APRIL 2019 Elementary Journal
Parent Letter gk! Mission Statement: Partnering with parents to help kids take their next steps towards Christ. Dear Parents, At Grace we believe that what happens at home is more important than what happens at church. Did you know that the average family spends more time together in a car in one month than they will spend attending programs in the church for entire year? It s true! In fact, we have about 40 hours in a given year to minister to your child, whereas the average parent has 3,000! You are the primary influence over your kids in all of life, so it s also true that you are their primary spiritual influence too. Because of that, we believe that spiritual growth happens best when the church and the family are working together for your children. Grace wants to partner with you as a parent to provide tools and solid Biblical truth both inside and outside the church. One of the ways we would like to partner with you is through ParentCues. Parent Cues provide you with simple CUES throughout the week that remind you to pause and make the most of everyday moments. These are given to you each Sunday when you pick up your child. You can also find a digital copy on the Grace website (discovergrace.com). Another way we partner with you is through this journal. Each week we will be posting and emailing weekly devotions from the journal for kids to apply what they learned on Sunday and Faith Skill activities to help children learn and grow closer to God. This year we will go through the New Testament with your kids. Every week, we will learn how Jesus is the Light of the World! He has the power to guide us and transform us! We ll learn about His life and the people that He met along the way. But most importantly, we will learn how He came to be our Great Rescuer! -The gk! team
Faith Skills Faith Skills are spiritual disciplines that help us know and grow closer to Christ. These skills help kids own their faith and make it personal. gracekids! incorporates these skills into our weekly lessons and devotions found in this journal. HEAR LISTEN TO GOD THROUGH HIS WORD If you want to know someone, what s one of the first things you do? You listen. And when you listen to God, it helps you learn to trust Him more. PRAY TALK TO GOD God wants to hear from you. Because when you pray, it helps you connect with God. TALK SHARE YOUR FAITH As you get to know God more, you find that you want to talk about Him more. And when you talk about Him and listen to others talk about Him, it will help you see God in new ways. LIVE HONOR GOD WITH YOUR LIFE The more time you spend with God, the more you will want to honor God in big and small ways.
PRAYER Dialogue with God In gk! we use the Prayer Hand as a helpful approach for teaching kids to pray. It s a format that allows children to recall and pray in their own words the five distinctive elements of prayer.
week 4 Road to Emmaus Luke 24:13-35 bottom line: God s plan is bigger than what we see
Day 1 READ ROMANS 15:4 How long ago do you think your Bible was written? Without looking below, write your guess in this blank: The Bible was written over two thousand years ago, and in fact, some of the Old Testament was written over three thousand years ago! Some parts of the Old Testament predicted things that would happen a thousand years later when Jesus was born. The really mind-blowing part is how many people can share stories about how things in the Bible that were written thousands of years ago are changing their lives today. Talk about a big story that is still being told! Take a look at this timeline of God s story. On each section of the timeline, write down or draw any people or events that were a part of God s story (like Adam and Eve in the Magnificent Paradise section, or Moses and the Red Sea in the Lost Tribes section). Where do you think you fit? Draw yourself in. continued on the next page
Day 1 continued God has been revealing his Big Story since the beginning of time. And He has proved over and over again that He has a plan and we can trust in Him. But the best part of the story is when Jesus died on the cross for our sins and then conquered death! God s plan is bigger than what we see. God s plan is still being revealed today. That s right God s story doesn t end with the Bible. We are still a part of His plan today, and that means that everything that seems wrong now will one day be made right. What is something you read in your Bible that is helping you right now? How does it give you hope to know that Scripture was written so long ago? Thank God for sharing His big story with us! Thank God that He s still at work on His plan to make things right.
Day 2 READ ROMANS 8:28 Do you know the ending to the following movies? o A young clownfish gets captured by a scuba diver and taken away from his father. His father goes on a long adventure trying to find his son and bring him home. When he finds his son in a fish tank, he mistakenly thinks the young fish is dead and heartbroken, heads back home. What happens next? o A poor girl is transformed into a beautiful princess for the royal ball where she meets a handsome prince, but as midnight strikes, her clothes turn back to rags and she runs away losing one glass slipper. What happens next? Time yourself completing the maze below. Write your time here: continued on the next page
Day 2 continued Now, try it again, but this time you can look up at the first maze to see how things are supposed to go. Write your second time here: We don t always get to see the happy ending, like in the movies above, when bad things happen in our lives. Or we think life would be a lot easier if we could skip to the end, like we did with the mazes. However, one of the greatest things about our lives is that it s not about us it s GOD s story. We serve a God who sees the whole picture. He knows the whole story because He wrote it. And God s story is always way bigger and cooler than we could imagine. KNOW that you can have hope because God knows how the story goes!
Day 3 READ JOHN 14:1-3 What would your dream house look like? Draw a picture of it below. Don t hold back; make it look awesome with all the fun things you d want. Be sure to include all of the friends you hope to have as your neighbors! Have you ever moved houses? Or maybe your best friend moved away or a new kid moved into town and became your best friend! Whenever you move, you re hoping for a new start, maybe a better life, or at least a cooler house, right? The great news is that Jesus is preparing the best home you could ever imagine in Heaven. He said it s huge with lots of rooms. And the best part? That s where Jesus will live too! Can you imagine having Jesus as your neighbor? This is the best ending to God s Story. This is the New City. And when you trust in Jesus you get to be a part of God s Bigger Story! This is something that gives us hope. Read Jeremiah 29:11. God has promised to give us hope and a future. Have you seen the movie Toy Story? The character Buzz Lightyear is known for jumping off of high places and trying to fly while shouting, To infinity and beyond! Even though we will never be able to fly, we can learn a lot from Buzz Lightyear s believing. continued on the next page
Day 3 continued Get a piece of paper and make a paper airplane. Write hope on the side of it, and then head outside and send it flying. As you watch the airplane fly through the sky, think about the hope for the future that God has promised us! KNOW that God has promised to give you a strong hope and a future! Thank God for the promise of heaven.
Day 4 READ JOHN 16:33 Think about a time that Jesus took care of something big for you and your family. Or think about a time that something good came out of something bad. Draw it below: All throughout the Bible, you can read about times that God provided or God had a plan in a bad situation. Match the before and after photo s of Bible Stories below: continued on the next page
Day 4 continued All throughout the Bible we can read stories of real people who faced tough things. David faced Goliath, Joseph s brothers sold him as a slave, and Jesus died on a cross and was buried in a tomb. But in every story we read, God was faithful. He had a plan. He was faithful to help David defeat Goliath. He was faithful to turn a bad situation for Joseph into something that was not only good for Joseph, but also good for his brothers, his family, and a whole country. And God was faithful to Jesus. Even though Jesus had never, ever done anything wrong, He was killed. He died for our sins. God planned for this to happen. But God brought Jesus back to life! That s the best part of the Story! God s plan is bigger than what we see. And because of what Jesus did on the cross, we can be forgiven. All we have to do is put our faith and trust in Jesus and ask Him to forgive us. When something bad or confusing happens, Think about what you DO know about God. Think about God s faithfulness to people like Joseph and David; and think about the fact that because Jesus died and came back to life, we can ALWAYS have hope.