LEADERS HUB
Year 1, Term 4, Week 8: Ideas for Senior Group
Week 8: Responding to Jesus - Sharing His love!
Lesson Objective:
God loved us so much that he sent Jesus to die for us even though we did the wrong thing. God wants us to love others, even if they do the wrong thing against us, because that is what he did for us!
Bible Passage:
Luke 6:27-36 (Love your enemies)
Memory Verse:
Luke: 6:35 - But love your enemies and be good to them. Lend without expecting to be paid back. Then you will get a great reward and you will be the true children of God in Heaven. He is good even to people who are unthankful and cruel.
Story Idea: The Egg Steal & Read It!
The Egg Steal: (All items in cupboard)
- Set up a bucket in the centre of the play area and fill with plastic balls
- Place 4 hoops in a diamond, equal distances from the bucket
- Have the kids form teams and each team line up at a hoop
- When you say go, players run, relay style, to the centre bucket or to another teams hoop, collect an 'egg' and bring it back to their nest, before the next player runs
- Play for a few minutes, then call time
- The team with the most 'eggs' wins!
Discuss:
- Do you help the other team (take your own balls and put them in their hoop)? - No
- Why? - You are trying to beat them, not help them! It wouldn't make sense!
Introduce:
- So often, Jesus said things that were radical and counter-cultural - to many, they didn't make sense!
Read:
- Have the kids read Luke 6:27-36
Quiz Questions:
1. What radical thing does Jesus start off by saying?
Love your enemies
2. Why is that strange?
Our first response to somebody who is mean to us is to be mean back!
3. This passage gives us a good general rule for knowing how to treat others, what is that?
Treat others how you would like to be treated
4. What does the Bible say about loving only people who will love us back?
God will not praise us for only loving people who are kind to us
5. Why is that?
Because even sinners can love people who are kind to them, it is much harder to love somebody who is unkind
6. Why does Jesus say we should love others even if they are cruel?
Because He loved us, even though we did the wrong thing by Him, so we should show the same love to others
7. How can we be loving?
Be kind, use nice words, help people who are hurt or sad, pray for others, treat them how we like to be treated
8. If someone is unkind to us, and we feel like retaliating, what can we do?
Stop, think about Jesus, pray for the person in your head and ask God to help you be kind
Game Idea: Balloon Challenge!
- Before the lesson, blow up a few balloons of four different colours
- Use the teams from earlier in the lesson and assign each team a colour, but have all the kids stand as a group
- Toss a balloon of each colour in the air and time how long each team can keep it in the air by hitting it upward
- If a teams coloured balloon hits the ground, that finishes them for the round
- After a round, ask if the kids can do anything differently to try and keep the balloon up for longer (eventually guide them to realise that if all of the teams help with all of the balloons, they are all likely to do better!)
- When they master the first balloon, toss in a second, and a third etc.
- The team who keeps a balloon up longest wins!
Remind the kids that Jesus asks us to love EVERYONE - even when people are difficult to love. Sometimes we have to put in effort to keep loving, just like putting in effort to keep ALL of the balloons up! We can ask for God's help to love others when it's hard.
Activity Idea: Memory Verse Find with a Twist!
- Before the lesson, download and print the memory verse cut-outs on four different coloured sheets and cut out the words
- Hide all of the pieces around the room and/or playground
- Line the hoops up and assign each team a hoop
- Teams must race to collect all of the memory verse pieces of their colour and arrange them in order in their hoop (they can use a Bible to help with ordering if needed)
- The twist is, that players can ONLY collect verse pieces for other teams and deliver them to that teams hoop, they cannot collect their own!
- The only way they can help their own team is by ordering the verse
- The first team to finish wins!
Discuss: It feels counter-intuitive to help the enemy teams, just like it feels counter-intuitive to love people who are like our enemies, but Jesus calls us to do that, because He loved us, even when we were sinners against Him!
Prayer Idea: Hard to Love
- Give each kid a chalkboard an a piece of chalk and send them to separate parts of the room
- Have them write the name of somebody they are finding it difficult to love or treat nicely
- Ask them to pray for that person - and to ask God to help them to love that person
