252 Groups May 17, 2015, Week 3 Small Group, 4-5. Liar, Liar

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1 Liar, Liar Bible Story: Liar, Liar (Naaman and Elisha s Servant, Gehazi) 2 Kings 5 Bottom Line: When you are not truthful, you lose trust. Memory Verse: Keep me from cheating and telling lies. Be kind and teach me your law. Psalm 119:29, NIrV Life App: Honesty choosing to be truthful in whatever you say and do. Basic Truth: I need to make the wise choice. Plug In: Focus the Energy (Small Groups, minutes) Focus the energy on today s Bible story in a Small Group setting with an engaging discussion question and an interactive opening activity. Before kids arrive, pray for each regular attendee by name. Pray for those who might visit your group for the first time. Pray specifically for the kids who have lost trust because of dishonesty lately. Ask God to give you wisdom to speak the right words to them so that they don t feel scolded, but instead are challenged to make things right and to start earning trust back. 1. Early Arriver Idea What You Need: Offering container, paper, pencils Invite kids to put their offerings in the offering container as they arrive. Give kids paper and pencil and challenge them to see how many words they can make using the letters in HONESTY. Examples include: stone, yes, ten, tone, oh, no, nest, yet, and yen. For an added challenge, see who can come up with the most amount of words in a certain amount of time. 2. Truth or Lie? What You Need: Painter s tape Make a tape line on the floor and have the kids stand on it. On one side of the line, make a T with tape and on the other side of the line make an L. Tell the kids they will get a turn to say a statement about themselves. The rest of the group will have to decide if the statement is the truth or a lie. If they think the statement is true they jump to the T side and if they think it is a lie they jump to the L side. Start with an example about you. Have one statement be a Truth about you (I have a horse) and one statement be a Lie about you (I have never been on a plane). Note: You will play this game again in Catch On, so leave the tape on the floor. We should always try to tell the truth. [Transition] Let s head to Large Group and hear a story about what can happen if you make telling lies a habit. 1

2 Lead your group to the Large Group area. Catch On: Make the Connection (Small Groups, minutes) Make the connection of how today s Bible story applies to real life experiences through interactive activities and discussion questions. 1. Squeeze On (application activity) What You Need: Toothpaste, craft sticks, paper plates The teacher will have a tube of toothpaste, a craft stick and a paper plate. The teacher will squirt some toothpaste onto a plate. Then show the kids that you are going to use the craft stick to put the toothpaste back into the tube. Let them watch you struggle with it for a while. Ask them what toothpaste has to do with trust. Give them time to answer. If they need more direction, ask them more specifically what toothpaste and selecting your words have in common. Lying is like squeezing toothpaste out of a tube. Once you squeeze the tube, the tube of toothpaste won t be the same; you can t put the toothpaste back in the tube the way it was. [Apply] When you lie you can t unsay your words. Once the words are out of your mouth you can t put them back in your mouth and if you lie, people will remember your dishonest words. [Impress] When you are not truthful, you lose trust, and people will begin to expect lies from you. That is why it is so important to be honest. When you talk about how awesome Jesus is, if you can be trusted, people will believe you. 2. Truth or Lie? (application activity / review the Bible story) What You Need: Painter s tape Play another round of Truth or Lie as a way to review the Bible story. If you did not play this game in Plug In, see the instructions there for how to set up the game. Review Questions: We can trust God no matter what. Truth or Lie? (Truth) Naaman had a horrible skin disease called leprosy. Truth or Lie? (Truth) Naaman was poor and didn t have enough money to pay for a doctor to cure him. Truth or Lie? (Lie Naaman was not poor. However, there was no known cure for leprosy so no matter how rich you were you could not pay to be cured.) A prophet is someone chosen by God to represent God on earth. God gives words to the prophet to speak truth to God s people. Truth or Lie? (Truth) Gehazi was a prophet. Truth or Lie? (Lie Elisha was God s prophet; Gehazi was Elisha s servant.) Naaman was instructed to wash in the Jordan River seven times to be healed. Truth or Lie? (Truth) 2

3 Naaman was so grateful to be healed he wanted to give Elisha silver and Elisha accepted payment. Truth or Lie? (Lie Elisha refused to accept payment for God s work. Elisha was the messenger of God. It was God who healed Naaman.) Gehazi thought Elisha was wrong to reject Naaman s offer and so Gehazi lied to Naaman to get riches. Truth or Lie? (Truth) When asked where he was, Gehazi confessed his lie to Elisha, and he asked Elisha for forgiveness. Truth or Lie? (Lie Gehazi continued to lie about his actions.) Gehazi had serious consequence for his lies. Truth or Lie? (Truth) When you are not truthful, you lose trust. Truth or Lie? (Truth) 5-6 Challenge: Let the kids come up with their own Truth or Lie statements from today s Bible story. You did a great job remembering the Bible story today. There is always a consequence when you choose to lie. When you are not truthful, you lose trust. God can be trusted no matter what, and we want to reflect who God is to the world. [Apply] If people can t trust you, they won t believe you when you share with them how incredibly awesome Jesus is. If you are in a situation where you want to lie, remember, God needs you to be someone who can be trusted. [Impress] When you are not truthful, you lose trust. [Make it Personal] (Tell your group about someone in your life you trust and why you trust them. Maybe it is someone who taught you about Jesus. This would be a great segue into the discussion questions if you have a group of fifth graders.) If you lead mostly older kids, consider asking these discussion questions: Who are some people in your life you trust? Why do you trust them? (They are reliable, they do what they say they will do, they care for me, they love me, they tell me what they believe God wants me to hear and not just what I want to hear, etc.) If someone lost your trust, what would it take for you to trust that person again? (Be prepared to discuss that you can forgive someone but still not trust them.) 3. Re-Verse Limbo (memory verse activity) What You Need: Bibles, a piece of yarn or rope Ask kids to open their Bibles to Psalm 119:29. When everyone finds the verse, ask someone to read it out loud. Play Re-Verse Limbo by selecting two kids to hold the piece of yarn close to the ground. Ask each child to say each word of the verse in order as they jump back and forth over the string. Raise the string each time a kid completes the verse. Switch out the kids holding the string so that everyone has the opportunity to jump. When you cheat and lie, what can happen? [Impress] When you are not truthful, you lose trust. [Apply] You know God can be trusted no matter what, so you should learn what He has to teach you in His Word. Studying God s laws will help you make wise choices and choosing be truthful in whatever you say and do is definitely a wise choice. 3

4 Pray and Dismiss What You Need: No supplies needed Remind kids of the Bottom Line: [Impress] when you are not truthful, you lose trust. The opposite is also true. When you ARE truthful, you gain trust. Ask the kids to think of someone in their lives they trust. [Apply] Explain that when you pray, they will have a chance to thank God for the honest people in their lives. Pray with the kids. God, You never lie! And we can trust You no matter what! Help us to be like You. Help us to speak the truth so when we tell people how awesome You are they will know we are telling the truth. God, we thank You for putting people in our lives we can trust. Thank You especially for (go around the group and have kids say the name of someone they trust). Amen! FOR LEADERS ONLY GOD VIEW: the connection between HONESTY and God s character, as shown through God s big story There s something about the things that we say that kind of stack up one way. Then there s the way we live, or the reality about certain situations that stack up another way. If those all line up, there s strength and balance like a dependable tower. When what we say lines up with what we do, people know they can trust us, because, like a strong tower, our lives are built with integrity. Honesty really is a big deal. That s why we re spending the month of May to talk about Honesty. Honesty is choosing to be truthful in whatever you say and do. When we re honest, when our words line up with our actions, people know they can trust us. Our relationships grow stronger. God understands the relationship between honesty and trust. This is something God set into motion in the first place. Since the beginning, God has been in the business of making and keeping promises. God told Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation of people He was. God told the Israelites that He would provide for them in the desert He did. God told Joshua that the wall of Jericho would fall if the people marched around it for seven days it did. God told Mary that she would have a baby boy she did. That baby boy was the answer to a promise God had set in motion from the beginning: God kept His promise to send a Savior. When we were lost, He came through and sent Jesus, the Messiah, the One in whom we can ultimately put all of our trust. That s really it, isn t it? God is honest. He has proven from the beginning that He can be trusted even to the point of sending His Son. And we re called to reflect the image of God to a world around us that is desperate for people who will live with integrity. We want kids to begin building the kind of lives that show they can be trusted. Because they know the One who 4

5 can be trusted above any other. This week, we re discovering: In 2 Kings 5, we find the prophet Elisha and his servant named Gehazi. And at a moment in time when Gehazi saw Elisha turn down a gift, Gehazi decided that he could take advantage of the situation and take the gift for himself. He went behind Elisha s back, denied his actions, and inevitably lost Elisha s trust. Bottom Line: When you are not truthful, you lose trust. If you continually tell lies and hurt people with dishonesty, eventually you will lose the trust of those around you. We hope kids realize that honesty helps them build relationships with others. Our Memory Verse is Psalm 119:29. Keep me from cheating and telling lies. Be kind and teach me your law. It s important to remember that when we feel like telling a lie, God can help us be honest and build trust with those around us. 5