Posts Tagged ‘Sunday School’

Prayer Parables with Skits

Thursday, May 1st, 2014

prayer-parables

Jesus used many prayer parables to explain the spiritual reality of prayer:

  • The Vine and the Branches (John 15:1-7)
  • Asking, Seeking, and Knocking (Matthew 7:7-8)
  • A Father Not Giving a Stone or a Snake (Matthew 7:9-11)
  • The Pharisee and the Sinner (Luke 18:9-14)
  • Prayer to be Seen by Men vs. Private Prayer (Matthew 6:5-6)
  • The Widow and the Judge (Luke 18:1-8)
  • The Man who Didn’t Want to Get up from Bed (Luke 11:5-8)

I spent a whole summer staring at a vine in my backyard while reading Andrew Murray’s Abiding in the Vine. I saw the juices of the vine representing the Holy Spirit, and if we are not connected to God in prayer, we are useless. I wrote a whole article about it here: Abiding in the Vine.

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We are also to ask, seek God’s will, and knock for doors to be opened. You can illustrate this to children by having them ask for something, then give it to them. They can search for something and find it. They can knock on a door, and it should open. In the same way, God wants us to go to Him in prayer so that He can grant our requests.

God knows good gifts to give us, and He will not give a stone or a snake. Neither will an earthly father. You can dramatize this with children by handing them a stone or a rubber snake. God’s best gift is His Holy Spirit, which enables us to walk by His Spirit.

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We are told to ask persistently without growing weary, as in the story of the widow who asked for justice from a judge. She was so persistent in asking that she received what she wanted.

In the same way, a man was sleeping in the middle of the night, and his friend knocked on the door to borrow some bread for his guests. The man would not get up at first, but after persistent knocking, the man finally relented and opened the door.

There have been some requests (like my husband’s insomnia) that I have prayed for years with seemingly no answer, but God doesn’t want me to give up, especially if it’s a true need. The timing might be perfect in the future, or God might be doing something greater than what we’re asking.

prayer-parables-2A Pharisee stands on a street corner and wants to be seen by men, while a sinner cries out to God, truly repentant of sin. The sinner is forgiven rather than the arrogant Pharisee. In the same way, don’t pray just to be seen by men. Cultivate a private prayer life where you connect to the Lord in desperation, and you will see God meet you where you are.

My children dramatized the parables, to bring them to life. Teach your own children how to pray, and feel free to use these ideas to teach prayer to children in Sunday Schools at your church:

To keep up with my prayer articles, free prayer audios, and a prayer e-book, like my Prayer Page.

Psalm 1 Watercolor

Friday, April 11th, 2014

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Psalm 1 Watercolor

My kids illustrated Psalm 1 by drawing a picture around the Psalm and painting the beautiful illustration with watercolor. Make sure you use special watercolor paper, because the colors don’t roll off the page but sink into the higher-quality watercolor paper. (I’ve bought watercolor paper at art supply stores, but you can also buy it at Walmart.)

We’ve begun a study of the book of Psalms, which is a worship hymnal for God’s people. Lots of the Psalms were written by David, and there is usually a description of when the Psalm was written at the beginning of the Psalm, before the Psalm starts. This way you can figure out if David (or other writers) wrote the Psalm when he was fleeing from Saul, or after his sin with Bathsheba. You can understand the heart behind the Psalm if you do some research into it before you start.

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You can discuss the meaning of the Psalm itself. Do we delight in the law of the Lord? Do we spend time listening to the counsel of the wicked? How do we meditate on God’s law day and night?

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The most beautiful image in this psalm is the one of the tree planted by streams of water, which is what my kids chose to illustrate. The tree yields fruit in season, and whatever we do, we prosper when we delight in God’s law.

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We memorized the Psalm when the kids were little, back when I used to play an audio with me reading God’s Word. When you hear the same Psalm each day, pretty soon you have it memorized, and you have access to it day and night, for the rest of your life!

Since the Psalms are meant to be sung, here is a musical rendition of Psalm 1:

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Elijah Unit Study

Thursday, March 27th, 2014

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Elijah Unit Study Overview

In our Elijah Unit Study, we perform skits, do crafts, and create hands-on activities to understand the life of Elijah, the greatest prophet who ever lived. You can do these activities with your own children, or teach a Sunday School lesson to a group of kids at church. They will never forget the life of Elijah!

Elijah is wearing a simple cloak with a hood, but you can easily just wrap a white sheet around yourself. A stick from outside is your staff. If you have a wig, wear it. If you have another wig, tie a string around it so that it can become a beard. Or just buy a beard at a costume shop.

ElijahNo Rain: Ravens Feed Elijah

We first see Elijah in I Kings 17, where he said that there would be no rain, and God answered his prayer by sending no rain on the land for three years. He ran to a blue blanket brook, where God fed him with ravens. If you have a small stuffed animal that is a bird, you can break off a piece of bread and hold it in the stuffed bird’s beak as it flies to Elijah. Elijah should eat the bread. God miraculously fed Elijah in this way until the river dried up. Pull the blue river blanket off the scene.

Miracle: Oil and Flour Not Running Out

Elijah finds a widow preparing her last meal for her son, and she fixes something for Elijah first. As a result, Elijah says that her oil and flour would not run out until after the famine. You can use the hands-on activity of pouring flour into a bowl and pouring oil from an olive oil jar.

Raising Widow’s Son from the Dead

Later the widow’s son dies, and Elijah prays that God would raise him from the dead, and He did! (One child lies down, and Elijah prays. The child sits up.)

Altar Show-Down: Fire from Heaven

Meanwhile Obadiah hid some prophets of the Lord, because wicked Jezebel was killing all the prophets of the Lord. Obadiah found Elijah and told him that King Ahab was looking for him. So Elijah appeared before King Ahab and told him there would be a show-down between the prophets of Baal and the Lord. Whoever had fire come down to consume their sacrifice would be the real God.

Place two chairs on the stage. One had the prophets of Baal going around it. They shouted and cut themselves, and Elijah mocked them and said, “Maybe your god is sleeping. Yell louder to wake him up.”

Then Elijah builds an altar (the second chair), and people pour lots of water on it. Elijah prays, and a cardboard lightning bolt strikes the chair altar. Elijah commands the priests of Baal to be put to death. Then he escapes before Jezebel hears about it.

Here are some activities for Elijah and the altar:

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Your kids can also draw a picture about this powerful event. Here are some examples from my children’s drawings:

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Elijah Encounters God

Elijah sits under a tree and wants to die because he is the only one who loves the Lord. God encourages him that there are thousands who have not bowed down to Baal. An angel prepares a meal for Elijah, and after the meal, he fasts for 40 days and 40 nights on Mount Horeb.

On Mount Horeb, Elijah encounters God. He is not in the fire. He is not in the earthquake. He is not in wind. But He is in a gentle breeze that has a quiet voice. Here is a lift-the-flaps printable that illustrates this event:

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Rebuking King Ahab: Naboth’s Vinyard

Jezebel had Naboth murdered so that her husband Ahab could take possession of the vinyard. Elijah met Ahab in the vinyard and told him that God would punish him. Ahab repented, and God said He wouldn’t punish his family until after his death. (The vinyard can be represented by house plants.)

50 Men Struck with Fire: Elijah’s Prayer

King Ahaziah sent 50 soldiers to capture Elijah, but Elijah called fire down from heaven to consume them.Throw a cardboard lightning bolt onto the soldiers. Do it again for a second group of 50 men. The third group’s commander asked Elijah for mercy, and Elijah went with him to see King Ahaziah. He told the king that he would die of his sickness because he had not consulted God.

Chariot of Fire: Elijah Never Dies

Elijah never had to die. He was taken up into heaven in a chariot of fire. Elisha saw him go, and he was granted a double portion of the Spirit which was on Elijah.

To illustrate the chariot of fire, here is a printable:

chariot-of-fire

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If you enjoyed this Elijah Unit Study, you will love the Unit Study Treasure Vault, which has a huge Bible section full of ways to bring Scripture to life for kids. I’m filming all of these activities and putting them into the Vault!

Gideon Unit Study

Friday, March 14th, 2014

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My kids have been filming videos to bring the entire Scripture to life for kids, and we are now doing a Gideon Unit Study. The videos are all uploaded into the huge Bible section of the Treasure Vault. We have been studying each of the judges of Israel, and the kids had so much fun re-enacting the story of Gideon.

First we have Gideon approached by the angel of the Lord, who tells him that he is a valiant warrior. Gideon is bewildered by this greeting, and he is told that he will deliver Israel from the Midianites. He asks, “Why me? I’m the least of my family.” But the Lord promises to be with him.

Grab some fleece (either some cotton or a pillow) and tell the Lord that you need a sign, to know if you will succeed in battle. The fleece needs to be wet at first, with the ground dry. Then you realize that this could have easily happened naturally, so you flip it around and say that if the fleece is dry and the ground is wet, that has to be God. And so it was.

Gideon was commanded to smash down the Baal and the Asherah, and the people were angry. When they got over the shock of the destroyed idols, they joined Gideon to go to battle against Midian. Tell the soldiers to go home if they are scared. Most of the soldiers are scared and go home. Then throw a blue blanket on the floor, and the soldiers need to drink the water from the blanket river. Those who lap the water after scooping it with their hands win the lottery to go to war. All the others must go home.

Now is the fun part. After Gideon sneaks into the camp to overhear the enemy having a dream of being conquered, Gideon divides the soldiers into 3 groups. Try to have pots you can smash on the floor. Otherwise pretend to smash the pots. Hold up the torches or flashlights. This is especially dramatic when you perform it in a dark room, but we filmed it in the daylight. If you want to make a craft of a torch for the Gideon story, my friend Ticia made some out of Q-tips. Then blow some trumpets, or pretend to blow trumpets and shout, “For the Lord and for Gideon!”

If you want to make this scene out of LEGOs, you can find the instructions here:

Here are some of the drawings that my children made for their Bible notebooks. The first one is a comic strip:

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If you enjoyed this Gideon Unit Study, you will love all the hands-on activities for Bible class in the Unit Study Treasure Vault!