$ $ Lessons on Stewardship. $ $ $ $ $ $ A Three Week Children s Church Curriculum Week One: Tithes Week Two: Offering Week Three: Stewardship

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1 Lessons on Stewardship $ $ Featuring: Cash Cow & Piggy Bank $ $ $ $ $ $ A Three Week Children s Church Curriculum Week One: Tithes : Offering Week Three: Stewardship

2 BigIdea I will bless God with my offering. the Refer back to the BIG idea often thru the service to remind the children what the lesson is about. 1. What you say as you teach this is in regular font. 2. What you do is in bold. Bank Bag Of Mystery A Penny What it is : The Big Idea is used from beginning to end in the service. Each element of the service should be opened with what s the big idea? and allow the children to repeat it back. The more you use the big idea and more it is said by leaders and children the greater the chance for the children to retain what they have learned in the service. What you say & What you do: Who is ready for the Big Idea? (kids react) Well we are getting ready to blow the roof off of this room today so get ready, take a deep breath and let s say it on the count of (kids yell the Big Idea) --Repeat this until you feel like the children have a good handle on it for the rest of the service.-- I am so excited about learning about what God says about money in today s lesson. How many of you guys think money is pretty cool? (kids respond) Our Big Idea today talks about offering. Does anyone know what the word offering means? The dictionary says that offering is something offered in worship as a sacrifice. In other words our offering is something we can give to God as a form of worship. Offering is also something that we give sacrificially. There are many stories in the Bible that teach about offering. We need to understand one thing about the Big Idea today and that is that we give our offering to bless God. We don t give offering because God makes us; we give because we want to. Another cool thing about offering is that we can give it to something we think is cool that God is doing in our church, like missions. Tithe goes to the storehouse like we learned last week and the storehouse is the church. Well, offering goes to what we choose. How do we choose? We ask God to show us what He would like for us to give to. Missions, our children s ministry, youth ministry, guest speaker or many other things that our church has going on. I think it is cool that God trusts me with money and I know that God blesses those who bless others. So what is our Big Idea? (kids say big idea). Great! Now let s have a look at the Bank Bag of Mystery and see what secret it may hold today. Who is ready to see what is in here? Go over to Bank Bag of Mystery and open it. Pull out the penny that is in it. Look at this! It is only a penny. I thought because today was on offering it would be more money than this. Oh well, I think I have a little more money around here somewhere. Who is ready for our Money Game? (kids respond)

3 Money Games Money Toss 10 dollar bills (play or real) 10 coins (play or real) What it is : Game time is meant to be fun. Allow the kids to get loud as they cheer on their team for this part of your service. This key to this game is all in how you say the rules and explain the game. The goal is to have the children pick what they think is more which would be the dollar bills. What you say & What you do: Line up 2 buckets on a piece of tape and then put another piece of tape about 6 feet away from the buckets for the kids to line up on. The object of today s game is to see who can get more in their bucket before the time runs out. Pick an even number of children to play the game. Today the contestants of the game will have to do two things. First they must pick out their ammo. The two choices of ammo are coins or bills. Each child can only pic one kind of ammo. Remember choose your ammo wisely because whoever gets more in their bucket at the end of the game wins.! At the end of the game count the money and count it as pieces of money not the dollar amount. Teach that God looks at the gift according to what we have to begin with and our sacrifice not how much we give. Many of you guys don t have jobs and may not think that you have a lot of money. Well today one of the things we want to learn is that God does not look at how much we give but how much we sacrifice in our offerings to Him. I bet you guys that played the game today thought if you got the dollars in then you would win but as you can see sometimes it is the little gifts that win big. It is all in how you look at it. So be happy that you can choose to bless God with your offering even if it is a little bit. As long as it comes from your heart and you are giving it in obedience to God... You will be a winner no matter what. The child that chose the dollar bills should not have as many dollars as the child that selected the coins because the paper money will be harder to throw. In our verse and in our Bible story today we will learn that when God looks at our giving he looks at our heart not at the amount. Just like this game, the kids that chose the dollar bills may have thought that they were going to win because the dollars are worth a lot more than the coins we had. However, it was the coins that were easier to toss in and there were more pieces in the coin bucket than in the dollar bucket. Now who is ready for our memory verse? (kids respond) Let s see what cash cow and piggy bank are up to today.

4 Memory Verse They gave out of their wealth, but she; out of her poverty, gave everything. Mark 12:44 Memory Verse printed out for reference Cash Cow and Piggy Bank video on offering provided in your presentation 9 pieces of construction paper with two words from the verse written on each. What it is: The memory verse and the activity is designed to do two things: 1. To give you the opportunity to give Biblical basis and support to the teaching of the day, 2. To get the kids moving and learning at the same time. Take this portion of the service to ensure that the children will memorize the weeks verse and understand what it means to them. What you say & do: Read the verse. Like we discussed in our game time today there are so many kids like you who don t think they have much to offer God. I am here to tell you again that God does not look at the amount of money our offering is... He looks at our heart and at our sacrifice. How many of you are ready to learn our verse? (kids respond) Memory Verse Video Memory Verse Activity $$$$$$ $$$$$$ Play Cash Cow and Piggy Bank Offering Video Wow what a cool way to learn our verse. I also have a fun activity for us today to help learn this verse. First let s repeat the verse together a couple of time out loud. Say the memory verse and have the children repeat it as you go along. Do this a few times until you think the children have a good handle on it. Bring out the paper with the words on it. Pick two children (or two teams) and lay the verse out on a table in order. Let the children study it a little then turn away. Scramble the paper up. Tell the children that they will have to unscramble and put it in order. Time them individually or as a team. The one with the fastest time wins. Repeat with more kids as time allows. Say the verse together one more time before moving on. Have fun!

5 Bible Story Poor is More Mark 12:41-44 Your anointing! Bible text offered below in red Bucket or offering plates at the front of the room 41Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny. 43Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. 44They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything all she had to live on." What it is : The Bible Story Portion of the lesson is meant to bring all the teaching tools together to show that everything that is being taught and discussed has a basis in scripture. Without scripture there would be nothing useful to say. Children need to know that the Bible has all the answers they need. It is up to us to show them how to find those answers. What you say & What you do: Well, here we are at the most important part of our service... the message. I need to go over something with you before we get into God s word. Did you know that the Bible is full of awesome stories about every subject that we deal with in life. So when we get to this part I would like you to help me remember that the Bible is full of Truth. Let s try this; when I say if the Bible says it then point at the kids you say as loud as you can it s true! Practice this a few times. Now that we know that if the Bible says is then point at the kids (kids say it s true ), we can tell our story today. Our story is found in Mark 12. Picture the setting with me today. Jesus and the disciples are sitting in the temple near where the offerings are put. Jesus observed how the large gifts poured in and were given in a very public manner. It was as if those that gave large gifts that day were saying look at me, look how much I care and how much I give. This disappoints God and it disappointed Jesus. Jesus took this chance to teach the disciples what true giving means. Just then a poor widow took her turn giving at the temple. She gave less than a penny. This seems like so little but Jesus taught the disciples that day that she gave more than anyone else because that was all she had. Pick up the offering plates (or buckets). The lesson that we can learn from this today is that is that offering is a privilege for you and I. We can give to God and see him do some miraculous things. In my hands I have a couple of simple offering plates. They are both empty. Let me ask you something. Do you think God runs out of money? (kids respond) I donʼt think He does. I do know that He can speak to your heart and mine about what we can give sacrificially to Him. I donʼt want to be like the rich people in the story that wanted to give offerings for themselves to look good, do you? I want to be like the widow that gave because she loved God. You know what is so cool about this story. The widow did not want anyone to notice her, but Jesus saw her. And here we are a couple of thousand years later talking about what the widow did. I believe that if we bless God with our offerings... He will find ways to bless us right back. Letʼs pray today about how we can bless God with our offering. Have altar and prayer time here.

6 Schedule Time: 5 min Welcome and Opening Prayer BIGIdea: (Do together) the Time: min Money Games: Time: min Praise & Worship: Offering & Visitors: Time: 5 min Time: 5 min Time: TBD Time: As needed I will bless God with my Offering Bank Bag of Mystery: Play Money Games here Memory Verse: Insert your own praise and worship Greet visitors and Take Offering Teach Memory Verse Memory Verse Video: Memory Verse: Bible Story: Penny Play Cash Cow & Piggy Bank Movie Do Memory Verse Activity Present the Bible Story Prayer/ Altar & Offering: Use this time to allow the children to respond to what they have learned and to take the offering in a special way. Review Game: Use Review Game provided in.