March 29-30, Mary Magdalene. Luke 7:36-50 Adventure Bible (p. 1134) Jesus loves it when we love him back.

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1 rd 3 5 th March 29-30, 2014 Mary Magdalene Luke 7:36-50 Adventure Bible (p. 1134) Jesus loves it when we love him back. Connect Time (15 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. Today, kids will talk about ways to show Jesus love no matter where we are, no matter what people think. Kids would really benefit from you sharing your story! Ahead of time, ask the Holy Spirit to bring to mind an example you can share with kids. Small Group (15 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. As kids leave, remind them that their challenge is to show Jesus love in the way that s written on their card. Mary Magdalene showed Jesus love in a crazy way: she cried over his feet, wiped her tears with her hair, then poured perfume all over his feet! But Jesus loved it, because he loves it when we show him our love.

2 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. SACRIFICIAL GIVING *The discussion portion is a key element of today s Connect Time. Please facilitate as intimate discussion groups as possible. Put the treasure chest somewhere in the center of the room Give each kid a slip of paper Ask them to write down the best ONE thing they own, maybe the best gift they ve ever gotten or the best thing they ve ever bought. Have them share with one other person. DISCUSS: What if I asked you to give that away? Maybe to somebody you care about or somebody who needs it? Maybe even for Jesus? Would you be willing to do it? Why or why not? (Share personal examples.) If kids think they would be willing to give it up, have them fold it up and put it in the treasure chest. (Be careful not to make a big deal of what a kid chooses; either way is fine). Then ask kids about the best/worst parts of their weeks. Then, before you head into Large Group, remind them about your expectations for their behavior: (1) be kind, (2) listen when somebody speaks, and (3) follow the leader s instructions. BRING THE TREASURE CHEST TO LARGE GROUP

3 Goal: Kids will (1) review the story and (2) apply the idea of showing Jesus love in unique and sacrificial ways Why? Sacrifice is a tough concept, but one that s important to true worship. Tips: Get personal: Share different ways you ve worshiped or would like to worship. DIG DEEPER AND RELATE *Try this for a more engaged discussion: tell kids you re going to ask a question. Then give a beanbag to somebody and it s their job to answer. Then, everybody has to listen carefully to the next question. The kid with the beanbag must toss it to someone else. 1. What does it mean to worship? (To tell and show Jesus how great He is.) 2. How did Mary worship (show love to) Jesus? 3. Why did Mary worship Jesus? 4. What s the most surprising part of this story to you? What s your favorite? 5. What do you think we can learn about Jesus from this story? (speculate, but make sure to include this: he knows what s in our hearts, just like he knew a woman who made wrong choices loved him while the Pharisees who made right choices didn t) 6. How could you show that your life is about worshiping Jesus? What could you give up this week to show that? (Give an example of something you d like to do.) PRACTICAL WORSHIP CREATE A CARD Give each kid a baseball-sized journal card. Based on the color they got, they should write the following word on it. o Red School o Orange Home o Yellow Car or Bus o Green Bathroom o Blue Gym o Purple Game (sport or video game) (Continue on the following page)

4 On the lined portion, kids should write ONE way they can show love to Jesus there. Do one together first. Here are examples to get you started, or create your own: o Red School: (1) I will listen to my teacher instead of talking in class o Green Bathroom: (1) I will pray while I brush my teeth every morning If you have time, have kids draw a picture or word to describe the act of worship on the back DIG DEEPER / TRADING ACTIVITY Put the cards in the plastic sleeve page Look at all of them together and figure out if you have to sacrifice anything in order to worship the way that s written on the card (it can be as simple as sacrificing what you want to do) Tell kids they have to give up the card they made. They should choose a card to take home, but it must a different card than the one they created. *Pray with the kids, thanking Jesus that he loves us and wants our love too! Extra time? Give each kid a sheet of paper. Have them make a card for Jesus, telling and/or showing him how much they love him back.

5 Perfume can be an overwhelming smell. Engage the kids sense of smell but don t spray so much that they are distracted by it. You can preview today s video here: m2uqfe. Hi everybody, welcome to Kids Club! It s great to see you here today. You guys were just filling up a treasure box with all the things that are MOST important to you. Let s hear some of your special treasures (pull out several slips of paper and read them out loud). Cool! Those are pretty great. I d probably say one of my treasures is (share a personal example). And you know what I love about all the things you guys put in this box? You said you d actually be willing to possibly give them for somebody else or at least for Jesus. Does anybody know the word we use to describe a thing we give up out of love for somebody else? (Let kids respond.) That s right, sacrifice. Now, before we start, we re going to talk about one way to give that lots of churches in our city are going to do together in a week. Food costs money, right? So if you were going to buy a can of soda for fifty cents, you could choose to drink water and then give fifty cents to somebody who really needs it. If everyone in this room gave fifty cents, we d probably have about (estimate amount). In one week, we re going to try to save money to give by eating rice and beans instead of some other foods. Kind of like these kids. (Click to watch short promo.) MARY MAGDALENE S SACRIFICE We ll talk more about that next week. Today, we re going to hear a story about a woman named Mary Magdalene who sacrificed or gave up her treasure for Jesus. Her treasure might surprise you though. (Hold up a perfume bottle.) It was perfume! See, this is a type of perfume that we see sometimes nowadays. We can use perfume or maybe some manly cologne. We can open the bottle and spray it on ourselves so that we smell good. Here, take a whiff: (spray the bottle and let the kids sniff) Mmmmm. We can wear the same scent every day if we want.

6 But you know what? Back when Jesus was on earth, perfume was very different. It was expensive, and there was a special seal on the top, so you couldn t use it every day. You could only use it once. You had to choose the MOST important day to use it. JESUS SHOWS LOVE TO MARY Well in today s story, Mary uses perfume to say I love you to Jesus. See, Mary had done a lot of wrong things. She was known around town as a sinful woman. A lot of people didn t even want to talk to her because they thought she was so bad, especially people called Pharisees, who were church leaders and tried to always do good things. But how do you guys think Jesus treated Mary? (Let kids respond.) That s exactly right: he loved her. He didn t care what she had done. And she believed that Jesus loved her and Mary loved Jesus back! MARY SHOWS EXTRAVAGENT LOVE TO JESUS Let s watch a video to see what happened one night when Mary used perfume to show her love for Jesus. As you watch, see if you can figure out WHY Mary acted the way she did. Video: Jesus Forgives A Sinful Woman (3 minutes) Wow, so what did Mary do to show her love for Jesus? (Let kids say: cried on his feet, wiped his feet with her hair, poured her perfume) And WHY did she act that way? (Let kids say: She had been forgiven for many sins.) That s right, Jesus doesn t care how many wrong things we ve done he wants us to love him and follow him. And just like Mary looked pretty crazy when she walked into a dinner party and started crying, we might look crazy when we give up things we love for Jesus or sing extra loud in worship or dance all crazy. But it doesn t matter! Jesus loves us! The best part is we don t have to worry about whether or not Jesus loves us. The Bible tells us what Jesus thinks about us. Zephaniah 3:17 says: SLIDE: Zephaniah 3:17 The LORD your God is with you. He is mighty enough to save you. He will take great delight in you. The quietness of his love will calm you down. He will sing with joy because of you. He will SAVE us that means he rescues us and forgives any number of wrong choices, like he did for that woman. He also delights in us, which means we make him really, really happy. He will even SING with joy because of us! HOW CAN WE WORSHIP JESUS? When we understand how deeply Jesus loves us, it makes us want to love him back. Even if it means giving up or sacrificing something we care about it. Does anybody know what it s called when we tell or show Jesus we love him? (Let kids respond.) That s right, it s called worship!

7 Worship isn t just singing to God or praying to him. Mary worshiped Jesus by pouring perfume on his feet at a dinner party. And we can worship Jesus in lots of different ways too. I m going to show you one last clip to give you ideas of WHERE we can worship. Video: Worship Bumper OK, in small groups, we ll talk more about how we can worship Jesus with HUGE love, like Mary Magdalene, even in places like the shower or school or the car. But first, let s do some singing worship together. Truth is Jesus loves it when we show him love by singing his praises! WORSHIP Want to sing one more song together? Stand up! Let s tell Jesus that we love him so much that we choose to belong to him. Then we ll sing a song about how he loves us. Song: I m Yours Song: Jesus Loves Me (music video; but hand motions available to be learned ahead of time) PRAY Ask somebody to thank Jesus that he loves us so much and wants us to love him back! BRING THE TREASURE CHEST BACK TO THE SMALL GROUP BINS FOR THE NEXT SERVICE

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9 1. Slips of colored computer paper (cut into fourths, but NOT postcard-sized; length-wise, either way) 2. 1 treasure chest per room: OT: IN-5/ Pens 1. Adventure Bible (p. 1134) 2. Pens/Markers 3. 1 beanbag per small group 4. 1 primary journal card per kid (make sure each small group has a variety of colors; OT: IN-65/60835) 5. 2 baseball card sleeve pages per small group: 6. Blank paper Small spray bottle of cheap perfume 1. Video: rice and beans promo 2. Video: Jesus Forgives a Sinful Woman ( KYm2UqFE) 3. SLIDE: Zephaniah 3:17 The LORD your God is with you. He is mighty enough to save you. He will take great delight in you. The quietness of his love will calm you down. He will sing with joy because of you. 4. Video: Worship Bumper (in Keynote images folder) 5. Music Video: I m Yours 6. Music Video: Jesus Loves Me (one shot video version; NOT hand motions or animated versions!) Tell me about Mary Magdalene. How can we worship Jesus? In Luke 7:36-50, a woman experiences Jesus amazing love. He forgives her sins, even though she s made a lot of wrong choices! She also does something extravagant to show Jesus her love for him. Ask your kid to tell you about it. And then ask them how they plan to love Jesus back this week.