Elijah is Fed by the Ravens 1 Kings 16:29-17:9 July 1, 2012 ON OUR PLATE TODAY Kids will understand: The story of Elijah being fed by ravens. That God provided and Elijah was obedient. That we should be obedient to God and trust Him to provide for us. The next 13 lessons fall under the fun heading of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Each one of the lessons has food mentioned in it in some way. This would be a great time to start a food drive. We recommend the kids bringing in canned goods and trying to line them along the baseboards throughout the room or down a high traffic hallway (where it will be visible to adults). Or, you could assign each grade or age a specific item to collect: crackers, macaroni, soup, etc. ACTIVITY - VIDEO Beforehand, download the following video, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives: Super Duper Weenie submitted by KipnisStudios from the hit TV show, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. video download http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3xpuyzulp8 The show highlights restaurants around the country, and this clip features a place called the Super Duper Weenie in Connecticut. You can show the entire clip, but we suggest just up to 3:25. Would you like to eat at that restaurant? What is your favorite restaurant? Would you like to eat there every single day, for the next year? What about for the next 20 years? If you could put any kind of toppings on a hot dog, what would you put on it? It s cool to get in the kitchen and see how food is made; it gives you a different perspective on the food. Today, we re talking about a Bible story where food is delivered, and the main theme of the story is God providing food through an unexpected source. Copyright 2010 KidzMatter Ministries Inc. All Rights Reserved. 1 www.kidzmatter.com
GAME Form two teams (boys against girls works well here, because it s easy to see and remember who is on whose team). This is a fun and easy game for a group of any size. Choose one team to go first, and that team will have 1-3 smugglers. The smugglers will be given a small cracker. All the members of that team will walk around the room, secretly handing off the crackers to each other, and the other team will have one minute to try to guess who the smugglers are; but it will be difficult to guess, because the person with the cracker will change as they hand it off to another person. small crackers Tell the team with the smugglers that they should ALL try to pretend like they are passing something off to each other, to throw the other team off. They will hold their hands out to each other, pretending to give and accept something small from someone else. The other team, the one who is guessing, will have only 60 seconds. (If you have a countdown you can put on your screen that would be good.) Three persons from the guessing team will tap someone to see if they have the cracker in their hand. If someone gets tapped, that person must stop and open their hands and show the person who tapped them. If there is a cracker in it, the guessing team gets a point. Each guesser will only get one guess, so they need to choose wisely. Play again, with the other team being the smugglers. Play several rounds to see which team gets the most correct guesses. After the game, collect all the crackers. In this game, it was hard to see who was smuggling the food, and sometimes, the people who had the food were very unexpected. In today s Bible story, someone got food from a very unexpected smuggler. Even if you tried to guess who delivered the food, it would be difficult, because it is such an unexpected source! Let s get ready to hear this great story of God providing through an unexpected food smuggler! BIBLE ACCOUNT Choose 6 students (ravens) to hold pieces of white bread, torn into bite-sized pieces. Whenever the leader says, The ravens brought food to Elijah, the ravens will walk throughout the crowd and drop pieces of bread into the kids mouths. They can eat the pieces that don t fall on the floor. white bread bird whistle, optional The kids will enjoy this, but remind them ahead of time that they can t fight over the food, and they still have to listen. When the leader whistles (into a bird whistle, if you have one) to call the birds back up front, the kids have to sit still and completely quiet. To start off today s Bible story, we will learn about the king of Israel during a time when Israel was experiencing a lot of division. Everybody was unhappy with somebody! The king s name was King Ahab, and quite frankly, he was a pretty bad king one of the worst that Israel had ever had! He married a woman named Jezebel, who was known for pagan worship. Don t know that word? Well that means she worshipped fake gods in weird and crazy ways, and this frustrated God big time! God didn t want His people to worship those pagan fake gods. He wanted them to worship HIM! King Ahab made the people disobey God so much that God got angry! I mean really angry! But there was one good man a man who knew God and listened to God and God spoke to Him. He was a prophet, because He spoke God s Word to the people. His name was Elijah. Elijah got a message from the Lord and went to King Ahab. Elijah said to the king, As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, the God I serve, there will not be dew or rain in the next few years, except at my word. God was going to punish Israel by bringing a drought! Absolutely no rain for the next few years! I bet King Ahab started to get scared! 2 www.kidzmatter.com
When the rains stopped and the ground got dry, King Ahab realized that Elijah was telling the truth. He wanted to find Elijah, so he sent people looking for him everywhere. He even sent messages to neighboring countries, asking if they had seen Elijah. God knew what King Ahab was up to, so He sent Elijah somewhere to hide from the king. God told Elijah to go east of the Jordan River, to a brook called Cherith. God told Elijah that he would have water to drink there. God also told Elijah that He had a secret plan to get food to Elijah. So Elijah obeyed God, and went east of the Jordan River to the brook called Cherith. When he got to the brook called Cherith, some big black ravens flew up and delivered some food to Elijah! Send out your ravens to deliver food to the students. After about 30 seconds, blow the whistle, calling the ravens back up to the front. Elijah was so thankful that God was providing for him. He drank from the brook, and he ate the food. And every time he got hungry, the ravens came and delivered food. Send out the ravens again with the bread, and blow the whistle after about 30 seconds. The ravens brought him bread and meat every morning, and bread and meat every evening. After many days of this, the brook called Cherith dried up, because there was no rain. Oh no! What would Elijah do? Don t worry God still had a plan to take care of Elijah. He told Elijah to go to a house of a widow, where he would be fed. God always took care of Elijah, and God will take care of you, too! OBJECT LESSON Pretend that you re outside working in the yard in the middle of summer. The sun is hot and you re sweating from the work you re doing. Pretend that you ve just eaten some salty crackers and pretzels. In fact, let s have some people demonstrate this for us. Choose 5 kids to help you. Give each of them several salty snacks and pretzels to eat. But, don t offer them a glass of water. salty crackers pretzels glasses of water You ve eaten the salty snacks. But, now I d like for you to start doing jumping jacks. Come on keep jumping! What is one thing you want right now, more than anything else? A drink of water? I think that s exactly what you d want! Does it feel like I m punishing you, because I m not giving you anything to drink? Imagine that you couldn t have any water, because there wasn t any water. Not from the fridge, not from the faucet, not from the bottled water in the store, or even the lake. You would do almost anything for water, wouldn t you? What do you think the Israelites did without rain for several years? They were probably DYING for water! That s called a drought, and that is what God brought on when He got upset with the people for worshipping pagan gods like Queen Jezebel did. The people had to go other places for water, searching everywhere for just a sip of water. KNOW YOUR BIBLE In today s Bible story, we learned about King Ahab, who was known for being a very bad and disobedient king. God wasn t happy with him, because he chose to marry someone named Jezebel, who did not follow God. In fact, Jezebel got King Ahab to do things to make God very angry, like worship pagan gods! Pagan gods were pretend gods that the people worshipped. The two that King Ahab and Jezebel were known for worshipping were called Baal and Asherah. Say Baal. Now, say Asherah. The kids will look up 1 Kings 16:32-33. He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him. 3 www.kidzmatter.com
The people made a huge altar and then bowed down to a big wooden image called the Asherah pole. God had told His people not to worship anyone except Him, so it upset God that the people were worshipping the pretend gods, Baal and Asherah. God wanted to be the only God, the one true God, of His people. The Bible says that King Ahab and Jezebel were some of the worst leaders in history, because of their disobedience to God. GAME Pour a supply of oyster crackers in a bowl that is easily accessible to everyone. You may even want to have several bowls, if you have a large group. Any even number of kids can play at a time, depending on the number of appetizer tongs you have. The kids will work (play) in pairs. One person in each pair (representing Elijah) will lie on the ground and hold the bottom of a 3-ounce paper cup in their mouth. The other person in each pair (representing a raven) will fly over to the bowl of oyster crackers with his appetizer tongs and pick up a cracker. He ll fly back to his partner and try to drop the cracker in the cup his partner is holding. BUT, they have to hold the tongs at their shoulder height. If it misses, the raven must fly back for another cracker and try again. 3-ounce paper cups oyster crackers appetizer tongs bowl The first pair to get 3 crackers in their cup will yell, Elijah has been fed! Play will stop for everyone. Then, the pair who fed Elijah will answer one of the questions below about today s Bible account. Either switch positions or choose new pairs to participate. Continue until all the questions have been answered. Questions What was the name of the King in the Bible story? (King Ahab) What was the name of the King s wife? (Jezebel) Why was Jezebel so bad? (She worshipped pagan gods.) Why was God angry with King Ahab? (King Ahab disobeyed God and made other people worship the pagan gods.) What were the names of the pagan gods? (Baal and Asherah) What was the name of the prophet? (Elijah) What did Elijah tell King Ahab? (there would be a drought, and that it would not rain until He said so) Where did God tell Elijah to go when the drought was coming? (to a brook called Cherith, east of the Jordan river) How did Elijah get food, when he was by the river? (Ravens brought it to him.) What did the ravens bring Elijah? (meat and bread) How often did the ravens bring the bread and meat? (every morning and evening) When the brook dried up, where did God tell Elijah to go? (to a widow s house) OBJECT LESSON Has anyone ever seen a raven before? They re big black birds that are found all throughout the US. They look like crows, but they re a lot bigger and smarter than crows. They have a pointed beak and large wings. Show the PowerPoint slide of the raven. Powerpoint slide of raven Ravens are mentioned several times in the Bible, but in today s Bible story, we are reading about a time when they worked for God by bringing food to Elijah. The interesting thing about this story is that ravens were considered unclean in the Bible times. Read Leviticus 11:13 & 15 aloud. These are the birds that are detestable to you. You must never eat them any kind of raven. God gave the Israelites a list of animals that were considered unclean that they were not supposed to eat. Ravens were on that list, meaning it would have been unacceptable to take food FROM the ravens, too. 4 www.kidzmatter.com
Ravens were considered a worthless bird. They were unclean birds and couldn t be sacrificed. Elijah was pretty upset with the Israelites who were supposed to be God s people. He was fed up with them for disobeying. God used the ravens to remind Elijah that even though the Israelites seemed worthless at the moment, there was still something of worth in them. Even though the ravens seemed to be a worthless bird, God could still use them to do His will. OBJECT LESSON Hold up the two plants for the kids to see. What do you think happened to this plant (the dead one)? It could have been that the plant got too much water and drowned, but if we feel the soil, we can tell that this particular plant is dead because it did not get enough water. Do any of you have any plants at your house that look like this dead one? dead potted plant live plotted plant The live plant looks great, because it has been given exactly the right amount of water! You know what is cool about this? Even though we (humans) may be bad sometimes at remembering to water plants in our houses, there are a lot of wild plants that grow just beautifully all over the world. Do you know who waters them? God does. God remembers to water all the trees and wild flowers and bushes and grass all around the world. He knows exactly how much water to give them not too much, not too little. He worked out a system for water to evaporate and come back down in the form of rain, to give the thirsty plants a drink. God takes care of the wild plants; He took care of Elijah in today s Bible story, and He will take care of you. God used a raven an unexpected and considered worthless bird to take care of Elijah. When God wanted to punish the people in the Bible, He made a drought happen, and it didn t rain for a long time. Then, the land started to look a lot like this dead plant, with dried up soil. But God DID take care of His people again. He DID send them rain. While they were without rain, though, they turned their minds and hearts back to God. MESSAGE (show slide #1) Worship God alone. PowerPoint slides Do you worship God? You might say yes, because we sing worship songs at church. But, do you worship God with how you live? Do you thank Him first when something good happens? In this Bible story, we see what God feels like when people worship something other than Him. King Ahab and Jezebel worshipped false gods, and it made God jealous. But, did you know that it s not bad for God to be jealous? He wants us to love Him; He created us to worship and love Him alone. (show slide #2) Exodus 34:14. Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. In everything you do, look for ways to worship God. Look for ways to tell Him that you love Him. Look for ways to rejoice in Him and thank Him. How can you worship God this week, in a way other than singing worship songs at church? Turn to a friend and share one way. 5 www.kidzmatter.com
(show slide #3) God is faithful. Psalm 33:4. For the word of the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all He does. Elijah didn t just LEARN that God was faithful when the food arrived; he already believed that God is faithful or he wouldn t have gone to the King or the river at all. Elijah had tremendous trust in God s faithfulness. And Elijah was faithful to God. He didn t worship other gods. He didn t look for another way to get food or water. He trusted God, and God was faithful. God was faithful to Elijah. Do you live out your faith in God in your everyday life? You can take a step of faith, and one step at a time, walk in complete faith as you trust God. God always has been faithful to you, and God always will be faithful to you. (show slide #4) God will provide. Philippians 4:19. And my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus. What is something that you worry about? Turn to the person next to them and tell them the top two things you worry about every day or every week. There are all kinds of things we worry about. God wants us to trust that He will provide. He will meet all our needs. He knows what we need. He is looking out for you. God doesn t want you to spend time worrying; He wants you to put your trust in Him and know that He will provide for you. Elijah trusted God enough to walk down to a brook and sit there while the birds brought him food. That sounds a little ridiculous, doesn t it? Do you think if God told you to do that, that you could go sit at a brook and wait for some birds to bring you breakfast? Elijah had a radical trust. Do you trust God that much? If you do, then you don t have to worry. (show slide #5) God wants obedience. Psalm 119:145. I cry out with my whole heart; Hear me, O Lord! I will keep Your statutes. What do you think this cry out means? Does it mean that you cry like when you fall off your skateboard and rip your knee open? Does it mean cry like when you don t get your way and you re trying to make someone give you what you want? Sometimes we cry out when we want something so badly that we just can t keep it inside. What s going on inside you what you want more than anything comes out in a sound of crying out. God wants the cry of your heart today to be an enormous desire to worship and obey Him. Elijah showed major radical obedience, by taking a step of faith, to follow where God led Him. What does God want from you? He wants you to follow Him and obey Him. He wants you to cry out to Him to worship Him to trust Him to do what He tells you to do. ACTIVITY - VIDEO Beforehand, download the YouTube video clip called Angus Buchan: Spreading the Hope of Jesus submitted by theofficial700club. This clip is over 8 minutes long; you can stop it after 2.39, or you can keep watching. YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_u6upoegb8&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=plfa2e327 CF8610CA3 6 www.kidzmatter.com
This is the true story of a man named Angus Buchan, who lives in South Africa. He has a wonderful testimony about how he became a Christian, and God transformed his life and showed Himself to Angus through many miracles. But one miracle, in particular, stood out. The story of that miracle became a movie called Faith Like Potatoes, based on this true story. Angus was a potato farmer, and farming potatoes is one of the hardest crops to farm, because you plant them in the ground and pray for rain. With most other crops, you can see what they re going to be like when they re ready, but with potatoes, you just have to have faith that they will turn out. Angus planted the potatoes, even though it hadn t rained in a long time and the ground was dry. Everyone told him it was crazy to plant potatoes. But he trusted God and was obedient to Him as he prayed for rain. At the end of the potato farming season, when it was time to see the harvest, Angus believed there would be potatoes in the ground. God did provide big and perfect potatoes! The movie goes in depth about Angus and his life, and it s a great movie to watch with the family. Angus is still alive today and preaches everywhere, sharing His testimony of God s great faithfulness. We can learn from Angus and his faithfulness to God. Just like Elijah, Angus trusted God to provide. And did God provide? Oh yes! You can also show a trailer for the movie. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8yazrsst8c PRAYER What do you depend on God to provide for you? Even if it s not food, we can still count on God to provide for us. Share some examples with the people next to you. When we need patience, God may provide us with an extra good night s sleep, so we can be more patient the next day. When we re feeling a little grumpy, we can ask God for joy, and He will show us things we can be joyful about. Our needs are not always things we can hold in our hands. In the Bible story today, God used birds to provide; and today, God can use anything to provide for you. He might provide through the grocery stores, or through your parents, your church, your friends, through nature, through music, through Scripture. watercolors paint brushes water small cups paper towels large pieces of art paper Kids love to paint and use different mediums to express themselves artistically. We can talk with God and show our heart to Him through art. The kids will use watercolors to paint a picture of what it means for God to be their Provider. (Keep cups of clean water and paper towels within their reach.) They can paint a picture of a time when God provided for them, or maybe it s a picture of something they trust God to provide for them. The kids will then use their pictures as they verbalize their prayer. Prayer today will be a time of thanksgiving and commitment to trust God as their Provider. ACTIVITY This game could get messy, but the kids will enjoy it. Give 10 students each a pair of the non-latex rubber gloves. Spray their hands lightly with adhesive spray and put a plate of graham crackers at one end of the room. The kids will pass the crackers to each other, one by one, down the line. It will be difficult to pass them when everyone s hands are covered in sticky spray. What was so hard about this game? It would have been easier to get the food to the next person if you didn t have sticky spray on your hands. And sometimes, it s difficult the way God chooses to provide for us; sometimes it s not in the way WE would want. Elijah probably had a different way in mind. Maybe he would have rather had God just shoot down a hamburger and milkshake from heaven every day, but God did it HIS way. God does not promise that He will non-latex rubber gloves spray adhesive graham crackers 7 www.kidzmatter.com
work things out the way we have envisioned in our minds. He doesn t promise that it will be in the expected way. He doesn t promise that we can sit there and it will come to us; there may be some work hard work involved. No matter what, though, we can always trust Him to provide what we need. Our job is to trust Him and obey Him, even if it s difficult. TAKE HOME REMINDER Give each child a craft feather to take home. The feather is a reminder of the birds that brought Elijah food, and a reminder that we can trust God to provide for us. We only need to be obedient and trust Him, and He will take care of us. feathers Matthew 6:25-26, Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? In this verse, God talks about how He will take care of us. He says that He takes care of the sparrows by providing them with food, and He promises to give us what we need and take care of us. This feather is a reminder to you that God is watching out for you, and that God will provide for you. BLESSING May you trust God as He provides for you. EXTRA ACTIVITIES MUSIC You are provided with some great Yancy songs for this quarter: All I Need is You and Every Good and Perfect Thing. During worship, encourage the kids to focus on thanking and praising God for all the ways He has provided for them. For more information about Yancy, go to her website at yancynotnancy.com. DVD music downloads SCRIPTURE MEMORIZATION Psalm 34:8-9 (NLT) Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him! Fear the Lord, you His godly people, for those who fear Him will have all they need. Beforehand, make a copy of the memory verse sheet at the end of the lesson for each team. Cut the pieces of the scripture passage apart on the lines indicated. Place each scripture set at one end of the room. Each team should have a pair of appetizer tongs and a black feather boa. At the signal, the first person on each team will lay the black boa across their shoulders, from hand to hand, pick up the appetizer tongs, and fly to where their team s scripture papers are. They will pretend to be ravens, picking up one piece of paper with their beaks (tongs) and returning it to their team. Once they return, they will pass off the feather boa and the tongs to the next person, who will fly down to retrieve another piece of the scripture. appetizer tongs black feather boas memory verse sheet at end of lesson PowerPoint slide of verses As the slips of paper are delivered, the team members will work together to put their verse in order. Once it s in order, they will read it out loud. 8 www.kidzmatter.com
ACTIVITY - SKIT Beforehand, make three signs that say: One week later Two weeks later One month later (When the scene opens, actors are playing basketball.) basketball poster board large marker 2 actors Dude, you re pretty good at basketball! Thanks! I love this game. I think I started holding a basketball before I started walking. I love it, too. I play all the time with my brothers and sisters at home. Hey, you know what we should do sometime? We should go get pizza at Ted s Pizzeria. They have the BEST pizza in town! Have you been there? That sounds so cool. I would LOVE to go. Let s do it! Ok, I ll call you and tell you when. I gotta go now, see you later. (They exit. Hold up the sign that says One week later. ) Hey! What happened? You never called about going to the Pizzeria, and I called and called you. Why didn t you get back to me? I m sorry! I meant to call you, but I had something I had to do with my family this weekend. Whatever. Let s play a little basketball right now. Ok, that s fine. I understand. So, why don t we go to Ted s Pizzeria THIS weekend instead? How does Friday night sound to you? That sounds great! Ok, I ll call you. (They exit. Someone holds up the sign that says Two weeks later. ) (Actor #2 walks up with a basketball and sees Actor #1. Immediately, Actor #2 seems upset.) Actor#1: Hey, I m sorry I never called about going for pizza! I had to work on a project, and couldn t call to tell you that I couldn t go. Sure. Seriously! You gotta believe me! We will go THIS weekend for SURE. I promise. 9 www.kidzmatter.com
Actor#2: Actor#1: Actor#2: Actor#1: For real? Yes, I promise. Ok, good. We ll go this weekend. Don t forget to call me! Ok, I will. See you on Friday! (Actors exit, and someone comes out holding a sign that says One month later. ) (Actor #2 is dribbling the basketball alone when Actor #1 walks up.) Hey! (silence) What s the matter? Aren t you talking to me? (silence) Ok, I get it. I never called, and we never went for pizza. Well, sometimes things just come up! Whatever. I guess I shouldn t believe you anyway. I can t trust you. Well, I don t know what else to say. Sorry. This skit is a good example of a situation that s probably happened to all of us. Is there anyone in your life who constantly lets you down? And then, you start to think that person is not telling the truth, no matter what they tell you? Is it easy to believe that person? No, it s not easy to believe them. Why? Because they aren t being faithful and honest. If someone consistently lets you down over and over and over again, it s hard to trust them. But GOD is the opposite of that, because He always comes through and provides for us over and over and over again. He will prove His faithfulness, just by being Himself. God is always faithful, and you can trust Him. 10 www.kidzmatter.com
SCRIPTURE CARDS FOR MEMORIZATION Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him! Fear the Lord, you His godly people, for those who fear Him will have all they need.