kids talks on love

I'm helping out with kids talks in church this term.

The grown ups are looking at 1 Corinthians (up to the 2nd half) so we thought the kids could learn about love, which will kind of work in pretty well. We'll get up to the love is patient, love is kind bit around the same time they hit chapter 13.

But the framework we're taking isn't based around 1 Cor 13. It's based around 1 John 3:16. This is how we know what love is - Jesus Christ lay down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another.

For the first few weeks we're looking at God's love for us. After that, how we lay down our lives for one another. In the second bit we'll get to 1 Cor 13:4 etc. We lay down our lives by being patient, kind, not self seeking etc.

For the first 4 weeks our stories will be told using our puppet Lenny Cool.

Week 1 - Introduction. Jesus loves us. [Song - Jesus Loves Me This I Know]

Week 2 - Jesus doesn't love me because I'm good. [Song - He Overflows With Love.]

Week 3 - Jesus shows what love is by laying down his life for me. [Song - So Great Is Jesus' Love]

Week 4 - We copy Jesus and lay down our lives for one another. [Song - So Great Is Jesus' Love]

We've got heaps of ESL kids and so are trying to keep the talks really simple. Our kids feel like it's preschool stuff compared to what they've had before, but that's okay, it's not about them.

I thought I'd post up the talks in case anyone's interested. I know what it's like on a Saturday night to be cruising around the internet looking for inspiration... [Click here for talks 1 and 2. I've not written 3 and 4 yet!]

satisfaction is...

... a Sunday School set.  Made by Mel and Lizi.

 

  

 

Environment really matters for kids stuff.  A good set is worth all the time it takes to make.

1-2 Kings older kings booklet

I promise I won't post forever on the Sunday School material I'm writing.  I'm nearing the end of the creative stage so pretty soon I'll lose interest.

Here is the finished product of the older kids booklets.  I stayed up late last night colouring and 'scrapbooking' the pictures in, so the kids can see what their books might look like at the end of the term.

I still love the font and don't regret the price I paid for it.

map of ot israel

drawing

I have spent much of today drawing pictures for my Sunday School material.  I was hoping that if I left this job for long enough, someone else would do it for me.  Alas, it didn't happen.  I'm not a drawer.  I sat down with my kids' 'how to draw people' book and followed the steps.

I've now done 4/8 pictures.  They'll do (probably), but look laboured - like an essay written by a non-English speaker or a melody by a non-musician.

I'm hoping they'll be rescued by my nice font.

Anyway, here's Rehoboam.

and here's Manasseh.

the good samaritan

Showing this to kids at church tomorrow.

fruit wars part one

It's all in the font.

Lazarus Kids' talk

Thanks for your prayers today. This is the kid's talk I gave in church.

We have a terrible enemy. Death. We spend a lot of time battling this enemy. We use weapons like medicines and operations and we try to stay healthy. Sometimes we do well and we think we're winning... but sooner or later death beats us. None of us are strong enough to beat him, our weapons aren't good enough.

We lost a battle against death this week. Little Abby got very sick and she died. We're sad. And we should be sad.

But Jesus shows us that even though we can't beat death, he can. I'm going to tell you a story now. Something that Jesus did to show everyone that he is stronger than death.

***

Jesus had lots of friends, but some of them were very special to him. These are Jesus' friends Mary and Martha. Mary and Martha, together with their brother Lazarus were very dear to Jesus. Mary loved Jesus so much that once she poured expensive perfume all over his feet.

Mary and Martha loved Jesus and they believed that he was God's son, the king of all the world. But one day something terrible happened. Jesus was away in another town and their brother Lazarus got sick. Mary and Martha felt worried. They knew that Jesus could make their brother better, so they sent a message to Jesus asking him to come quickly and heal Lazarus.

Do you think Jesus would come?

When Jesus heard the news he didn't come. He knew that Lazarus was very very sick, but he stayed right where he was for another two days. Jesus' friends were confused. What was Jesus doing? But Jesus said, 'Wait and see.' He was going to show everyone that he was stronger than death and that death didn't have to win.

After two days Jesus started the journey to Mary and Martha and Lazarus' house. It took them them a few days to get there because they had to walk. When they did get there, everyone was very sad. Lazarus had been dead and in a tomb for four days. Mary and Martha and Lazarus' friends were crying. They wondered why Jesus hadn't come sooner.

Martha came right up to Jesus. "Lord," she said, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies. Do you believe this?"

"Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ,the Son of God."

Then Mary came up. She said, 'Lord, if you had been here, our brother wouldn't have died.'

Jesus saw everyone so sad. They had loved Lazarus and Jesus had loved him too. It is awful when death wins.

Jesus walked over to Lazarus' tomb and he cried.

'Look how much he loved Lazarus,' everyone said.

Now death might be stronger than us, but death is not stronger than Jesus. Jesus had known all along what he was going to do. He wanted to show everyone that he could defeat death.

Jesus came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.

Take away the stone," he said. But nobody wanted to take away the stone.

'Lazarus has been in there for four days.' they said.

But they moved the stone away as Jesus asked.

Jesus looked at Lazarus' tomb. He stood up and cried out in a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come out!'

Do you know what happened next? The dead man came out, his hands and feet still wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.

Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go."

And everyone was amazed. Lazarus had been dead, but now he was walking around again! Jesus could defeat death!

***

When Jesus raised Lazarus to life it was actually a sign to prove to us that Jesus can do something even better than what he did for Lazarus.

You see, after Lazarus came back to life again, he was just like he was before he had been sick. Just like a normal person. But eventually, his body got sick again (maybe when he was very old) and he died. Lazarus still couldn't beat death forever.

Jesus said, 'I and the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even though they die.'

Jesus raised Lazarus to life to show us that he is stronger than death. Everyone who believes in him will live even though they die.

Little Abby has died. Jesus could have raised her body straight away like he did with Lazarus and we would like it if he had. But one day, like all of us, Abby would still die. Jesus does something much better.

Right now Abby is in heaven with Jesus. She is waiting with him for the day when he will make her a brand new body. One much better than Lazarus' body. And one much better than her old body. Her new body will never get sick or hurt or sad again. It will be perfect in every way. At that time Jesus will absolutely defeat death. And we will all be happy. That's what we look forward to.

[Feel free to borrow this talk. Pictures in reverse order - thanks blogger!]

Want kids to listen at Sunday School?

Tell the story of Stephen from Acts 6-7. They may be fidgetty at the start, but they'll all tune in for the violence at the end.

Dr. Rocktrin 2 Coming Soon!

Exciting days. Emu's next kids cd is at the mixing stage. Each day I get another almost complete song sent to my inbox. I may be biased, but I think it's going to be a good cd.

It's in the Doctor Rocktrin series which is pitched towards older kids (but my five year old loves it too). Musically, it's half rock and half pop. Paul Sheely and Rob Smith have written the rock half. Philip Percival and I have written the pop songs (We've drawn inpiration from the High School Musical movies - but hope that our songs have more content!) Many of the songs are suitable for singing in Sunday School or in other children's ministries. Some of them are especially for kids (and grown ups!) to listen to on their cd players or ipods.

The Doctor Rocktrin series aims to teach kids basic christian doctrine. This cd has songs covering:

• god's bigness (all the omnis)
• the trinity
• election
• the uniqueness of christ
• salvation
• atonement
• the nature of sin and repentance
• living for jesus
• hope and comfort
• the new creation

Look out for it. It should be available from emu music next month.

a tale of two skywalkers

I'm reading this book by Michael Bird at the moment. Enjoying it. A couple of interesting ideas that I'll blog on sometime...

But. Given the obsession with star wars in our household, let me share this:

Bird, comparing the figures of Christ and Adam in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15, offers this analogy:

In want of a modern analogy, George Lucas's six-part saga Star Wars can be called a "Tale of Two Skywalkers", and in many ways mirrors the Adam-Christ contrast of Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15, where Adam and Christ stand for the two respective heads of humanity. They are representatives or types of either a corrupted humanity (Adam) or a redeemed humanity (Christ). The first Skywalker (Anakin Skywalker) faced the temptation to give in to the dark side of the force: he gave in to it and death, destruction and chaos followed. In contrast, the second Skywalker (Luke Skywalker) faced the same temptation, but was faithful and obedient to the Jedi vocation, and consequently hope, life and the triumph of good followed. In fact, Luke was able to redeem the first Skywalker, his father Anakin, from evil through his faithfulness (pp. 42-43).

I shared this analogy with the kids this evening. Nathan was rather taken with it and our conversation ended with him saying, 'thanks mum for telling me about that!'

I've thought for some time that we need an Adam vs Christ gospel tract. Maybe it should have a Star Wars cover.

Acts Sunday School Material

I am writing Sunday School material based on the book of Acts. I'm after a cool title to tie it all together.

Here are some ideas I've had so far:

God on the move - I'm thinking of Stephen's speech

To the ends of the earth - I'm thinking Acts 1:8.

King of the World - I like that the word 'king' is in this one. If the material is good, it will become part 3 in the 'The King the Snake and the Promise', 'Meet the King' trilogy.

What do you think? Any other ideas?

The Shape Song

My friend Kate P. and her daughter L. wrote a new verse for the Colour Song. I polished it up a bit. What do you think?

Imagine if the world did not have shapes
And circles could not be found
Houses without squares or triangles
The sun would not be round.
Blibs and blobs not thin or fat
I'm glad that it is not like that
Thank you God for shapes within our world.

pete and petal - kids talk rhyme

I wrote this as part of a kids talk I did this morning. Ten points for anyone who can correctly guess my passage. A guy from our congregation admirably acted the parts of Pete and Petal.

Pete and Petal

Pete was strong and Pete was tough
Hard as nails and really rough
Each day he trained from noon till night
Building muscles, what a sight
he was to see
He'd stand, he'd look and say with glee,
'No-one, nothing can beat me!'

Pete was strong, Pete was tough
Hard as nails and really rough
But was his meat and might enough?

Uh uh.

A semi-trailor big and bold
On the wrong side of the road
Bowled him over, knocked him flat
That was then the end of that!
Rough and tough, our strong man Pete
was squashed and flattened on the street.

Pretty Petal, what a sight!
Prinking, preening, day and night
Brushing hair until it glowed
Fixing ribbons, tieing bows
around her curls
She'd stand, she'd look, she'd give a twirl
and say, 'I'm such a pretty girl!'

Pretty Petal, such a sight
Prinking, preening, day and night
But is her future really bright?

Uh uh.

As years flew past her heart went cold
She saw that she was growing old
Her lovely hair was grey and thin
And whiskers grew upon her chin
She saw herself and screamed in fright
Pretty Petal – what a sight!
She stamped her feet, she bawled, she cried
Her beauty gone and she would die.

Alas for Petal
Alas for Pete
Alas for all death can defeat
Petal and Pete, they should not trust
their bodies, they are not enough.

There's only one thing that is sure
They should have trusted in their Lord.

sar 2008

Agent Life

My friend and I are writing a program for a kids club we're running in December. We've written a couple before and have always planned to package them up and sell/give them away to other churches but have never managed this well. By the time we've run the program, we're so sick of it that we don't want to think about it again.

We're planning on doing things differently this year. We want it all packaged up, formatted, pdf'ed etc before we run it, so that we don't have to feel guilty afterwards.

I started work on it today. It may change many times in the next couple of months. We're wanting a spy theme... Slap stick style, get smart, inspector gadgetty drama... Spy crafts - fingerprint removal, booby traps, secret codes, invisible ink, scavenger hunts....Bible stuff from John's gospel. I'm thinking of structuring the teaching around 3 of the 'I am' statements.

1. I am the bread of life
Story: Feeding 5000 (John 6)
Memory Verse: Jn 6:35 Jesus said, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty." (or maybe just the first bit)
Main Point : Jesus makes food for his friends! (That will do for the 3-4 year olds) But he actually has something much better to give us.

2. I am the resurrection and the life
Story: Raising Lazarus (John 11)
Memory Verse: John 11:25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies"

3. I am the good shepherd
Story: Shepherd illustration and Cross
Memory Verse: John 10:11 Jesus said "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."

The big point will be that Jesus gives us life. Unlike food - which only gives us life for a little while. Better than what he did for Lazarus - who would die again anyway. Jesus gives us eternal life. And he does it by laying down his life for us. (I need to get this logic tighter.)

Anyone taught this stuff to kids before?



















I've done a rough flyer idea. Not so happy with it. The browns are a bit dull, it's too boyish, and the title is lame. Anyone got a better idea? I'd like the 'life' theme in somewhere. Would 'spy life' be any better?