Bible Truth: (Philip and the Ethiopian Official) Acts 8:26-40 Social: Setting the Tone for the Experience (9:00, 10:15, 11:30) Who s There? Who s There? Activity Page; 1 for each prayer group Bible: Communicating God s Truth in Engaging Ways (9:15, 10:30, 11:45) Bible Presentation in Large Group Prayer (9:50, 11:05, 12:20) No supplies needed Dismiss (10:00, 11:15, 12:30) 1
Bible Truth: (Philip and the Ethiopian Official) Acts 8:26-40 Social: Providing Time for Fun Interaction (Prayer groups, 15 minutes) Welcome kids and spend time engaging in conversation and catching up. Get ready to experience today s Bible Truth. Before kids arrive, pray for each regular attendee by name. Pray for those who might visit your group for the first time. Praise God for creating us to be in relationship with Him. Thank Him for sending Jesus to provide a way for that relationship to happen. Pray for the kids who might decide today to start a relationship with Jesus. Ask God to guide those conversations. Who s There? What You Need: Who s There? Activity Page What You Do: Ask kids to sit in a circle on the ground. Tell them that you will whisper a message in the first person s ear and that person will repeat the message in the next person s ear. The second person will whisper to the third person, etc. Be sure to tell kids that they can t ask anyone to repeat the message; they have to keep going with whatever they heard the first time. When the message has reached the last person in line, have them say out loud what the message was that they heard. After the last person has said the message out loud, read what the original message was and see how close it was to the original. Repeat as time and interest allow. What You Say: It s funny how sometimes a message can get changed as it goes from person to person. Luckily some messages, like the ones in the Bible, never change. [Transition] Today in Large Group we are going to hear about a man who had a message he wanted to share with everyone. Lead your group to the Large Group area. 2
Bible Truth: (Philip and the Ethiopian Official) Acts 8:26-40 Bible: Communicating God s Truth in Engaging Ways (Large Group, 35 minutes) 1. Opener/Closer What You Need: Host Smart phone (or GPS device) 1-minute countdown GETTING READY 2. Bible Truth What You Need: Historyteller 252 Story 3. Worship What You Need: Power Praise Team Music and Sound Effects (SFX): Get Down Generation for You I Will Follow 3
Bible Truth: (Philip and the Ethiopian Official) Acts 8:26-40 Bible: Communicating God s Truth in Engaging Ways (Large Group, 35 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: Gadgets and Gizmos Theme Slide Host welcomes kids as they enter. Opener HOST: Hey, everyone! Have you been having unique weeks this summer? Well, of course you have, because we re all unique, which is pretty cool because that s what we re talking about all month long. But what exactly IS uniqueness? Well, this summer we re talking about it like this. CG: Uniqueness Slide Uniqueness is discovering who God made you to be so you can make a difference. Before we get into all of that, help me welcome the Power Priase team! Host joins the audience as Power Praise enters. Worship POWER PRAISE: I m excited you re here and that we get to sing together. Get on your feet. This is the last week, this month, which we will sing our new song called Rock This Planet. Let s sing it again. C mon, let s go! SFX: Rock This Planet Oh yeah. That was rocking. Keep that energy up. CG: Look at Me When I look around this room, I see God s creativity in action because He uniquely created each one of YOU. God s creation is so amazing. Let s praise Him for how we are made to be close to Him. Everybody sing this out. 4
SFX: Close Thanks again for having us. We will see you all next week. Host enters as Power Praise exits. HOST: I love how those guys use their unique gifts and lives to bring us closer to God through song and dance each week. Hey, speaking of unique, did you know there s a gizmo that helps you get to whatever unique destination you desire? It s true! How many of your parents use a Global Positioning System, better known as a GPS? Ya know, like when they look at a map on a designated GPS device, a smart phone, or even a watch! (Pause for response.) Yeah! Well, I use my GPS all the time! I probably could not have arrived here this morning if I did not have my GPS instructing me to turn left in 400 feet. We all follow something, and when I m driving down the road, I follow my GPS. It never lets me down! I sent your Prayer group Leader a GPS of sorts. I want to see just how well you can follow instructions. When I say so, I want everyone to group up around your Prayer group Leader. They ll look at the instructions on their phone, and like Siri, they ll tell you what to do next. Whichever group follows the most directions at the end of one minute wins! Everybody go ahead and get into your groups. Your Prayer groups should be sitting together, but if they aren t, give them a moment to get into groups. Leaders, go ahead and open the first set of directions. Everybody ready? You have one minute. On your marks, get set, go! CG: 1-minute countdown Time is up! Let s see who followed the most directions. Ask groups to raise their hands if they completed more than five, then more than six, until only one group has their hand raised. If you have a tie, congratulate all the winners. Following a GPS is a lot like following Jesus. Like a GPS, we can ignore the directions God gives us and not follow Him, trusting we know what is best. Now, that wouldn t be a good idea, as we ll end up in a place we don t really want to be. But you can choose to go your own way and disobey God or you can choose to follow Jesus. Let s hear more about his. Host exits as Historyteller enters. SETTING UP THE BIBLE TRUTH HISTORYTELLER: Hey, everyone! For the past two weeks we ve been discovering people in the Bible who used the unique way that God made them to do some pretty incredible things for Him! And today is no different. Today, we head to the book of Acts, in the New Testament of the Bible. In Acts chapter 8, 5
we find a man name Philip. And just wait until you hear about the adventure God had planned for him! Check it out. CG: 252 Story WRAPPING UP THE BIBLE TRUTH HISTORYTELLER: Like the Ethiopian official, God created us to know and follow Jesus too! But every day we disobey God and sin against Him. Because of our sin, we can t have a relationship with God. But God loves us so much that He sent Jesus, His perfect Son. And Jesus took the punishment that we should have had in order that we could be close to God. Jesus paid the price that we couldn t pay and when we accept Jesus as our Savior, we are forgiven of our sins and our relationship with God is fixed. It s like our Bottom Line for today. CG: Bottom Line Slide [Bottom Line] God made you to follow Jesus. That s right! God wants to have a forever friendship with you, and that relationship is possible because of Jesus! Let s pray and thank God for sending Jesus for us. Pray HISTORYTELLER: God, thank You for sending Your Son, Jesus, to pay for our sins. Thank You for accepting His sacrifice so that we can have a friendship with You. And thank You for giving us teachers who can help us to better understand Your love. We love You and we pray these things in Jesus name, amen. Raise your hand if you an offering today and we ll bring the bucket over to you. Host enters as the Historyteller exits. Closer HOST: Wow! Because Philip followed Jesus, God used him in an amazing way and made a big difference in the official s life. How cool would it be if God transported you from one place to another so that you could tell more people about Him? Like Philip, God wants to use you in a unique way to make a difference. But first, we have to choose to follow Jesus. Let s look at today s Bottom Line one more time. CG: Bottom Line Slide [Bottom Line] God made you to follow Jesus. When we put directions into our GPS apps, we trust that it is going to lead us to the right destination. Jesus ALWAYS leads us to the right place, and that s to a forever friendship with God. Because of Jesus, we have forgiveness from our sins, we can know God, and we can do good works for God. Let s take another look at our memory verse. CG: Memory Verse Slide For we are God s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do, Ephesians 2:10. That s why God made us! It s time for Prayer group, where you ll 6
have chance to talk more about what it means to follow Jesus. Have a great time together, and we ll see you next time! CG: Prayer Group Slide Dismiss children to their Prayer Groups. Pray and Dismiss (10 minutes) What You Need: No supplies needed What You Do: Instruct kids to stand in a circle and jog in place. Go around the circle and ask each kid to say one thing they are thankful to Jesus for. After a kid has had a chance to say something, ask him/her to sit down. When everyone is sitting down, wrap up with the prayer below. What You Say: God, thank You for sending Jesus to be the example for us of good works that glorify You. We are grateful to You for being so good to us and so amazing. Thank You for giving us the Bible to learn about You and about what Jesus was like so that we can be like Him. Please help us to remember this week that [Bottom Line] God made you to follow Jesus. Thank You for creating each one of us the way you did. Amen. As adults arrive to pick up, tell them to ask kids what leader they would want to follow and if they heard any silly messages today. 7