rd 3 5 June 27-28, 2015 Genesis 12-21; Philippians 4:6 Connect Time (20 minutes): Five minutes after the service begins, split kids into groups and begin their activity. Large Group (30 minutes): Begin 20 minutes after the service starts. Model what it looks like to be engaged in large group. th Abraham and Sarah God has big plans. We re talking about how God started a family with Abraham and Sarah, so ask kids who s in their family. Be careful not to make any assumptions, though: their family might be blood relations or people they live with or care about. Small Group (10 minutes): Keep kids in small groups until parents arrive. If you all have extra time at the end, you can review the video and songs together. Remind kids to tell their parents WHY we sponge-painted a night sky scene. (When kids can retell a story or concept, it means they truly understand it.) Today s story is all about how God started a family with a couple named Abraham and Sarah. It was part of his grand rescue plan and it s a family that everyone can now be a part of.
GOAL: Connect Time is all about engaging kids in an activity that allows them to connect with each other right away while simultaneously piquing their curiosity for Large Group and preparing their minds for what they re going to hear. PIPE CLEANER CHALLENGE *Break kids into small groups. Each group has a set of 20 pipecleaners. Distribute them all so the kids. Their goal is to build the tallest freestanding tower. Give them 5 minutes to build (use the countdown timer at the beginning of the keynote), then stand back and choose a winner! Debrief: o How did you build your tower? o How could you have built it taller? Before you go to Large Group, you can ask kids how their week went. You can also remind kids of the expectations for Large Group behavior: (1) be kind, (2) listen when somebody speaks, and (3) follow the leader s instructions.
Goal: Kids will (1) understand that God had a big rescue plan and (2) recognize that God started a family for the rescuer. Why? Kids may not yet realize that God has a plan that s bigger than us. But we hope that as they get older, they ll learn to recognize that all the events in the Bible are connected. Tip: While kids create their night sky pictures, talk to them about hearing from God. If they ve never heard from God, talk to them about how you hear from him. If they have, ask them what they do after he speaks to them. REVIEW THE STORY 1. Why did God plan a rescue? (because the world was full of wrong things) 2. What did he do as one of the first parts of his plan? (began building a family) 3. How do you think Abraham and Sarah felt while they waited for God s promise? 4. Have you ever had to wait for something God promised? Tell us about it. 5. Why did God start a family? (wants to re-create a perfect world and live with us forever) 6. How can we be part of God s family? DIG DEEPER ASK: Does anybody remember one of the pictures God used to remind Abraham of his big plan? (as numerous as the stars in the sky) We re making a night sky to remember that we can be part of that plan too! Give each kid a piece of 11x17 paper and a sponge. On the bottom half of the page, kids can use markers to draw a grassy landscape. Then help kids dip their sponge in the inkpads. On the top half of the page, kids can using the sponge to create a night sky (the pores of the sponge should create the look of many little stars, hopefully too many to count they should be careful not to go over the area multiple times so they don t cover over all the pores) As kids create, ask them: Has God ever given you a picture or spoken to you? What was it? What did he say? (Share how God has spoken to you too.) *Pray together, thanking God for his big rescue plan and that we get to be part of it! Extra time? Hold a pipe cleaner challenge re-match!
2 THIS PAGE LEFT BLANK INTENTIONALLY
1 Dome of Verses is a brand new video. Check it out ahead of time on CrossroadsKidsClub.net/weekend. There are three videos this weekend, so plan ahead to make time for everything. After the video, there s an activity to help kids imagine what it would be like to be Abraham or Sarah. Give kids the opportunity to stop to think about what waiting for God s promise would have felt like. *Click to play intro music Hi everybody, welcome to Kids Club! It s great to see you here. The game you guys played looked really fun. I want to see who won! Stand up if your group won the pipe cleaner challenge and built the tallest tower in the room (let kids stand). Great job! Everybody give these guys a high five (let kids high five). Then have a seat (let kids sit). Well done. (To the winning team:) Can you guys tell me how you built your tower? (Let 2-3 kids explain their strategy and how they executed it.) Awesome, so your plan was to build the tallest tower in the room. And you did that by (summarize the method kids used). You had a big plan and you did a lot of things to make it happen. SCIENCE INTRO You know, it s a little like today s science experiment too. Raise your hand if you know what happens if you drop Mentos mints into a bottle of diet coke. (Let kids respond.) Yep, it explodes (click to play the slow motion video but continue talking). Soda goes everywhere! But we re going to watch some guys who have a plan to turn an exploding soda into drinks by re-routing it back into cups. As you watch, see if you can figure out HOW they achieved that goal. Video: Soda Dispenser How d they keep the soda from exploding? (Let kids respond.) That s right! They had a plan for it. They showed the soda where to go by putting pipes on the bottle of Diet Coke. Did that plan take any work? (Let kids say yes.) Yep, it sure did!
GOD HAD A PLAN Well, remember how God made the world perfect? But then, the first two people, Adam and Eve chose to disobey God. With that wrong choice, all the wrong things in the world began. It was like the world was out of control, like the Diet Coke bottle that was exploding everywhere. But God loved Adam and Eve and he loves us! WAY to much to leave us in a world full of wrong things. He had a PLAN to rescue us. It would take some time and a lot of work, but it would be a great rescue to save us from all the wrong things in the world. GOD STARTS A FAMILY Like you started your tall tower by (refer to the way the winning group started their tower), God started his rescue plan by building a family. He knew he wanted to send the rescuer to earth. And he wanted a special family for his son, Jesus, the rescuer, to be born into. So God started with a guy named Abraham and his wife Sarah. He promised them that they would be the father and mother of a great nation, a whole country of people! But when God first promised them this special family, how many kids do you guys think they had? Just 1 or 2? Hold up your fingers to show me how many kids you think they had (Let kids guess). If you put up zero fingers, you re right! They had NO kids. But God knew exactly what he was doing. We re going to watch a story of how God started this family. As you watch, see if you can figure out how Abraham and Sarah felt about God s plan. Video: God s Story / Abraham and Sarah Wow, so God promised Abraham and Sarah a family. And he gave them one. But imagine how Abraham and Sarah felt while they waited for God s plan. If you re on this side of the room (point to one side of the room), imagine how Abraham felt. If you re on this side of the room (point to the other side of the room), imagine how Sarah felt. Now turn to a friend and tell them how Abraham (point to the Abraham side) or Sarah (point to the Sarah side) might have been feeling. (Let kids talk amongst themselves.) OK, let s hear it! How would Abraham have felt? (Let 2-4 kids respond.) Yep, makes sense! How would Sarah have felt? (Let 2-4 kids respond.) Definitely. WE CAN TRUST GOD You know, Abraham and Sarah could have been really worried when they waited so long for Isaac. We know Sarah laughed when she heard she was going to have a son! It seemed impossible to her! And sometimes things happen to us that make us worried or afraid, too. We might wonder if God has a plan for us or if he ll really keep his promises or if God can actually help us with something. So let s say our verse out loud again: SLIDE: Philippians 4:6 Don t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.
The truth in this verse is a BIG deal but it can be hard to remember when we re in the middle of waiting to see what God has planned for us. Let s see if we can memorize it, so that it comes to our head when we re feeling worried or unsure of the future. To help us memorize it, we ve got a short video of some kids who are in a competition. Their job is to remember the verse or get a PIE in the face! Video: Dome of Verses Let s say it one more time too! See if you can remember it without it being on the screen. (Lead kids in saying: Philippians 4:6 Don t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.) Great job! GOD STILL HAS A PLAN The good news is, just like God had a plan for Abraham and Sarah to start a special family, he has a plan for us too. Does anybody remember the picture God gave Abraham to remind him that he would keep his promise? (Let kids respond.) Yes, one of the pictures was a night sky covered in stars! (Click to show picture of stars.) What did God remind Abraham of when he looked at the sky? (Let kids respond.) Yep, he told him his family would grow so big that he wouldn t be able to count everybody! There would be more people than the stars in the sky. And one day, God will re-create the entire world so that it s perfect again and his whole family will live with him in it forever. The best part is, Abraham and Sarah s family got bigger, just like God said it would. It became a whole nation, called Israel. Then, Jesus died to take the punishment for ALL the wrong things in the world, which means the things the Israelites did and the things you and I have done. So now WE can choose to follow Jesus and be part of God s family, too! And we get to be counted among all those stars (refer to the picture). PRAY Let s take time to thank God for his rescue plan! Ask him if there s anything he wants to say to you today or any picture he wants to show you today. Or ask him to remind you of one of his promises for YOU. (Lead the kids in prayer, but give them about a minute of silence that s between them and God. Then wrap up and thank God for having big plans.) WORSHIP Remember, one way we can thank God is by singing to him in worship. Everybody stand up and let s sing two songs to God! First, let s tell him that we want to make his family bigger by telling everyone that Jesus has rescued us. Then let s sing a song about how God makes us brave. We can trust in his plan, just like Abraham and Sarah Music Video: Tell the World Music Video: We Can be the Brave Ones *Dismiss kids to small groups
THIS PAGE LEFT BLANK INTENTIONALLY
1 2 Per group Set of 20 pipe cleaners (not reused) Per kid 1 sponge 1 piece of 11x17 paper Per group Markers 1 Bible Several ink pads Bible 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Song slide: for when kids enter the room (All that You Need instrumental; mp3 only; can be downloaded on website) SILENT loop (please remove volume): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_zlsu Y_FiU (1:16-1:29 on silent) Video: Soda Dispense https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfhff99 GX8E (0:03-1:58) Video: God s Story / Abraham and Sarah (https://vimeo.com/44930545) SLIDE: Philippians 4:6: Don t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Tell me about Abraham and Sarah. Why did God start a family? Daily Talk Starts separate document 6. 7. 8. 9. Video: Dome of Verses Image: night sky Music Video: Tell the World (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2wsqufguli) Music Video: We Can Be the Brave Ones (will be on Vimeo by time of lesson)