Kindergarten-2nd. May 10-11, The Early Church. God wants his family members to love and support one another. Acts 2:42-27

Transcription

1 Kindergarten-2nd May 10-11, 2014 Acts 2:42-27 Connect Time (15 minutes): Five minutes after the service begins, split kids into groups and begin their activity. The Early Church God wants his family members to love and support one another. As you interact with kids, affirm them. Say something specific you appreciate about their personality or something positive you see in their character. Large Group (30 minutes): Begin 20 minutes after the service starts. Model what it looks like to be engaged in large group. 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, encourage them to use their headbands to retell today s story. Today, we re talking about how the early church acted like a family by sharing, helping, supporting, and worshiping together. We should act that way too!

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. DON T LET IT FALL *Play this in small or large groups Break the kids into the group size of your choice Split each group into smaller groups, and have them form two lines facing each other Have lines pretend to face each other across an imaginary net Tell them the goal is to pass the beach ball(s) back and forth without letting them hit the ground. o Nobody can touch the ball twice in a row (a new person must touch it every o time) Teams can help each other but the goal is to go back and forth, so add a rule about this if necessary After you ve played, let whoever is holding the ball share about the best or worst part of his/her week. Then they can pass the ball to somebody else to share, etc. 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.

3 Goal: Kids will (1) understand how the early church treated each other, (2) recognize that people wanted to be part of God s family based on how they treated each other, and (3) identify one way they will show love like Jesus this week. Why? In our culture, we don t necessarily always view other believers as family. But that s what they are! Tip: We re focusing on the idea of a helping hand but make sure kids know that the lesson is about more than simply being helpful. REVIEW THE STORY *The kid with the beanbag should answer the question. 1. How did the people in God s family in the Bible help each other? 2. What did other people think when they saw them work together? 3. How can we help each other out today? 4. How can working together help us do the special job Jesus gave us? DIG DEEPER 5. Why do you think Jesus wants us to help each other? 6. Go around the table and share ONE way you have helped someone. (Could be sharing a toy, giving someone a snack, letting someone else go first, helping your little brother or sister, etc.) 7. How does it feel to help someone? How does it feel to be helped? SMALL GROUP ACTIVITY When Jesus was here, he used his hands to help. His family should act like him by helping others too. Let kids choose a color of paper Trace one of their hands Choose one way they want to help this week; they should be specific with WHO they will help and WHAT they will do o They might help a parent, friend, sibling, aunt or uncle, grandparent, cousin, babysitter, etc. Draw or write what they will do inside of the hand Help kids write the name of the person they will help at the bottom (Continue on the following page)

4 2 If you want, let your group take turns cutting out their hands (if you prefer not to use scissors, skip this step!) Kids should give their hand to the person they are going to help, like a coupon. (E.g. If they are going to help their brother with the dishes, they should give the hand to their brother today.) Extra time? Divide the students up into teams of four to five students each. Quietly assign each group a machine to act like, as a team. (Kids can help you come up with examples, like washing machine, car, vacuum cleaner, toaster, laptop computer, alarm clock, etc.) Once each team is ready, have them build their specific machine by acting it out altogether and having the other kids guess.

5 1 The goal of today s lesson is for kids to understand that God wants his children to act like a family. The GO Cincinnati video is the first 1:23 of this video: axme60. Hi everybody! Welcome to Kids Club. I m so happy to see you. That was a really fun game we played together during Connect Time. And you know what? I saw a lot of you helping each other out. How did you guys help each other during the beach ball game? (Let kids respond.) That s right! It s great to help each other out when we re on a team, isn t it? And I bet you guys help out in other ways too. Raise your hand if you ever help your family. (Let kids respond.) How do you guys help your family? (Let 2-3 kids share.) Wow, that s great! And why do you think it s important for teams or families or friends to help each other? (Let kids respond.) THE EARLY CHURCH WORKED TOGETHER Sometimes it s hard to do things by ourselves. We need each other for help and encouragement. One thing I love about being a part of GOD s family is that I have so many other people like you guys to help me follow Jesus. Did you guys know that we can work as a team with other people in God s family? We re going to read some verses about how the very first church worked together. This verse calls them believers. That means the people who believed Jesus is the Son of God! SLIDE: Acts 2: The believers studied what the apostles taught. And they prayed. Everyone felt that God was near. The apostles did many wonders and miraculous signs. All the believers were together. They shared everything they had. They sold what they owned. They gave each other everything they needed. Every day they met together in the temple courtyard. In their homes they broke bread and ate together. Their hearts were glad and honest and true. They praised God. They were respected by all the people. Every day the Lord added to their group those who were being saved. Raise your hand if it sounds like they worked together (let kids respond). Yeah, I d say so. In fact, let s play a little game to help us remember some of the things they did.

6 GAME: THE EARLY CHURCH HOP Everybody stand up! (Let kids stand.) OK, if I say something the early church did, I want you to hop once. Then I ll ask you another question. If I say something the early church did NOT do, give me a thumbs down. Ready? They prayed (hop) o Yep! Now hop again if YOU can pray (hop) They shared stuff once in awhile (thumbs down) They shared EVERYTHING with each other (hop) o Yeah! That s amazing, isn t it. Hop again if you can share EVERYTHING (hop) o It s hard, but we can. They hung out together (hop) o Hop again if you can hang out with other people in God s family (hop) They went to their own homes for dinner (thumbs down) They ate together (hop) o Hop again if you can eat dinner with others in God s family (hop) Nobody wanted to join God s family (thumbs down) People wanted to join God s family EVERY DAY (hop) Great job! Now have a seat (let kids sit). PEOPLE WANTED TO JOIN THE EARLY CHURCH God s family worked together so well, that every day people wanted to be a part of it. And if we work together like that, others will want to be a part of God s family with US. Which is great, because Jesus gave us a special job to tell others about his rescue so that they can become a part of God s family. Remember, Matthew 28:18-20 says this: SLIDE Matthew 28:18-20 Then Jesus came to them. He said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. So you must go and make disciples of all nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And you can be sure that I am always with you, to the very end. If making disciples means helping more people follow Jesus and become part of God s family, do you think the early church was obeying Jesus and doing his special job? (Let kids say: yes!) Yeah! And do you think we can work together like the early church so people want to be part of God s family with US too? (Let kids say: yes!) Definitely. PEOPLE WANT TO JOIN US TOO! There are lots of ways we can act like the early church and work together with God s family. Let s think about some of the ways.

7 3 (click to show picture of hospital) How could we help somebody who is sick in the hospital? (Let kids say: visit them, take flowers, give their family a meal, pray for them). Yes! Let s do another one. (click to show picture of sad kid) How could we help somebody who is getting teased? (Let kids say: talk to them, be their friend, say something nice about them, give them a hug, etc.) That s right. Those are great ideas! (click to show picture of an empty plate) How could we help somebody who doesn t have enough food? (Let kids say: give them money, give them a meal, etc.) Yes! Just like it would feel really good if somebody helped us when WE were hungry. It s actually pretty cool that God wants us to work together as a family! And it can be a ton of fun. Next weekend is a big weekend called GO Cincinnati. Raise your hand if you ve heard of that before (let kids respond). That s when a lot of people in God s family go out and help others. Let s watch a video about last year. As you watch, see if any of this looks like something you could do: Video: GO Cincinnati So did anybody see something that looked like fun? (Let 3-5 kids respond.) Those things looked like fun to me too! And this year, we ve got West Side who s a part of it too! And even if you aren t doing GO Cincinnati, the good news is, we can help each other out all the time! WORSHIP We re going to talk about more ways to do that in small group. But for now, let s stand up and sing some praises to Jesus. This first song is all about how we can help others. Then next song is about how we are following Jesus when we help others and tell them about Jesus and he WANTS us to follow him by coming with him! Music Video: Helping Hand Song: Come With Me (with hand motions) PRAY Ask God to show us each at least one way we can help others this week.

8 THIS PAGE LEFT BLANK INTENTIONALLY

9

10 1 beach ball per small group Markers Bible Beanbag Scissors Half sheets of different-colored paper (could use this: OT IN-65/60926) Coloring Page: Heart Design Bible 1. SLIDE: Acts 2: The believers studied what the apostles taught. And they prayed. Everyone felt that God was near. The apostles did many wonders and miraculous signs. All the believers were together. They shared everything they had. They sold what they owned. They gave each other everything they needed. Every day they met together in the temple courtyard. In their homes they broke bread and ate together. Their hearts were glad and honest and true. They praised God. They were respected by all the people. Every day the Lord added to their group those who were being saved. 2. SLIDE: Matthew 28:18-20 Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And you can be sure that I am always with you, to the very end. 3. Image: hospital 4. Image: sad kid 5. Image: empty plate 6. Video: GO Cincinnati ( me60; use 0-1:23 only) 7. Music Video: Helping Hand 8. Song: Come With Me (with hand motions) Tell me about the early church. How can God s family work together today? Today, we learned about the early church and how they helped each other. Every single day, more and more people saw how they treated each other (and heard the good news of Jesus rescue) and started following Jesus. We talked about how we can work together as a family today too. Ask your kid to tell how he or she plans to help this week. And if you want, read about the early church together in Acts 2:42-47 in the Bible.