VBS 2014 Agency D3 Missions Rotation Purpose Statement This two-hour plan is designed to prepare mission leaders who are using LifeWay s VBS 2014 Missions Rotation Leader Guide. Resources to Collect, Prepare, and Copy Resources to Collect VBS 2014 Missions Rotation Leader Guide Insert items found in the leader guide VBS 2014 Music for Kids CD Dark glasses Brightly-colored sheets of copy paper 5 straws (per pair of conferees) Glue sticks (one per pair of conferees) Large piece of cardboard Black marker Scissors Masking tape (or other wall adhesive) 2 noisemakers (or bell or buzzer) Box of toothpicks Box of graham crackers 2 bags of mini marshmallows 2 bags of jumbo marshmallows 2 bottles of glue 2 large pieces of construction paper 5 paper bags (small or large, depending on your random objects) 5 random objects Resources to Prepare Secure insert items on focal walls around the room. Print the VBS Scripture on the large piece of cardboard with the black marker. Gather the toothpicks, graham crackers, marshmallows, bottles of glue, and construction paper on a table. Place each of the 5 random objects into a paper bag and tape opening shut. 1
Cue the Missions Decorating Video on the laptop at: http://blog.lifeway.com/vbs2014v2/downloads/videos/ Resources to Copy Copy the Mission Mind Boggler (Handout #1) onto brightly-colored paper and cut in half. Make enough copies for each conferee (one copy will make two handouts). Copy Bible Study Laser Field (Handout #2) (one per conferee) Focal Table Description Display the leader guide on the focal table. Gather special agent items, such as spy glasses, briefcase, camera, notebook, badge, watch, carabiner, magnifying glass, and pens. Consider using the VBS 2014 Tablecloth. Room Setup Description Arrange chairs in two (or more) rows of semi-circles. At the front of the room, place the focal table and TV/DVD. On another table, place the CD player and the toothpicks, graham crackers, marshmallows, and glue. Decoration Suggestions Create the atmosphere of a map room with large maps, monitors, and other high-tech gadgets set up around the room. Consider some of the recommendations found on page 5 of the leader guide. Audio Visual Needs CD player TV/DVD player Laptop computer (with CD-ROM) Projector (to connect to laptop) Large screen (if unable to project onto focal wall) CD player Internet connection Teaching Steps 1. Welcome and Intro Activity (10 minutes) Play the theme song, Agency D3 as conferees arrive. Stand at the door with dark glasses on and give each conferee a Mission Mind-Boggler. Say: This is your secret mission. Introduce yourself. Say: Welcome to Agency D3! This year in VBS, we will be special agents investigating and examining eyewitness reports, physical proof, and biblical accounts to discover the truth about Jesus and defend who He is. Ask the conferees to meet one other special agent in the room. They should exchange names, hometowns, and one question they have about God, Jesus, or their faith. Give the conferees a minute to complete this. Gather the group back together and ask a few volunteers to repeat the answers they shared with one another. Thank them for sharing and explain that every believer has questions no one has all the answers. So it is easy for adults to understand how children and preteens also have questions about God, Jesus, or 2
their faith. In the Missions Map Room, the kids will be digging deeper to find true answers to their questions and meeting missionaries around the world who help others understand and defend their faith. Refer to the Mission Mind Boggler riddle and read it aloud: I m an important part of the mission but not found in the clues. You can find me in riddles, and also in books. You put me in your luggage, but not in a suitcase. What am I? Ask conferees for any guesses to this riddle. After a few moments of discussions, reveal that the answer is the double letters found in mission, riddles, books, and luggage. Explain that the leaders will begin each day in the Map Room with a riddle like this one. 2. The Bible Content (20 minutes) Say: Agency D3 challenges kids to discover the truth, decide what they believe based on facts and evidence, and defend their faith. That is the motto: Discover. Decide. Defend. The Scripture verse for the week is from 1 Peter 3:15. Let s read it together. Display the verse poster and say the verse together. Ask the conferees to find a special agent partner for another secret mission. Distribute a copy of the Bible Study Laser Field, a glue stick, and 5 straws to each pair of special agents. Say: The Mission Map Room at Agency D3 helps kids connect the biblical truths that they are learning throughout the week in the Evidence Vault (Bible Study). Each day focuses on discovering the truth about Jesus. We are going to review the daily Bible content together and highlight some of the activities and mission stories from each day that you will be teaching during VBS. Instruct the pairs of agents to match the Day/Title in column one to the Bible Story/Reference in column two by gluing on the laser beams (straws) to connect the correct matches. Distribute extra copies of the Mission Rotation Leader Guide as necessary to assist the special agents in this mission. (Be sure to gather them back up.) Give the agents about 5 minutes to complete this task. Play God s Son while they work. Call the group together to share the Bible content matches they made. Ask someone to share the match for Day 1. Refer to page 3 of the Missions Rotation Leader Guide to know the correct Bible content. Share the Summation for Day 1: Kids can know that the evidence proves that Jesus is God s Son. (The Summations are on the first page of each day in the leader guide.) Remind conferees that the Summation is what the kids should know when they leave VBS each day. Continue with Days 2-5. Display the interior cover of the leader guide. Say: This gives a brief explanation of sharing the gospel with kids and The ABCs of Becoming a Christian. Read this page before VBS and refer to it as you teach. 3. Daily Activities (60 minutes) Say: Let s go through the leader guide Days 1 to 5 and highlight some of the activities you ll be doing with the kids. Refer to the World Map (item 1) Say: Martha Moore started a college ministry called Connexxion in Germany. The McGibbons are church planters in Canada. And Abraham in Spain also works with the Connexxion ministry. The kids will be getting to meet and learn about these missionaries from IMB and NAMB. Let s watch the first mission video. Play Day 1 Part 1 DVD segment. Group the conferees into two teams and guide the teams to opposite sides of the room. 3
Challenge them to create a super awesome agent name for their team. Ask the teams to select one of their players to be the ringer. Give that person on each team a noisemaker. Explain that you will read a survey question that has previously been asked to a large number of people. The teams must name the answer that was the most popular among those who were surveyed. The first team to ring in with their noisemaker gets to answer first. Then the other team may answer. The team with the most popular answer gets a point. Begin to ask the questions from Survey Says Questions and Answers on page 24 of the missions rotation leader guide. Keep track of the teams points. When the activity is completed, congratulate the winning team! Ask: What did you learn about the people from the surveys? Do you remember from the DVD why Martha Moore sent out surveys? Listen to responses. Say: If you prefer not to show the DVD during Missions, you may read the mission stories. They are located on page 21 of the leader guide. But let s watch the second segment of the DVD for Day 1. Invite the conferees back to their seats. Play Day 1 Part 2 DVD segment. Explain: Each day before the kids leave the Map Room, you will challenge them with a Secret Service Mission. This is an easy activity they can accomplish each day before returning to VBS. You may announce what it is or allow the kids to watch the video. Let s watch the video of the Secret Service Mission #1. Play Day 1 Part 3 DVD segment. Say: Another awesome part of this year s VBS is the Mobilize Me movement. Refer to the Mobilize me Send Cities Map (Item 2). Explain: There are 259 million people in the U.S. and Canada who do not know Jesus. So this year s focus is to plant churches in some major cities of North America that fall in five regions: Canada, the West, Midwest, South, and Northeast. Each day in VBS, you will be sharing with the kids a little bit about each region, and then spending time in prayer for the people and the churches in that region. In the leader guide, you will see this info on the second page of each day. Guide the conferees to gather with their partners again. Ask them to look in their purses, pockets, conference bags, or backpacks for any type of item. Don t tell them what they need it for each pair must choose any item. Ask the partners to hold up their items. Say: Partners, take the item you ve chosen, and use it as a prop to practice telling others about Jesus. Pretend you are a missionary, and you only have this one item to share the gospel. You ll have a few minutes to work together go! Play More Than Just a Good Man while the pairs work. Call the pairs together after the song and encourage volunteers to stand, pose with their props, and share their testimonies. Say: In the video for Day 2, Abraham from Spain shares that he was searching for answers about Jesus. Sometimes we need to share the truth about Jesus, even though we may not have the necessary tools or helpful props. We need to always be ready to defend and share our faith. Let s meet Abraham in the Day 2 video. Play Day 2 Part 1 DVD segment. Say: Day 3 is going to focus on encouraging kids to use what they have their talents, skills, interests to tell others about God. In one of the video segments, they will see how Liam s family from Canada uses their musical talents to tell others about God. Continue: Day 4 will focus on missionaries building churches around the world. So let s have a contest to see who can build the best church out of a few special items. 4
Ask two volunteers to come to the table or prepared workspace. Distribute the materials (toothpicks, graham crackers, marshmallows, glue, and construction paper) for each of the volunteers to create a church. Explain that you will play a VBS song and by the end of the song, the two volunteers must have their churches built on their pieces of construction paper. The group will vote on the best church. Play He Is Alive while the volunteers build their churches. Encourage all the conferees to look at the masterpieces. Ask them to display with clapping the best church. Announce the winner! Say: This is fun activity that groups of children will do together in the Map Room. The leader guide has more suggestions for materials to use. It also helps transition to the DVD segments. Guide the conferees back to their seats as you pass around the evidence bags. Ask the conferees to quickly feel the bag to try to guess what the evidence is inside (no peeking!) and pass it to the next person. After everyone has had an opportunity to feel the evidence bags, talk about what they think was in the bags. As you reveal each one, talk about how kids could use that object to tell others about God. Display the Agency D3 I.D. Tags (item 10). Say: You will distribute these tags on Day 5 before the kids leave the Map Room. Let s watch the last video segment to see how you will end this week in Missions. Play the Day 5 Part 3 DVD segment. 4. Decorating the Map Room (15 minutes) Say: We have gone quickly gone through each day of VBS, highlighting activities and missions videos that you will be doing in the Map Room. You will have a great week with your kids! And there is so much on the LifeWay VBS website to help you. For example, let s look at the video tips. Display the LifeWay VBS website, clicking on Downloads & Updates from the menu, and then clicking on Videos. Say: This is a short video about how to decorate your Map Room. Play the video, Decorating for Missions. Say: Those are great ideas on how to decorate your Map Room. What other ideas do you have about decorating? Allow conferees to share ideas. Share decorating ideas from the Missions Rotation Leader Guide (page 5) and display the VBS 2014 Decorating Made Easy resource (if available). 5. Q&A (10 minutes) Allow conferees to ask questions regarding the missions rotation for VBS 2014. 6. Pray and Exit (5 minutes) You are helping kids discover truth and defend their faith as you lead them in the Map Room. Let s pray for the kids, the leaders, the churches, and the impact that God s truth will have on the world. Ask the conferees to find a partner and pray together for a few minutes. Then pray aloud for the group: God, we thank you that Jesus truly is Your Son, that He was more than a good man, that He died for our sins, and that He is alive! Encourage us as we help kids discover Your truth and how to defend their faith. We place this year s VBS in Your hands. Amen. Encourage conferees to chant Discover! Decide! Defend! as they leave the conference room. 5
Mission Mind-Boggler (Handout #1) DEAR SPECIAL AGENT, Your secret mission is to decode this intelligence received by Agency D3: I m an important part of the mission but not found in the clues. You can find me in riddles and in books. You put me in your luggage, but not in a suitcase. What am I? DEAR SPECIAL AGENT, Your secret mission is to decode this intelligence received by Agency D3: I m an important part of the mission but not found in the clues. You can find me in riddles and in books. You put me in your luggage, but not in a suitcase. What am I? 6
Bible Study Laser Field (Handout #2) Day 1 Is Jesus Really God s Son? Peter confidently summed up the evidence proving that Jesus is the Messiah. As a result of Peter s testimony, many believed in Jesus. (Acts 2:14-42; 1 Peter 3:15) Day 2 Was Jesus More Than Just a Good Man? Jesus proved He was more than just a good Man through the miracles He performed and His teaching. People who knew of Jesus background were amazed at his wisdom. (Mark 6:1-6, 30-56) Day 3 Was Jesus Death Real? Day 4 Is Jesus Alive? Day 5 What Do I Do with the Evidence About Jesus? The evidence proves that Jesus is alive. Angels confirmed the resurrection to the women who came to Jesus tomb. Peter found an empty tomb and saw only linen clothes. Jesus Himself proved His resurrection by appearing to many. (Luke 24:1-48) John the Baptist was an eyewitness to God s declaration that Jesus, is in fact, His Son. After baptizing jesus, John shared his eyewitness account about the events surrounding Jesus baptism. (Matthew 3:13-17; John 1:29-36) Jesus foretold of His death at the Passover meal. Many witnesses confirmed Jesus death and the events surrounding His crucifixion and death were recorded. (Mark 14:22-28; 15:22-47) 7