Nature of God: Grace

11 children

1.   Icebreaker Game – Piggy in the middle!
kids in a circle, just have to throw a ball over somebody in the middle….

2         Competitive Game – The Winner!

racing game or similar, but the LOOSER is awarded the prize (medal)

At the end of the race the medal wen to the looser! We discussed how fair that feeled, and tried to map this to Gods grace, wrt we are given it even though  we don’t deserve it

3         Video - I DON'T WANT YOU!

 

Toy Story 1: from 24:49 – 30:05

Woody has been Andy's favourite toy but Andy has just been given Buzz Lightyear and he is the new favourite! Woody can't come to terms with not being number one and he succeeds in getting Buzz  knocked out of the window. Buzz follows Andy's car to the petrol station and Buzz and Woody have a  fight which results in both of them being left behind.

We discussed the clip and answered the following questions:

· Do you think Woody really means to push Buzz out of the window?

· Why is Woody so upset with Buzz?

· In this clip, what are the consequences of Woody refusing to accept Buzz?

· What would have happened if Woody had been nicer to Buzz?

· How else could Woody have dealt with the situation?

Most of the kids picked up on the fact both characters were wrong, and should have given grace to the other, being angry  usually results in us making bad decisions

4         Bible Study – He Does this…

The kids were split in to Pairs, each have a bible verse (below), and are tasked in finding the bible verse, and thinking up an action that shows it.

·         Ephesians 2:3 (Once we had made God angry and were to be punished.)

·         Ephesians 1:7 (Jesus sacrificed his blood for us)

·         Ephesians 2:4 (God made us alive with Christ)

·         Ephesians 1:5 (God chose us to be adopted sons)

·         Ephesians 1:3 (We are blessed with every spiritual blessing)

·         Ephesians 2:10 (God planned things for us to do for him)

When everybody was ready, each pair read their verse and showed their action/skit.

5         Hangman

Open up the bible, and chose one of the words in the page as the word.. kids have to guess. Usual hangman rules….  (small link, there was a picture of Hangman in the Toy Story video clip!)

Kids liked this!

6         Bible Study with Video : A loving Father

Showed the video :

 

 

 

Ask the children why they think the father was so forgiving.

We explained that the father is like God. He loves us more than we can imagine, far more than we deserve and He treats us with grace all the time.  The father could have forgiven his son and let him be a servant - that would have been enough. What else did the father do to his son?

That is like God. He doesn't just forgive us; He gives us a whole new start and provides us with all sorts of gifts as we start again with him - even though we don't deserve it. That's grace!

7         Final prayer and end