Large Group Openings Holy Week and Easter Holy Week and Easter 145
LARGE GROUP OPENINGS Holy Week and Easter (Matthew 21:1-11, 27:32-66, and 28:1-10) Large Group Opening 1 Welcome to Large Group Openings for the Holy Week and Easter Rotation. Enjoy your time (about 10 minutes) with kids as you sing, learn, and pray together. Choose a song or two to get things started, move into the object lesson that introduces kids to the story, invite kids to discuss a question with their Shepherds, and finish up your time with a prayer. Spark Songs Use one or more of the following Spark Songs during your Large Group Opening. Use them in the order that suits your group s size, format, and time frame. Spark My World (Track 1, Songbook page 4): The Easter story is good news! Sing the general verses and Easter verse for this song as written as you celebrate Jesus victory over death. Jesus Loves Me (Track 14, Songbook page 76): The stories of Holy Week and Easter help us remember how much Jesus loves us. Sing all the verses to this song, and vary the chorus. The first time, sing the chorus as written. The second time, shout Me! The third time, sing Jesus loves you, instead of Jesus loves me. Spark Song CD Spark Songbook Spark Song Lyrics Sheets or Slides CD player Hallelujah! Praise Ye the Lord! (Track 8, Songbook page 44): We praise Jesus for all he has done for us. Add additional verses by substituting the phrases He is alive! and Share the good news! for the phrase Praise Ye the Lord! Introduce the Story Set Up: Write each of the letters in the word sacrifice on a separate piece of paper. Make the letters large and bold enough to fill the entire piece of paper so they will be visible from a distance. Play Spark Words to introduce the word sacrifice. Ask for nine volunteers to come to the front. Give each volunteer one of the pieces of paper with a letter on it. Put the volunteers in order, left to right, so that when their letters are revealed, they will correctly spell out the word. Have the volunteers hold the papers so that the letters are facing their chests. The object of the game is for the other kids to guess the letters and eventually figure out the word. None Paper Marker Ask kids in the large group to raise their hands to guess a letter. If a guessed letter is one that is in the word, the volunteer with that letter turns it around. If an incorrect letter is guessed, move on to another guesser. Once the word has been figured out, give your volunteers a round of applause for helping and send them back to sit with their shepherd group. Holy Week and Easter 147
Our Spark Word today is sacrifice. What does sacrifice mean? Accept answers. Sacrifice means giving something up for something else. Sometimes we make sacrifices to get what we want, and sometimes we make sacrifices to give someone else what they want. Jesus made a big sacrifice for someone else. Jesus gave up his life so that we could be forgiven and have eternal life. Jesus knew that God was with him and wouldn t leave him, and so he sacrificed his life. We can know that God is with us when we make sacrifices, too. It s never easy, but when we remember the sacrifice Jesus made, we can be brave in making sacrifices in our lives, too. Shepherd Questions Pose one or more of these questions to the large group and invite the Shepherds to discuss them with the kids in their small groups. If your group is already small, choose one of the questions and ask the whole group to discuss it together. What kinds of sacrifices do you make? What kinds of sacrifices have people made for you? How can we show our thanks to people who make sacrifices for us? Closing Prayer Have the kids repeat each line of this acrostic Thanks prayer after you. Dear God, T is for the thanks we give to you. H is for our hearts, where you live. A is for your awesome power. N is for knowing that there s nothing you won t do for us. K is for the kindness you show us. S is for the sacrifice you made in giving us your son, Jesus. Amen. Visit www.sparksundayschool.org for more Spark content. Watch a short Lesson Prep Video that will prepare you and give you confidence to introduce this Bible story to the kids you are leading. You will also find downloadable Spark Song Lyrics Sheets and Slides for all the Spark Songs! 148 Large Group Openings
LARGE GROUP OPENINGS Holy Week and Easter (Matthew 21:1-11, 27:32-66, and 28:1-10) Large Group Opening 2 Welcome to Large Group Openings for the Holy Week and Easter Rotation. Enjoy your time (about 10 minutes) with kids as you sing, learn, and pray together. Choose a song or two to get things started, move into the object lesson that introduces kids to the story, invite kids to discuss a question with their Shepherds, and finish up your time with a prayer. Spark Songs Use one or more of the following Spark Songs during your Large Group Opening. Use them in the order that suits your group s size, format, and time frame. Go Tell It on the Mountain (Track 6, Songbook page 32): Go tell the good news of Easter! Sing the chorus for this song, but replace the phrase That Jesus Christ is born, with the phrases That Jesus Christ has died and That Jesus is alive. I Am a C (H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N) (Track 9, Songbook page 50): Jesus died so that people like us could live eternally. Sing this song to remember that Christ is in your heart. Spark Song CD Spark Songbook Spark Song Lyrics Sheets or Slides CD player I ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy (Track 10, Songbook page 55): We are filled with joy because of Jesus resurrection, and we celebrate in our hearts. Sing these Easter verses: I ve got a brand new life in Jesus Christ... I ve got the good news that the Lord is risen... Introduce the Story Set Up: Write I don t know him three times on a piece of paper. Put each of the items into a lunch bag. Holy Week is the week before Easter. There are a lot of important events that happen during Holy Week. These events show the sacrifices Jesus made, or the things that Jesus gave up, for us. We re going to work together to remember all of the things that happen during Holy Week. I am going to pass out these seven bags, one for each Shepherd group. Each bag contains a different item. Your group is going to decide what event in Holy Week your item represents. If you have more than seven Shepherd groups, combine groups. If you have fewer than seven, give some groups more than one bag. Distribute the bags and give groups about a minute to figure out their symbol. Let each group share what they discovered in order of the events: None Silk palm branch or leaf Loaf of unsliced bread Paper Marker Several coins Wreath, small grapevine Nails, 3 Stone, medium sized Paper lunch bags, 7 Palm branch or leaf (Palm Sunday) Loaf of bread (The Last Supper) I don t know him (Peter denies knowing Jesus three times) Holy Week and Easter 149
Coins (Judas betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver) Grapevine wreath (Soldiers tease Jesus and give him a crown of thorns) Nails (Jesus is nailed to a cross) Stone (Jesus is put in a tomb, and the door is covered with a stone) Now you know all of the events of Holy Week. Listen for them in your Bible stories today. Thank God for sending us Jesus. Thank Jesus for suffering for our sins. What good news Jesus is! Shepherd Questions Pose one or more of these questions to the large group and invite the Shepherds to discuss them with the kids in their small groups. If your group is already small, choose one of the questions and ask the whole group to discuss it together. Why do you think Holy Week is important? What do you think about the part of the story that our group had? How can we show our thanks to Jesus? Closing Prayer Pray this prayer aloud while kids pray along silently. Jesus, Lots of bad things happened to you during Holy Week. Sometimes it makes me feel sad to think about it. Thank you for suffering for me. And thank you for coming back to life on Easter to show that you are God! We love you, Jesus. Amen. Visit www.sparksundayschool.org for more Spark content. Watch a short Lesson Prep Video that will prepare you and give you confidence to introduce this Bible story to the kids you are leading. You will also find downloadable Spark Song Lyrics Sheets and Slides for all the Spark Songs! 150 Large Group Openings
LARGE GROUP OPENINGS Holy Week and Easter (Matthew 21:1-11, 27:32-66, and 28:1-10) Large Group Opening 3 Welcome to Large Group Openings for the Holy Week and Easter Rotation. Enjoy your time (about 10 minutes) with kids as you sing, learn, and pray together. Choose a song or two to get things started, move into the object lesson that introduces kids to the story, invite kids to discuss a question with their Shepherds, and finish up your time with a prayer. Spark Songs Use one or more of the following Spark Songs during your Large Group Opening. Use them in the order that suits your group s size, format, and time frame. Jesus Loves Me (Track 14, Songbook page 76): The stories of Holy Week and Easter help us remember how much Jesus loves us. Sing all the verses to this song, and vary the chorus. The first time, sing the chorus as written. The second time, shout Me! The third time, sing Jesus loves you, instead of Jesus loves me. I Am a C (H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N) (Track 9, Songbook page 50): Jesus died so that people like us could live eternally. Sing this song to remember that Christ is in your heart. Spark Song CD Spark Songbook Spark Song Lyrics Sheets or Slides CD player I ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy (Track 10, Songbook page 55): We are filled with joy because of Jesus resurrection, and we celebrate in our hearts. Sing these Easter verses: I ve got a brand new life in Jesus Christ... I ve got the good news that the Lord is risen... Introduce the Story Set Up: Fill the clear bowl with hot water and set on a table in front of the gathering area. This demonstration works best if the water is quite warm. Try the demonstration first before doing it in front of the group. When we remember all of the things that happened to Jesus during Holy Week we are remembering how much Jesus loves us. Jesus loves us so much that he was willing to go through all kinds of bad things he even died to show us how much he loves us. When you do something wrong at home or at school, what usually happens? (consequences) Because we are human, we sin. We mess up. But we know that Jesus died on the cross so that we could be forgiven. This is good news! None Biodegradable/cornstarch packing peanuts (available at office supply or shipping stores) Clear glass bowl Large spoon I ve brought some packing peanuts, and we re going to pretend that each of these packing peanuts is a sin, or something we ve done wrong. This bowl of water is like Jesus love for us. When we tell Jesus that we are sorry for the Holy Week and Easter 151
wrong things that we do, he forgives us and then forgets what we did. Place packing peanut into bowl of water and stir until it dissolves. Show kids the empty bowl. Just like this water washes away the packing peanut, Jesus washes away our sins. And Jesus doesn t just do this once. Every time we say we are sorry and ask Jesus for forgiveness for our sins, Jesus forgives us and then forgets! Add four or five more peanuts to the water. Jesus suffered and died to take away our sins. Because Jesus loves you so much, he forgives and forgets when you ask. Shepherd Questions Pose one or more of these questions to the large group and invite the Shepherds to discuss them with the kids in their small groups. If your group is already small, choose one of the questions and ask the whole group to discuss it together. What kinds of things do you apologize for? Is it harder to apologize to other people, or to God? Why? How can we show Jesus that we appreciate that he died for our sins? Closing Prayer Pray the shh to AHH version of the Lord s Prayer. Have everyone start out in a squatting position and begin whispering the first part of the prayer. As you pray the prayer together, have everyone slowly begin to rise and pray louder and louder until all are standing with arms stretched toward the sky and all are almost shouting by the time they get to Amen! Visit www.sparksundayschool.org for more Spark content. Watch a short Lesson Prep Video that will prepare you and give you confidence to introduce this Bible story to the kids you are leading. You will also find downloadable Spark Song Lyrics Sheets and Slides for all the Spark Songs! 152 Large Group Openings
LARGE GROUP OPENINGS Holy Week and Easter (Matthew 21:1-11, 27:32-66, and 28:1-10) Large Group Opening 4 Welcome to Large Group Openings for the Holy Week and Easter Rotation. Enjoy your time (about 10 minutes) with kids as you sing, learn, and pray together. Choose a song or two to get things started, move into the object lesson that introduces kids to the story, invite kids to discuss a question with their Shepherds, and finish up your time with a prayer. Spark Songs Use one or more of the following Spark Songs during your Large Group Opening. Use them in the order that suits your group s size, format, and time frame. Spark My World (Track 1, Songbook page 4): The Easter story is good news! Sing the general verses and Easter verse for this song as written as you celebrate Jesus victory over death. Hallelujah! Praise Ye the Lord! (Track 8, Songbook page 44): We praise Jesus for all he has done for us. Add additional verses by substituting the phrases He is alive! and Share the good news! for the phrase Praise Ye the Lord! Spark Song CD Spark Songbook Spark Song Lyrics Sheets or Slides CD player Go Tell It on the Mountain (Track 6, Songbook page 32): Go tell the good news of Easter! Sing the chorus for this song, but replace the phrase That Jesus Christ is born with the phrases That Jesus Christ has died and That Jesus is alive. Introduce the Story Set Up: Collect pictures from books at your local library or find and print some from the Internet. On Easter, we celebrate that Jesus rose from the dead! We celebrate that he was resurrected. This is hard to imagine. But do you know what? God gave us something in nature to help us understand Jesus resurrection: the butterfly. What is a butterfly before it becomes a butterfly? (caterpillar) Show pictures of caterpillars. Jesus was like this caterpillar. He was a man who lived on the earth, like you and me. We know that Jesus was more than just an ordinary man, though, just like a caterpillar is more than just a worm. Caterpillars live for a while as caterpillars, and then they make a cocoon and go into a dark place for awhile. Show the photos of chrysalises. When Jesus died they put him into a dark tomb, kind of like a cocoon. And what happens after a short time to a cocoon? It opens, and the caterpillar has changed into a butterfly. It is like it has come back to life! Show pictures of butterflies. None Pictures of caterpillars, chrysalises, and butterflies After three days in the dark tomb, Jesus came back to life, too. Like Jesus, we can have eternal life, too. We won t turn into butterflies, and we won t come back to our regular lives on Earth. But after we die, we will have life with Jesus in heaven. Holy Week and Easter 153
Shepherd Questions Pose one or more of these questions to the large group and invite the Shepherds to discuss them with the kids in their small groups. If your group is already small, choose one of the questions and ask the whole group to discuss it together. How is a caterpillar changing into a butterfly like Jesus dying and being resurrected? Do you know anyone who has died? How did it make you feel when that happened? How does knowing that Jesus loves all of us help when someone dies? Closing Prayer Have kids repeat each phrase after you. Jesus, Thank you for dying on the cross for me. Thank you for coming back to life again So that I can know That you are God. Thank you for promising That when we die We will have new life With you in heaven. Amen. Visit www.sparksundayschool.org for more Spark content. Watch a short Lesson Prep Video that will prepare you and give you confidence to introduce this Bible story to the kids you are leading. You will also find downloadable Spark Song Lyrics Sheets and Slides for all the Spark Songs! 154 Large Group Openings
LARGE GROUP OPENINGS Holy Week and Easter (Matthew 21:1-11, 27:32-66, and 28:1-10) Large Group Opening 5 Welcome to Large Group Openings for the Holy Week and Easter Rotation. Enjoy your time (about 10 minutes) with kids as you sing, learn, and pray together. Choose a song or two to get things started, move into the object lesson that introduces kids to the story, invite kids to discuss a question with their Shepherds, and finish up your time with a prayer. Spark Songs Use one or more of the following Spark Songs during your Large Group Opening. Use them in the order that suits your group s size, format, and time frame. Spark My World (Track 1, Songbook page 4): The Easter story is good news! Sing the general verses and Easter verse for this song as written as you celebrate Jesus victory over death. Jesus Loves Me (Track 14, Songbook page 76): The stories of Holy Week and Easter help us remember how much Jesus loves us. Sing all the verses to this song, and vary the chorus. The first time, sing the chorus as written. The second time, shout Me! The third time, sing Jesus loves you, instead of Jesus loves me. Spark Song CD Spark Songbook Spark Song Lyrics Sheets or Slides CD player I ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy (Track 10, Songbook page 55): We are filled with joy because of Jesus resurrection, and we celebrate in our hearts. Sing these Easter verses: I ve got a brand new life in Jesus Christ... I ve got the good news that the Lord is risen... Introduce the Story Set Up: Put all of the empty Easter eggs into the basket. We are learning and remembering the stories of Holy Week and Easter. They are some of the most important stories in the Bible because they help us understand how much Jesus loves us! At Easter time we usually have eggs around. Show the basket of eggs. What do you usually do with these kinds of eggs? (fill them with candy, have egg hunts, decorate your house with them, etc.) Those are all really good ideas for things to do with this kind of egg. I m going to give each one of you one of these eggs today. But this is a special kind of egg it is a Remember Egg. Invite Shepherds to come and get an egg for each kid in their group and to pass them out. None Plastic Easter eggs, 1 for each kid Big Easter basket When I say, Go, we are all going to open our Remember Eggs at the same time. Are you ready? Go! All kids open their eggs. What did you find? Nothing! It s empty! This empty egg can help us remember the empty tomb. On Easter morning the women went to the tomb where Jesus had been laid, expecting to Holy Week and Easter 155
find his body still there. But they found an empty tomb! Jesus appeared and talked to them, and they knew that he had been resurrected. They were glad that the tomb was empty! Your Remember Egg can help you remember that Jesus didn t stay dead in the tomb. He came back to life! You don t need anything inside of your egg. Because the egg is empty, we remember that Jesus is alive, which is the best news of all! Shepherd Questions Pose one or more of these questions to the large group and invite the Shepherds to discuss them with the kids in their small groups. If your group is already small, choose one of the questions and ask the whole group to discuss it together. What do you do with eggs at your house at Easter? When our leader showed us the basket of eggs, what did you think might be in them? How does the empty egg remind us of good news? Closing Prayer Have kids repeat each phrase after you. Jesus, I remember That you suffered for me, And that you died for me. But most of all, I remember That you came back to life for me So that I can know you And live with you forever. Thank you, Jesus. Amen. Visit www.sparksundayschool.org for more Spark content. Watch a short Lesson Prep Video that will prepare you and give you confidence to introduce this Bible story to the kids you are leading. You will also find downloadable Spark Song Lyrics Sheets and Slides for all the Spark Songs! 156 Large Group Openings
LARGE GROUP OPENINGS Holy Week and Easter (Matthew 21:1-11, 27:32-66, and 28:1-10) Large Group Opening 6 Welcome to Large Group Openings for the Holy Week and Easter Rotation. Enjoy your time (about 10 minutes) with kids as you sing, learn, and pray together. Choose a song or two to get things started, move into the object lesson that introduces kids to the story, invite kids to discuss a question with their Shepherds, and finish up your time with a prayer. Spark Songs Use one or more of the following Spark Songs during your Large Group Opening. Use them in the order that suits your group s size, format, and time frame. Go Tell It on the Mountain (Track 6, Songbook page 32): Go tell the good news of Easter! Sing the chorus for this song, but replace the phrase, That Jesus Christ is born, with the phrases, That Jesus Christ has died and That Jesus is alive. I Am a C (H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N) (Track 9, Songbook page 50): Jesus died so that people like us could live eternally. Sing this song to remember that Christ is in your heart. Spark Song CD Spark Songbook Spark Song Lyrics Sheets or Slides CD player Hallelujah! Praise Ye the Lord! (Track 8, Songbook page 44): We praise Jesus for all he has done for us. Add additional verses by substituting the phrases He is alive! and Share the good news! for the phrase Praise Ye the Lord! Introduce the Story Set Up: Write the word good in large letters on the poster board. Hold up the poster with the word good written on it. What word is on this poster? (good) Who can tell me what that word means? Accept answers from the group until you have several definitions or uses of the word good. We can use the word good for many different things, can t we? In Holy Week there is a day that we call good Good Friday. On Good Friday, we remember that Jesus was nailed to a cross and that people spit on him and teased him, and finally, that he died. It doesn t sound like it was a very good day for Jesus, does it? None Poster board Marker We call the day Good Friday because God showed us his goodness on that day. Jesus is God s son, and God gave Jesus to die for us so we might have eternal life. What a good thing for you and me! When Jesus died, he took away our sin. That s good, too. One way we know Jesus is God is that he died and was resurrected. This is good news. Good Friday was not a good day for Jesus, but what Jesus did for us is good because now we can have eternal life in heaven with him. Holy Week and Easter 157
Shepherd Questions Pose one or more of these questions to the large group and invite the Shepherds to discuss them with the kids in their small groups. If your group is already small, choose one of the questions and ask the whole group to discuss it together. What happens on a good day for you? What do we mean if we say that someone is good? How is God good to you? Closing Prayer Sing this prayer to the tune of the Johnny Appleseed prayer. Or have the kids repeat each line after you. Oh, the Lord is good to me And so I thank the Lord For loving me, forgiving me, And promising new life for me. The Lord is good to me. Amen. Visit www.sparksundayschool.org for more Spark content. Watch a short Lesson Prep Video that will prepare you and give you confidence to introduce this Bible story to the kids you are leading. You will also find downloadable Spark Song Lyrics Sheets and Slides for all the Spark Songs! 158 Large Group Openings