Lesson 3 Lesson Goal: The children will learn that as followers of God we should try to do good things. And even when doing something good becomes difficult, we shouldn t give up. Main Point: Never Give Up Doing Good! Bible Story: Nehemiah builds the wall (Nehemiah 1-7) Bible Verse: 2 Thessalonians 3:13 As for the rest of you, dear brothers and sisters, never get tired of doing good. NLT What Is The Purpose Of These Activities? Build Challenge (Weekly General Opening Activity) This weekly opening activity will allow the children to immerse themselves in the construction environment while learning the Main Point for the day. Don t Stop Building (Specific Opening Activity) This activity will allow the children to act out parts of the Bible Story and learn about perseverance. The Skit and Bible Story (Large Group Activity) This Skit and Bible Story will teach the children that doing something good is rarely easy. However, we should never give up doing good things, even if it gets tough. Bible Blue Print Building Blocks (Weekly Bible Study Activity) This weekly Bible Story activity will review the Bible Story with the children and remind them that they should follow God s plan for their lives. Tool Shop Clean Up (Weekly Bible Verse Activity) This weekly Bible Verse activity will challenge the children to memorize the Bible Verse and apply it to their lives. A Study In Perseverance (Small Group Activity) This activity will remind the children of the Bible Story and teach the children that perseverance means not giving up. Hold It (Small Group Activity) This activity will teach the children that perseverance pays off in the end. Story Walk (Small Group Activity) This activity will teach the children that when we persevere, God can use us to do amazing things. The Tower of Battle (Review Game Activity) This is a strategic time to review and reinforce the content of the lesson.
LESSON 3: NEVER GIVE UP DOING GOOD! Single Teacher version - Watch and Train DVD Watching the Bible Story and Skit on DVD Purpose Statement: This Skit and Bible Story will teach the children that doing something good is rarely easy. However, we should never give up doing good things, even if it gets tough. Materials/Props Needed: Lesson 3 DVD materials. 1 Lead the children through the opening activity Build Challenge and/or Don t Stop Building. logo Begin Worship Time. 1 Note: For this lesson use Sound Track CD # 1. Note: The Large Group time for this series has a competition element. Make sure you have divided your children into at least two different groups. You can divide groups by age, gender, seating position, etc. # 1 Teacher (CD Track # 1) Hello again, everyone! I have some good news and some better news. The good news is that I have a whole bunch of points to give out today. I m talking about big points! And the better news is that I m ready to give out some points right now. 20,000 points to the team that tries the hardest on our opening song. Hit it! 2 song 1 2 Teacher leads the children in singing the song. 3 Excellent work! Now let s find out who gets those 20,000 points with a drumroll. Come on now, make some noise! Note: Play Drumroll and Winner Song Video chapter # 3. 3 drumroll Have the children drum on their chairs or their knees while the video plays. At the end of the drumroll declare a winning side, and encourage the children to dance to the winner song. Encourage the side that doesn t win to be good sports by clapping, dancing along to the winner song or giving a standing O where they stand up and make an O shape with their arms. See? I wasn t kidding about giving out big points. That s 20,000 for an opening song! And I m not done yet. I have 10,000 points 1 2009 Fellowship Church
4 for the other team because they were great sports about not winning the drumroll. Well done! Right now we re into our third week of construction on the Skybridge. And that means a couple of things. First, it means that construction is well under way and the Skybridge will soon be a reality. Unfortunately, week three is usually when jobs hit a slump. Yes, construction is coming along, but this is when people start to get tired. Sometimes people even quit or give up. Now sometimes in life we ll face situations where it is okay to give up. If you exercise and exercise some more... eventually you ll get really tired. It s okay to stop exercising and start again another day. And sometimes if you re working on something outside and it starts raining, it s okay to quit until the rain stops. There are times when it is okay to give up. However, just because something is hard isn t a good reason to give up. Especially when you re doing something good. And that is our Main Point for today: Never Give Up Doing Good! Now I said earlier that today is all about the big points. And this is why shouting the Main Point is going to be worth 30,000, that s right I said 30,000, points! And the points go to the team that shouts the loudest with the motions. On your feet, my friends! 4 Main Point The Teacher leads the children by first demonstrating the Main Point with motions. These motions should be similar to cheerleader-type hand motions. The teacher can make up the motions or have the children help come up with them. Once everyone has gone over the Main Point have the children repeat it with motions two or three times. (rubbing ears) So that s what 30,000 points worth of shouting sounds like. Time to give those points away. Give me a 30,000 point drumroll! 5 drumroll 5 Note: Play Drumroll and Winner Song Video chapter # 5. Congratulations. Wow, I don t even know where you would put all those points. And the other team needs to make some room too. I m shelling out 15,000 points to them for being good sports. Our Main Point tells us that we should never give up doing good. But the Main Point isn t just some random group of words all strung together. The idea that we should never give up doing good comes from the Bible! And since it comes from the Bible, that means it s really important. The Bible is so important that I want to give out 20,000 points to the team that brought the most. If you brought your Bible, hold it up! Count the Bibles for each team and declare a winner. Good, good...it looks like we have a lot of Bibles in this room. Now keep your Bibles out because we re about to open them up 2 2009 Fellowship Church
and use them. We should never give up doing good, and there is a great story in the Bible about a man who knew how true that is. His name was Nehemiah. His story is so important, he has an entire book of the Bible named after him. It s in the Old Testament and if you have your Bible you can follow along starting in chapter one. 6 Bible story 6 Note: Play Bible Story Video chapter # 6. 7 Nehemiah had a lot of obstacles to overcome to get the wall built. He faced opposition, the risk of attack and tired workers. Also keep in mind that the job itself of building a wall is very hard work. But Nehemiah never quit. He didn t give up doing the good thing of rebuilding the wall. Now, I seriously doubt any of us will ever need to rebuild a wall around a city, however, we can follow the example of Nehemiah. We should persevere and that means to never give up doing good. Now perseverance can be very hard, so I want to give all of you a Bible Verse that will help encourage you. Check it out. 7 Bible Verse 2 Thessalonians 3:13 As for the rest of you, dear brothers and sisters, never get tired of doing good. NLT Don t put away those Bibles yet. I will give 15,000 points to the team that can look up this verse the fastest. Raise your hand when you find it. Give the children a few moments and verify when a child finds it. Give away the points. 8 9 Use this verse to remind you that even when doing good isn t easy, we should persevere like Nehemiah. Now I said earlier that this is week three and that s usually when jobs get stuck in a slump. Hopefully that won t happen here on the Skybridge job site. Let s see how they re doing. Note: Play Skit Video chapter # 8 followed by Caleb and Ike s Construction Challenge Video chapter # 9. 8 9 skit intro race video Three weeks into the job and everyone went on strike?! That got out of hand really quickly. Thankfully, Marge was there to get everybody back on the right track. Some of them gave up because it was hard, others gave up because others had given up. Those aren t acceptable reasons to quit doing something, especially when you re doing something good. It s like our Main Point says. We should Never Give Up Doing Good! And one of the good 3 2009 Fellowship Church
# 5 # 1 12 # 1 10 11 13 14 things that we should always be doing, is worshiping God. We worship God in a lot of ways and one of those ways is singing to Him. Let s take a few moments and worship God by singing. Everybody, please stand. Teacher leads the children in singing the song and then begins the offering time. OFFERING (CD Track # 5) Thank you for singing with us. The next part of our worship time is called the offering. Everything we have comes from God and our offering is giving back to God part of the blessings God has given us. Let s pray. Lead the children in prayer. If you want to, include elements of the lesson you are teaching today. For instance, today we are talking about the importance of perseverance. So you might say, Dear God, we know that You want us to do good. Please give us the strength to keep doing good even when it is hard. Amen. Take up the offering. (CD Track # 1) And now we re going to apply what we ve been talking about today in our Small Groups. (12) And while you re in your groups, keep in mind that the competition is still going on. I give out points for paying attention and participating during Small Groups. So work hard and pay attention. SMALL GROUPS Teacher greets the children as they return from Small Groups. Whew! We got a lot accomplished on the job site today! But we re not quite done. We need to review everything we ve talked about with a game we call Tower of Battle! Note: Lead the children through the questions. Hit play when a child has given you the right answer. CLOSING Add up all the points earned throughout the lesson. (CD Track # 1) Well done, everyone! There s time for one final thing: We need to find out who won for today. Please give me a grand champion drumrolll! 10 song 2 11 offering 12 13 14 small group logo MP still review game 4 2009 Fellowship Church
Note: Play Drumroll/Winner Song chapter # 15. 15 champion drumroll Declare a winning team. (Optional) Hand out prizes. Thank you for your hard work today! Both teams did a great job. Don t forget our Main Point: Never Give Up Doing Good! See you next time! 15 5 2009 Fellowship Church