Planting a Virus Bible Story: Planting a Virus (Haman s Plot Against the Jews) Esther 3; 4:8b; 5:6-10; 6:6-11; 7:1-6, 9b-10 Bottom Line: When you lie to help yourself, you hurt yourself instead. Memory Verse: Anyone who lives without blame walks safely. But anyone who takes a crooked path will get caught. Proverbs 10:9, NIrV Life App: Honesty Choosing to be truthful in whatever you say and do Basic Truth: I need to make the wise choice. 1. Countdown 2. Announcements 3. CG:Transition Slide then Host Opener (5 minutes) Host Smartphone for the Host Encyclopedia Borrow a real encyclopedia (it can just be one volume unless you have access to a multi-volume set). Or you can create one using any thick book, covering it with paper, and writing Encyclopedia or World s Best Encyclopedia on the cover. You could make it look simple and tongue-in-cheek (clearly homemade), or you could make it look realistic by printing an image of a real encyclopedia cover and pasting it over the book cover. The Host won t need to actually find any answers in the book; it s just for him to pretend. Small table, music stand, or podium to hold the encyclopedia Spotlight focused on the encyclopedia (if possible) Optional: Vintage technology items (or pictures of them) Media Upbeat music to use as kids enter and exit the room SFX: Angelic choir SFX: Ding-ding-ding SFX: Buzzer Source Code Theme Slide Honesty Slide Encyclopedia vs. Smartphone Game Slide Encyclopedia vs. Smartphone Question Slides 1-3 Bottom Line Slide 4. Praise and Worship (10 Minutes) End with CG:Transition Slide 5. CG: Word Video and CG:Transition Slide 6. Bible Story (15 Minutes) Storyteller Storyteller s smartphone Media Bible Story Images: o Map of Persia o Picture of a Persian castle o Picture of Persian food Esther 4:14 Slide Bottom Line Slide At the end the Storyteller should pray for the group and dismiss kids to Small Group 7. Small Group (20-30 Minutes) 2018 The rethink Group, Inc. All rights reserved. www.thinkorange.com Adapted by Ginghamsburg Church 2018 1
Bible Story Outline Week 3 Planting a Virus (Haman s Plot Against the Jews) Esther 3; 4:8b; 5:6-10; 6:6-11; 7:1-6, 9b-10 SETTING UP THE STORY Take a minute with your Small Group Leaders and search for Persia Persia is where modern-day Iran is, as you can see on this map Persia was a powerful nation, and their king was King Xerxes During a party, he gave the command for his queen, Queen Vashti, to come see him She refused King Xerxes got so mad that he banished her from the kingdom and got a new wife The new queen was the young and beautiful Esther Esther and her cousin Mordecai were Jews The king also had a top advisor named Haman He enjoyed going around Persia and making sure everyone knew how much power he had MORDECAI REFUSES TO BOW King Xerxes actually ordered everyone to BOW to Haman He noticed that Mordecai refused to bow to him, which made him angry The officials told Haman it was because Mordecai was a Jew Haman began to plot to kill not just Mordecai but ALL of the Jews Haman had to go see the king Look up what palaces in ancient Persia looked like Haman went to King Xerxes and told him he needed to make a law to kill all of the Jews He tricked Xerxes into thinking that the Jews were a big threat to his kingdom Xerxes trusted Haman and agreed to the law Xerxes had no idea that his queen, Esther, was a Jew MORDECAI ASKS ESTHER TO TAKE A STAND When Mordecai found out about Haman s plan, he sent word to Esther She had a very difficult choice to make It was dangerous to talk to the king Read Esther 4:14 She went to the royal courtyard, and the king extended his scepter to her Then she invited the king and Haman to dinner Search and see what Persian food looks like ESTHER AND MORDECAI EXPOSE HAMAN She invited the king and Haman to dinner the following night as well This REALLY made Haman feel important He plotted some more about how to get rid of Mordecai even faster King Xerxes discovered that years earlier, Mordecai had saved him from a plan to kill him He made the city throw a parade for Mordecai and asked Haman to make sure he was properly honored The second dinner came, and Esther told King Xerxes about Haman s plan to kill her people King Xerxes sentences Haman to death WRAPPING UP THE STORY Haman decided to lie to help himself, and in the end, it hurt him big time BL: When you lie to help yourself, you hurt yourself instead. Lying never pays off in the end 2018 The rethink Group, Inc. All rights reserved. www.thinkorange.com Adapted by Ginghamsburg Church 2018 2
Planting a Virus Bible Story: Planting a Virus (Haman s Plot Against the Jews) Esther 3; 4:8b; 5:6-10; 6:6-11; 7:1-6, 9b-10 Bottom Line: When you lie to help yourself, you hurt yourself instead. Memory Verse: Anyone who lives without blame walks safely. But anyone who takes a crooked path will get caught. Proverbs 10:9, NIrV Life App: Honesty Choosing to be truthful in whatever you say and do Basic Truth: I need to make the wise choice. 1. Countdown 2. Announcements 3. CG:Transition Slide then Host Opener (5 minutes) SFX: Play high-energy music as kids enter. CG: Source Code Theme Slide Host is on stage, welcoming kids as they enter. HOST: Hey, everyone! It s great to see you. Let s get right to it! Who can remember what we re talking about this month? (Pause.) Honesty, right! Now, most of you know that honesty means that we tell the truth, but it s so much more than that. CG: Honesty Slide Honesty is choosing to be truthful in whatever you say and do. You don t just talk the talk. You walk the walk. (Do a little walk.) You do what you say you re going to do. Technology is like that. If you know about computer coding, you know that you can t take any shortcuts. If you get one little bit of code wrong, the whole thing gets messed up. Sometimes in life, it s tempting to try to get away with something that s not 100 percent true. But if you do, you re only hurting your own source code! Now, we have some awesome technology these days. Siri, Alexa, streaming video, and we even have robot vacuum cleaners! But some of your Leaders and I had some pretty cool gadgets when we were kids, too. CDs and cassette tapes to play music; old-school, 8-bit video games; pump sneakers;... Note: If you actually have any vintage technology items, feel free to hold them up and show the kids. Or you could show some images on the screen.... and if we wanted to know something, we didn t have the Internet. We would look in the encyclopedia! SFX: Angelic choir LIGHTS: Spotlight on encyclopedia (if possible) Point to the encyclopedia. Have you ever seen one of these? For decades, when you had a question about anything, you ran to the encyclopedia like the fate of humanity was in your hands! (Pick it up and flip through the pages.) And you turned page after page after page until you finally found what you were looking for! Doesn t that sound awesome? Small Group Leaders, make some noise for the encyclopedia! Pull out your smartphone. 2018 The rethink Group, Inc. All rights reserved. www.thinkorange.com Adapted by Ginghamsburg Church 2018 3
What if we put the encyclopedia head-to-head with a smartphone? Which one do you think would be a faster way to get an answer? That sounds like a challenge to me! It s time for today s true/false showdown: Encyclopedia vs. Smartphone! CG: Encyclopedia vs. Smartphone Game Slide When you see the question on the screen, huddle up with your small group. Use your Leader s phone to find out if it s true or false. If your Leader doesn t have a phone, then join up with the group next to you. I, on the other hand, will be looking up the answers with this thing (hold up encyclopedia), like it s 1989. Raise your hand as soon as your group finds the answer. Whoever gets it first will answer true or false, and our friends in the back (point to the tech team) will tell us if they got it right. After all, you ve always got to check on the things you read on the Internet! Who will win? Let s find out! CG: Encyclopedia vs. Smartphone Question 1 Slide True or false: Abraham Lincoln s middle name was Magnus. Flip pages in the encyclopedia while the groups try to find the answer on their Leaders phones. Call on the first group to raise their hands. (To the first group) Whoa... how did you beat me? Okay, what did you find out? (Pause for response.) You say it s false. Friends in the back, do you accept their answer? SFX: Ding-ding-ding OR buzzer If they got it right, move on to Question 2. If they didn t get it right, move to the next group that had their hands up and continue until a group gets the right answer. So what WAS Honest Abe s middle name? (Pause for response.) He didn t have one? Trick question! CG: Encyclopedia vs. Smartphone Question 2 Slide All right, let s move on to the second question. True or false: the most popular kids movie of 2013 was Frozen. Flip pages in the encyclopedia while the groups try to find the answer on their Leaders phones. Call on the first group to raise their hands. (Looking at the encyclopedia) Looks like this thing only goes up to 1992. (To the first group) What did you find out? (Pause for response.) You think that s true Frozen was the TOP movie of 2013. Friends in the back, do you accept their answer? SFX: Ding-ding-ding OR buzzer If they got it right, move on to Question 3. If they didn t get it right, move to the next group that had their hands up and continue until a group gets the right answer. 2018 The rethink Group, Inc. All rights reserved. www.thinkorange.com Adapted by Ginghamsburg Church 2018 4
CG: Encyclopedia vs. Smartphone Question 3 Slide Here s the last one! True or false: the westernmost point of the 50 U.S. states is in Hawaii. Flip pages in the encyclopedia while the groups try to find the answer on their Leaders phones. Call on the first group to raise their hands. (To the first group) Okay, what did you find out true or false? (Pause for response.) You say it s false. Friends in the back, do you accept their answer? SFX: Ding-ding-ding OR buzzer So where is the westernmost point, then? (Pause.) Alaska! If they got it right, wrap up the game. If they didn t get it right, move to the next group that had their hands up and continue until a group gets the right answer. Well, I still think my encyclopedia is awesome in a classic kind of way. (To the group that successfully answered the final question) But hey, you all are so good at looking things up that you get to do it some more in today s story. For now, though, it s time to get on your feet and sing some songs to God. Worship Leaders enter as Host exits. 4. Praise and Worship (10 Minutes) End with CG:Transition Slide 5. CG: Word Video and CG:Transition Slide 6. Bible Story (15 Minutes) Storyteller enters. Worship Leaders exit. 2018 The rethink Group, Inc. All rights reserved. www.thinkorange.com Adapted by Ginghamsburg Church 2018 5
SETTING UP THE STORY STORYTELLER: Hey, everybody! I know you all were looking up some answers for our game earlier, so I want to see if you can do the same thing for today s story from the book of Esther. (Hold up Bible.) Let s find out where our story takes place. Take a minute with your Small Group Leaders and search for Persia. You can use your Leader s phone, or join up with another group if you need to. There s a country today where Persia used to be. When you think you know where it is, raise your hand. CG: Map of Persia Call on the first group to raise their hands. That s right! Persia is where modern-day Iran is, as you can see on this map. Persia was a powerful nation, and their king at the time our story takes place was King Xerxes. His commands were the law of the land. A couple of years after Xerxes became king, he threw a party for all his most important officials. During this party, he gave the command for his queen, Queen Vashti, to come see him. She didn t like being bossed around, and she refused. As a result, King Xerxes got so mad that he banished her from the kingdom and got a new wife! The new queen was the young and beautiful Esther. Esther and her cousin Mordecai were Jews. The Persians had captured the Jews and had forced to come live and work in Persia. The king also had a top advisor named Haman. King Xerxes promoted Haman to second-in-command over all Persia. Haman loved it. He felt so important! He had so much power. And he enjoyed going around Persia and making sure everyone knew how much power he had and just how important he was. MORDECAI REFUSES TO BOW STORYTELLER: King Xerxes actually ordered everyone to BOW to Haman. Everywhere he went, people would bow down to him. Can you imagine that? Of course, Haman loved that so much. One day, however, as Haman passed by Mordecai, he noticed that Mordecai refused to bow to him. Haman was really angry. He had officials order Mordecai to bow. Mordecai still refused. They asked him why he wasn t bowing. He continued to refuse to bow to Haman. They explained to Haman that Mordecai wouldn t bow because he was one of those people known as Jews. They were God s people. They did things differently than the people of Persia. Haman didn t like it, though, and he began to plot to kill not just Mordecai but ALL of the Jews. To do that, Haman had to go see the king. Hey, let s use our smartphones to look up what palaces in ancient Persia looked like. Give them about 30 seconds to find some images. Did you find some images? Pretty cool, right? Maybe you found something like this. CG: Picture of a Persian castle Now you know what Xerxes castle might have looked like. Haman went to King Xerxes and told him he needed to make a law to kill all of the Jews because they were different and that they weren t obeying the king s laws. Yikes! He basically tricked Xerxes into thinking that the Jews were a big threat to his kingdom just because he was mad that Mordecai refused to bow to him. Xerxes trusted Haman and agreed to the law. That meant that Mordecai and Esther were now in danger of 2018 The rethink Group, Inc. All rights reserved. www.thinkorange.com Adapted by Ginghamsburg Church 2018 6
being killed. Xerxes had no idea that his queen, Esther, was a Jew! MORDECAI ASKS ESTHER TO TAKE A STAND STORYTELLER: When Mordecai found out about Haman s plan, he sent word to Esther. She had a very difficult choice to make. If she stayed silent about who she really was, she would be safe, but her people would be in real danger. If she was honest with the king and told him she was Jewish, maybe she could convince him to rethink Haman s plan. But she could be in real danger herself! Not only that, it was dangerous to talk to the king. There was a law that when the king was on his royal throne, nobody could approach him without his permission. If Esther came before his throne, he would have to extend his royal scepter to her or she would be killed. If he didn t grant her permission, she could end up in worse shape than Queen Vashti. I want you to see what Mordecai told Esther. Use your Leader s phone and find Esther chapter 4, verse 14. You can look on the Bible app or just search in a browser. Raise your hand when you ve got it. Wait until all groups have found Esther 4:14. Now, you might have a different version than mine. But here s what mine says. Remember, this is Mordecai talking to Esther. CG: Esther 4:14 Slide Pull up Esther 4:14 on your phone and read it. What if you don t say anything at this time? Then help for the Jews will come from another place. But you and your family will die. Who knows? It s possible that you became queen for a time just like this (NIrV). Esther knew what she needed to do. She went to the royal courtyard, and the king extended his scepter to her. Then she invited the king and Haman to dinner to discuss the law that had been written about destroying her people. Okay, one more time, I need you to circle up with your small groups to look something up. Search and see what Persian food looks like. You probably found something like this, right? CG: Picture of Persian food Give them about 30 seconds to find some images. Now you can imagine what kinds of food Esther might have served to King Xerxes and Haman. ESTHER & MORDECAI EXPOSE HAMAN STORYTELLER: At the first dinner, Esther was nervous to bring it up to the king. She invited the king and Haman to dinner the following night as well. This REALLY made Haman feel important. The queen had invited him to dinner two nights in a row! At the same time, Haman was still really mad at Mordecai, who still refused to bow to him. He plotted some more about how to get rid of Mordecai even faster. But later that night, King Xerxes discovered something. Years earlier, Mordecai had saved Xerxes from a plan to kill him. And the king realized that he hadn t honored Mordecai for it. So he made the city throw a 2018 The rethink Group, Inc. All rights reserved. www.thinkorange.com Adapted by Ginghamsburg Church 2018 7
parade for Mordecai and asked Haman to make sure he was properly honored. Haman was miserable. Celebrating Mordecai was NOT something that he wanted to do. Well, the second dinner finally came, and Esther told King Xerxes about Haman s plan to kill her people. King Xerxes was so mad that Haman had tricked him! He immediately wrote a different order that canceled the law against the Jews, and he sentenced Haman to death. WRAPPING UP THE STORY STORYTELLER: Haman thought he needed to be dishonest with King Xerxes so that he could get revenge on Mordecai. He figured he could convince the king that the Jews were a threat, even though that was totally untrue. He decided to lie to help himself. And in the end, it hurt him big time. Here s the thing. CG: Bottom Line Slide [Bottom Line] When you lie to help yourself, you hurt yourself instead. We need to remember that too, don t we? Lying never pays off in the end. Lies always end up hurting us. So [Basic Truth] make the wise choice. Don t be like Haman. Be honest and brave like Esther. There are times in life when we feel tempted to lie usually to make ourselves look cool or to get people to like us. We might exaggerate about something to make ourselves sound super awesome. In those moments, it might seem like a good idea to make up a lie to get people to like you. It sure seemed that way for Haman. He figured he could just tell the king that the Jews were bad people, and the king would never question it. But in the end, Haman s lies got him in BIG trouble. When we lie, we hurt ourselves. So here s what I want you to remember from today. CG: Bottom Line Slide [Bottom Line] When you lie to help yourself, you hurt yourself instead. I bet you all have a lot to say about that. I bet you can all think of some times when you were tempted to lie, or maybe you saw what happened to someone else when they weren t truthful. Now s your chance to talk about it together back in Small Group! At the end the Storyteller should pray for the group and dismiss kids to Small Group 7. Small Group (20-30 Minutes) SFX: Play high-energy music as the kids exit. 2018 The rethink Group, Inc. All rights reserved. www.thinkorange.com Adapted by Ginghamsburg Church 2018 8