Family Service – “Jailhouse Rock”

Sunday 17^th November

35 children (aged 4 – 11)

Welcome& register in groups:

Kids draw something that represents power, eg volcanoes, river etc etc

All together: pray

In the background is the video below, showing powerful things

 

What do you think the most powerful thing on Earth is? Give some examples:

• Powerful Peppers- Naga Jolokia [pronounced; Na-za Holo-ka] peppers are the most powerful food. It can be 10 times stronger than a jalapeno and can burn your skin. Imagine what it would do inside your mouth!
• Powerful Machines - The Wartsila-Sulzer boat engine is used to power huge container ships and makes the fastest car look slow. It is stronger than 213 of the most powerful Ferrari cars.
• Powerful Animals- A rhinoceros beetle can lift up to 850 times its own bodyweight. That’s exactly why they are often called Hercules beetles! They are native to rainforests and eat rotting wood and decaying fruit.

1. Powerful Earth - The most powerful recorded earthquake is thought to be the 1960 Valdivia earthquake which caused damage to Chile, Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines. It lifted the ocean floor with a magnitude rating of 9.3 on the Richter scale.

Today we’re learning that praise is powerful. Connecting with the creator of the Earth holds more power than we can imagine.

 

quick song..... Rainbow in the Sky

 

Dvd:Hillsongs Memory verse

Dvd;Watch Hillsongs Big HQ

Praise releases God’s power – tell the story of Paul & Silas

Split Banana OBJECT LESSON: With God all things are possible!

Supplies Needed: A banana, a long thin metal pin. (like a sewing needle or dress making pin)

Before the lesson stick the pin into the banana where you want it to be cut. Slide the pin horizontally to slice the banana without making any marks to the peel. Do this to cut the banana in three places.

Show the banana to the children and tell them that you are going to do the impossible. You are going to slice the banana into pieces without touching or breaking the skin.

Ask the children if they think it’s possible or impossible. Next, have some fun and do some ninja karate moves to “slice” the banana without touching it.

Slowly peel the banana to show that it is cut on the inside. After much applause and amazement from the children explain to them that it was just a trick. It was not impossible but with God things that seem impossible are possible. Matthew 19:26

“With God all things are possible.” (NIV)

Explain to them how the trick is done. Maybe they can show their friends and family and teach others that with God all things are possible.

1. Powerful Praise Our voices are used for so many different things. The most powerful thing you can do with your voice is to praise God.

 The power of praise is that we take the focus off of ourselves and we focus on God. God is all powerful and He can do anything. We can praise God and see His power work in our lives.

2. All things are possible. To your average, everyday person a lot of things seem impossible. What you dream of being when you grow up might, at this moment, seem pretty impossible. Seeing someone who is sick or hurt healed might seem impossible. We know that with God all things are possible! We don’t need to give up! Think about Jesus. After 3 days in a tomb he came alive again. That seemed impossible but it wasn’t for God! We can see miracle after miracle in the Bible, in our lives and in the lives of others.

 

another song.... great big God o

 

Back to Groups:

first pray for one another!

Kids split in to groups, and complete a worksheet

Then write prayer of praise on bunting to decorate the room

 

 

 

2nd June 2013 - Parables

all boys aged 8-10 (yes, it was rather loud! :) )

Parables

Introduction

When Jesus taught he typically taught by using parables. Parables are attention grabbing –

Jesus took everyday occurrences and made them into object lessons. Often Jesus' parables are about the land or the sea - fishing, farming. The people listening to Jesus could have followed his gaze and watched, for instance, a distant farmer sowing his seed as Jesus told the parable of the sower. They would have seen fishermen at work as Jesus told them the parable of the dragnet. This immediacy would have caught his audiences' attention and made his teaching relevant to their lives.

Q Why did Jesus use parables? / while keeping the interest of the audience, were not completely easy to understand - only those whom the holy Spirit wanted to understand would understand. Jesus used parables to keep his meaning slightly hidden from those who were not ready to understand him!

Game – Time

 

Stand the children at one side of the hall and ask them to cross in their own time to the other side.

Say that they should aim to take two minutes to get there - and time them!

See who manages to do the journey in the closest time to 1 minute.. repeat with different times. They enjoyed this game!

Object Lesson – use of objects in parables

 Described how parables are like object lessons, let the kids guess an object lesson for each of the items I had, then I told them my version…

Telephone

2 parts to hand piece, we need to listen and talk. Eg phone convo with somebody. Like when we talk to God, when we pray we upload our problems… but it’s good to be quiet and listen too

Coins

different size piles of different values, but all worth the same. God sees us all the same, doesn’t matter if you are tall or fat or different…

Toothpaste

“many ways to squeeze” from the top from the end. Kid sq        ueezes out toothpaste, then another tries to get it back in the tube. This is a bit like our words, easy to come out, but hard to take back. Brief talk about power of the tongue etc…

2 fizzy Cans

 open a can, yum, how do we get the drink out, we need to tip it up… what would happen if we just left the can on a table?  It would taste really blahh.   New Can – have you ever shaken a can first and then opened it.. what happens? Demonstrate..  God wants us to be like that in our praise, he wants us to be bubbling and overflowing, too often we wait for others to be excited… could I have kept the shaken drink in the can If I put my thumb over the hole/? No. and what happens if I just stay on the table, I go all yucky.

Sweet Banana

Eating a banana – tasty, have banana inside, a bit like what we  watch or do… we take it in and it sits in us.

On this occasion the boy who ate the banana has bright yellow crocks on. An obvious link to eating a yellow banana J

  

Summed up the object lessons for them to remember next time they eat a banana, use toothpaste etc

TEACHING STYLES

 

Kids in to small groups, with pen and paper  slips.

Kids write down different teaching methods, and order them in terms of most interesting…

Eg   talking, asking them to copy down writing, reading to themselves, doing experiments, generally chatting and so on.

Re order in terms of the easiest to learn from is at the top

Discussed..

PROCLAIM A MESSAGE

Kids in groups of 2, each pair has a message to proclaim for 1 minute. This was very loud. At end see who heard what.. example of proclaiming a message, discuss what worked. In practice the most successful was the boy who constantly repeated the phrase. Others wrote

·         Watch the news tonight because there is an important event going to take place.

·         The church is bugged and everything we say is heard by all your Parents

·         The world will blow up tomorrow, but we are ok, because Ipswich will be saved!

·         Tomorrow is national PlayStation day, and all children have to play on a PlayStation or other games console all day

 

FISHING!

Large blue sheet out to represent water, with paper fish underneath. Kids asked to race under the sheet and collect a fish and put in the “bad fish” pile or “good fish” pile

Read the Bible passage from Matthew 13:47-50. The children have just acted the parable out!

Kids asked about the parable, and why it wasn’t more direct.

Final games

Ladders