:18 Key Question: What s keeping you from being thankful? Bottom Line: Always be grateful. Memory Verse: Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 NIV Life App: Gratitude letting others know you see how they ve helped you. Basic Truth: I can trust God no matter what. Social: Providing Time for Fun Interaction (Small Groups, 10 minutes) Welcome kids and spend time engaging in conversation and catching up. Get ready to experience today s Bible Truth. Before kids arrive, take a few moments to pray for them. Pray that your students will be open about difficult things and vulnerable with each other. Ask God to comfort them in the midst of any hard situations they have been through or are currently experiencing. Pray for wisdom in knowing how to answer and comfort your students when they share hard things. Get Your Head in the Game Made to Move: an activity that increases the oxygen in the brain and taps into the energy in the body What You Need: 2 sets of THANKS cups, 14 ping-pong balls, masking tape What You Do: Divide the group into 2 teams. Create a line on the floor with masking tape and instruct teams to stand behind the line. Line up a set of THANKS cups in front of each team, about 7 feet from the line. (Cups should be lined up so they spell the word THANKS.) Each team tries to bounce one ball into each of the cups. o If a ball misses the cup, the student should go to retrieve it while his or her teammate takes a turn. o There should be a continuous flow of ping-pong balls bouncing toward the cups as o teams try to be the first team to land a ball in all 6 cups. To increase the chaos level even more, more than one teammate can be bouncing a ball at a time. Note: Depending on the skill level required, you may need to adjust the distance of the teams to the cups. Wrap Up and Say: Just like the ping pong balls were always moving toward those cups, we should always be grateful for what we have. But we all know that doesn t always happen like it should, right? Let s head to Large Group and figure out how to change that! 2

Lead your group to the Large Group area. Gratitude is with You... Always Bible: Gratitude is with You... Always (Give Thanks In all circumstances) 1 Thessalonians 5:18 Key Question: What s keeping you from being thankful? Bottom Line: Always be grateful. Memory Verse: Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 NIV Life App: Gratitude letting others know you see how they ve helped you. Basic Truth: I can trust God no matter what. Bible: Communicating God s Truth in Engaging Ways (Large Group, 30 minutes) GETTING READY 1. Opener/Closer What You Need: Host Pen for each Small Group Sheet of paper for each Small Group Timer 2. Bible Truth What You Need: Communicator 252 Movie 3. Worship What You Need: Power Praise Team Music and Sound Effects (SFX): At the Top of My Lungs Walk by Faith Good, Good, Father 3

Gratitude is with You... Always Bible: Gratitude is with You... Always (Give Thanks In all circumstances) 1 Thessalonians 5:18 Key Question: What s keeping you from being thankful? Bottom Line: Always be grateful. Memory Verse: Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 NIV Life App: Gratitude letting others know you see how they ve helped you. Basic Truth: I can trust God no matter what. Bible: Communicating God s Truth in Engaging Ways (Large Group, 30 minutes) Engage kids hearts through a dynamic and interactive Bible Truth, worship, and prayer experience in a Large Group setting. SFX: Play high-energy music as kids enter. CG: refocus Theme Slide Welcome Host enters. Host has lots of energy as he or she welcomes everyone to [Name of Environment]. Host is relatable and inviting. Host can talk about something that happened culturally throughout the week like a big sports game, movie opening (Justice League, Thor, Wonder, Coco, etc.), a viral video on YouTube, etc. (NOTE: As this is November, Thanksgiving break is November 23. Talk about anticipating the holiday break, what you can t wait to eat, what you re thankful for, etc.) Host tells them how excited he or she is that they re there and briefly runs through what they can expect. This is especially helpful for first-time guests to make them feel like they know what s happening. Host transitions to Worship. HOST: Hey, everybody! I love that we are all here together. Help me welcome the Power Praise team in this morning. WORSHIP SFX: At the Top of My Lungs CG: Walk by Faith SFX: Good, Good Father Power Praise team exits as Host retakes the stage. Host transitions to the opening game. 4

Opener HOST: What s up, party people? Welcome to The Base! My name is [Name of Host], and I want to thank each one of you personally for being here with me today. Host points at random kids in the audience. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you, and you, and you and... you know? This is an incredibly inefficient way to show my gratitude for each of your individual presences instead, how about I show off how thankful I am by playing a game with all of you? I call it [Name of Host] s Photo Hunt! This is how it s going to work. I m going to pass out a sheet of paper and a writing utensil to each small group. Once every group has their resources and has written their small group s grade level at the top of their page, I m going to put a picture on the big screen. Upon first glance, this picture may seem totally normal... but upon second, third, and even fourth glance, you may notice that some things are not quite right. The job of each small group is to write down as many things that are wrong with the image as they can find. At the end of sixty seconds, each group will pass in their papers, and I ll make some poor intern cross-reference your answers with the actual image. We ll determine the winner, and the victorious small group will get an extra special prize, courtesy of yours truly! Does that make sense? (Allow response.) Excellent! Let s get these papers passed out, then, and we ll commence to commencing! SFX: Upbeat Game Music CG: Photo Hunt Image Host passes out paper and pen to each small group. Game starts once each group has its supplies. The game will last 60 seconds. And that s time! Good hustle, everyone, good hustle! Let s pass up all those papers to the front, and I ll get someone checking them out posthaste! Historyteller enters to figure out winner. Host stalls briefly while results are tallied. WOW! The results are in, and it was CLOSE! Let s give it up for our winner, [Name of Winning Small Group]! Great job to all our Small Groups spotting what was wrong with our image! Let s welcome [Name of Historyteller] to the stage for an enlightening Word from God. Communicator enters as Host exits. INTRODUCTION COMMUNICATOR: I ve been blessed enough to have lived a pretty fortunate life. I ve got a roof over my head, food on my table, and a Netflix subscription that allows me to watch [Name of Popular Kid s Show on Netflix] wherever and whenever I want. But even though I ve had it pretty good, I m no stranger to a Bad Day! And if you couldn t tell by my inflection, that s a Bad Day with a capital B and a 5

capital D. See, there are regular old bad days where one or two things go wrong... and then there are capital B, capital D Bad Days where absolutely everything goes wrong. But I would rather not share that with you today, instead, I think we ll watch this video and save a chat for later. CG: 252 Movie APPLICATION COMMUNICATOR: Paul was pretty clear when he said, Give thanks in all circumstances happens. (1 Thessalonians 5:18, NIrV) Of course, this is easy if everything is going perfectly. But life is hardly ever perfect, huh? And when things are bad, it can be really, REALLY difficult to find things to be grateful for... but if you refocus your attention on what God s done for you and how He s working in your life, you ll find there s always something to be grateful for... in any situation... even if you re having the worst Bad Day in the history of Bad Days and can t find anything to be the slightest bit thankful for, you can take a step back and remember that you are loved by God. If you are a Christian, you always have something to be grateful for Jesus. It s important to remember Jesus died on a cross to pay for all our sins... sins that keep us from being close to God the Father. When Jesus took the punishment for our sins, He gave us the opportunity to have a relationship with God. He did this because He loves us. His love for us should keep us grateful in all circumstances even when we ride the bench during the football season... even when we have to spend winter break with Great Aunt Ethel... even when we are laughed at by all of our friends. When life throws everything it has at you, you can be thankful that God loves you unconditionally, no matter what kind of day you re having. I think that s something to be grateful for, don t you? LANDING COMMUNICATOR: You re going to be talking more in your small groups today about what it means to be grateful and how you can show gratitude and thanks even when life s giving you nothing but the proverbial lemons. As you head to Small Group, think about this question... CG: Key Question 4 Slide What s keeping you from being thankful? It s a bit of tough one, but I know you and your group are up for the challenge. I ll see all of you back here next week... same time, same place! And for now, let s pray and ask God to help us refocus when we re having a bad day and find ways we can be grateful. Let s pray. Communicator leads group in a prayer related to what they just heard then dismisses them to small group. SFX: Play high-energy music as the kids exit. 6

Groups: Creating a Safe Place to Connect (Small Groups, 15 minutes) Create a safe place to connect and learn how the Bible Truth applies to real life experiences, through interactive activities and discussion questions. 9:00 & 11:30 Bible Story Extension [Talk about God Bible Review] Made to Imagine: an activity that promotes empathy and facilitates biblical application through role-play and reenactment What You Need: Verse Cards, Thessalonians Cliff Notes Activity Pages, markers, labels, Bibles What You Do: Explain that the book of 1 Thessalonians is a letter written to the people of Thessalonica. Hand out the Thessalonians Cliff Notes cards to a few of the kids. Ask them to share some facts about 1 Thessalonians. (Listed below so you can make sure the students cover all the facts.) o Paul visited Thessalonica and taught people about Jesus. o Paul, Silas, and Timothy wrote 1 Thessalonians as a letter to the churches in the city of Thessalonica though Paul was the lead writer. (1 Thessalonians 1:1) o The letter was written to continue sharing the Good News of Christ that Paul had started during his visit to Thessalonica and to encourage the new believers (new Christians) as they faced persecution and bullying. o In his letter, Paul encourages the believers in Thessalonica to continue living a life pleasing to God and to continue to hope, as believers, that they can be with God now and forever. (1 Thessalonians 4:1) o The letter shares some examples of ways of to live a life pleasing to God. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18) Give each kid a Verse Card. The cards each have a different translation of 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18. o Tell students to read their verses a few times to familiarize themselves with them. o Then instruct them to find someone else with a different translation. o Challenge kids to share their verses with each other and to identify similar words or phrases in the various translations. Kids can write these down on their cards. o After kids have compared 2-3 translations, discuss what words were similar among the translations. o Were there any words or phrases that were found in all 4 translations? Ask kids to define the phrase, in all circumstances. Encourage the kids to use the Verse Cards to find synonyms for the phrase, in all circumstances, e.g. always, never stop, without ceasing, constantly. Direct the kids to use the label stickers to create a logo that represents something to remind them to always be joyful, never stop praying, and to give thanks in all circumstances just like it says in Paul s letter. Encourage kids to share their logo creations with the group. Invite kids to make multiple copies of their stickers to share with friends. 7

10:15 Discussion Questions [Talk about God Bible Review] Made to Connect: an activity that invites kids to share with others and build on their understanding What You Need: Bibles or use the Verse Cards from the previous activity What You Do: Read 1 Thessalonians 5:18 and ask: o What does it mean to believe in Jesus? o Why would believing in Jesus be a reason to thank God? o Why do you think God wants us to thank Him? o God asks us to always give thanks. What if you don t feel like giving thanks? o Can you give thanks without feeling grateful? o What does being grateful in the good and the bad and the ugly show others about God? Note: Be aware of kids who may still have questions about what it means to believe in Jesus. Assure them it is all right to have questions about Jesus and that asking questions is a great way to learn who Jesus is and what it means to believe in Jesus. Encourage them, as they process information and come up with questions, that they can they can talk to you or to someone they know who is a believer, e.g. a parent or grandparent or friend. All Service Times Pray and Dismiss (5 minutes) [Pray to God Prayer Activity] Made to Connect: an activity that invites kids to share with others and build on their understanding What You Need: Verse Cards What You Do: Remind kids that Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians to encourage and guide the followers of Jesus as to how God wants us to live. Ask kids to read their Verse Cards silently to themselves as if it was a letter Paul was writing to them. Ask: o o Is there something in the letter that stands out to you? Is there one thing you can do this week to be joyful, to remember to talk to God, or to remember to give thanks? Encourage students to pray quietly, asking God to help them do their one thing this week. After giving them a moment to pray silently, pray and send them out. Dear Jesus, today we talked about how You want us to give thanks in all circumstances. It s hard to do sometimes, especially when we are angry or frustrated or when things don t go the way we think they should. But we know even when it is hard, we can always thank You for Jesus and that You love us so much You have given us a way to be with You now and forever. Help us to always be thankful and show the world that, in all circumstances, we have a lot to celebrate. In Your name we pray, Amen. Pass out Parent CUE cards as adults arrive for pick-up. 8