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The Meaning of Life

Unit 1 / Lesson 1

The Meaning of Life

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Teacher's Prep

  • Games

    • Intro Activity (Red Solo Cup Behind the Back)

      • Get four disposable plastic cups. Red Solo cups work great.

    • Froot Loops Sorting and Blind Taste Test Game

      • A generous amount of Froot Loops so that each child can sort about 150 Froot Loops.

      • Ziploc baggies so the children can take uneaten Froot Loops home

      • Two large serving bowls, and twelve small bowls

      • Hand sanitizer OR disposable poly gloves for handling the Froot Loops

    • Human Tic Tac Toe

  • Bible Story

  • Main Activity (Movie Part 1)

    • Select two or three options for kid-friendly movies. Try to stay away from movies that are excessively long. If you have movies that are too short (e.g. twenty-minute short films on YouTube), you can watch a different movie the next week.

    • You may want to prepare popcorn or another snack for the movie.


    Intro

    SLIDE 1

  • Gathering

    • How was your week?

  • SLIDE 2

  • Intro Activity: Red Solo Cup Behind the Back

    • Instructions

      • We'll start this lesson with a game! It's a really simple game. 

      • We'll have two teams. Each team will have two plastic cups. 

      • Everyone on your team will take turns dropping the cup behind your back. If it lands right side up or upside down, you’re done, and you can pass the cup to someone else on your team. If the cup lands on its side, you need to pick it up and try again.

      • You have two cups so your team can have two people at a time doing the challenge. The game ends when everyone on your team has finished the challenge.

      • The first team to have everyone finish wins. Help each other out -- you can cheer each other on, and you can pick up the cup for each other.

      • Teacher: you may want to do a demonstration for how to drop the cup behind your back. Also, you may want to play two or three rounds of this game depending on time and the level of interest.

    SLIDE 3 

    • Debrief

      • We played this game because it helps us understand our lesson today. At the beginning of the game I gave you some plastic cups. Plastic cups by themselves aren’t very fun. Imagine if I just gave you a plastic cup, and I didn't tell you why. That wouldn't have been very fun. But if you can see why I gave you a plastic cup, then you can play a game, and it can be a lot of fun.

      • Life is a bit like a plastic cup. God has given us life. But, a lot of people don't know why, and they’re missing out on God’s great plan for them.

  • Big Question

    SLIDE 4

    • Our big question today is:

    SLIDE 5

    • Why did God give us life?

  • Relevance

    • If you know the answer to this question, you can be really wise. You can live the best life, and it will be good for you and for other people.

    SLIDE 6

  • Big Idea

    • The Bible teaches us that God gave us life for two reasons: 

      • 1.So we could enjoy Him, and

      • 2. So we could point others to Him.

    • We will see these ideas in our Bible story today.

    SLIDE 7

  • Bible Reference

    Point 1

    SLIDE 8

  • Point

    • Our first point is, God gave us life so we could enjoy Him.

    SLIDE 9

  • Activity: Froot Loops Sorting and Blind Taste Test

    • Instructions

      • Teacher: this game takes two teams, and it is best played over two tables. No chairs are needed. For each team, pour a generous amount of Froot Loops into a large serving bowl. Also, provide six small bowls per team (because there are six colors of Froot Loops). Teams will race to separate all the Froot Loops into their separate colors so that each of the small bowls will have a different color. The fastest team wins. After the colors are sorted, you can pick a random bowl and do a blind taste test with the kids to see if they can guess the color.

      • Instructions for the sorting game

        • We'll start this point with two games! The first game is a race. We'll have two teams, and each team will have a big bowl of Froot Loops. Your job as a team is to separate all the colors, so that each of the small bowls has all the froot loops of one color.

        • We'll be eating some of these Froot Loops later, so your hands will have to be clean (so we'll need hand sanitizer before we start this game, or we need to use disposable poly gloves).

        • Any questions? First team to separate all the colors wins.

        • Teacher: let both teams finish sorting.

      • Instructions for the blind taste test

        • Now for our second game. It will be a blind taste test. I'm going to pick one of these bowls. And you're all going to close your eyes and hold out your hand. I'll give each of you a Froot Loop. They will all be the same color. You'll all eat it at the same time without looking at it, and then you can try to guess which color it is.

        • If you know the secret behind all the flavors, don't tell anyone!

        • Teacher: depending on time and interest, you may want to have multiple rounds of the blind taste test. 

    SLIDE 10

    • Debrief

      • I'll let you in on a secret: all the Froot Loops have the same flavor. There's no way to tell what color a Froot Loop is just by tasting it! But it was still fun to play. 

      • We played this game because it helps us understand a couple of ideas in our Bible story. One idea is that God created food as a gift to us. Another idea is we can do creative things with the gifts that God gave us.

  • Bible Reference

    SLIDE 11

    • Now let's read what the Bible says toward the end of our story.

    • Genesis 1:28-31 (CEV)

      • 28 God gave them his blessing and said: Have a lot of children! Fill the earth with people and bring it under your control. Rule over the fish in the ocean, the birds in the sky, and every animal on the earth. 29 I have provided all kinds of fruit and grain for you to eat. 

    SLIDE 12

    • 30 And I have given the green plants as food for everything else that breathes, including animals, both wild and tame, and birds. And so it was. 31 God looked at what he had done. All of it was very good! Evening came, then morning—that was the sixth day.

  • Explanation

    SLIDE 13

    • When God made human beings, He gave us everything in the world. It was all a great gift. He wanted people to enjoy having children. He wanted us to enjoy taming the animals. He wanted us to enjoy making nature do useful things. He wanted us to enjoy eating the food that He created. This was God's very good plan. He wanted us to enjoy His gifts. Later in the Bible, we find out why. It’s because He loves us, and He wants us to love Him back. If we love Him back, we will have the greatest gift of all, which is God Himself.

  • Application

    • It's important to take time to enjoy what God has made, and to remember everything is a gift from God. Back in Bible times, God's people were supposed to take a whole day off every week just to remember the things that God did. If we take time to think about what God has done for us, we’ll see that He's good for us, we can trust Him, and we should do what He says because everything he says is good for us.

  • Discussion Question (optional)

    SLIDE 14

    • What's something you can thank God for?


    Point 2

    SLIDE 15

  • Our second point is, God gave us life so we could point others to Him.

  • SLIDE 16

  • Activity: Human Tic Tac Toe

    • Instructions

      • We'll start this point with a game! It's called Human Tic Tac Toe.

      • Does everyone know how to play Tic Tac Toe?

      • Teacher: for the younger ones, demonstrate on a Whiteboard.

      • Now let's watch this video for how to play HUMAN Tic Tac Toe.

      • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hwDNL0pQ8o&ab_channel=YouthMinistryGreatGames

      • Teacher: follow the instructions in the video

        • Set up nine chairs in the middle of the room.

        • Have all the children find a partner that is about as fast as them.

        • One partner joins team X, and the other partner joins team O

        • Teams number off so that when you call a number, one person runs to the chairs.

        • Before each round, each person not on a chair has to be touching a wall.

        • The optimal (but boring) strategy is for a team to sit only in the column of chairs closest to their wall. If teams start scoring in the column closest to their wall, you can say that having three people in that column doesn’t count.

    SLIDE 17

    • Debrief

      • We played this game because it helps us understand something about God's plan for us.

      • In this game you were all one piece of the puzzle. In order to win, you needed to be part of something bigger.

      • In God's plan, we are one piece of the puzzle, and God has a bigger plan for us.

      • Let's go back to the Bible and learn about God's bigger plan.

  • Bible Reference

    SLIDE 18

    • Genesis 1:26-27 (CEV)

      • 26  God said, “Now we will make humans, and they will be like us. We will let them rule the fish, the birds, and all other living creatures.” 27  So God created humans to be like himself; he made men and women.

  • Explanation

    SLIDE 19

    • The Bible tells us that God made us so we could be like Him. There's a reason why. In most adult Bibles, we find a special word. It's the word "image."

    • Let’s read the same verse from an adult Bible.

    SLIDE 20 

    • Genesis 1:27 (NIV) 

      • So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

    • A long time ago, people worshiped many different gods, and they would make statues of their gods to help people understand their gods. Those statues were called “images.”

    SLIDE 21 

    • If you've ever seen a statue of Buddha, it's a bit like that. The statue is not the real Buddha. But whoever made the statue wanted us to learn something about Buddha by looking at the statue.

    • When the Bible says we are made in God’s image, it means we are like God's statues. God put us on earth to help people to know Him. He wants us to be like Him. God loves people, and He hates evil. He always does good things, even when people don't deserve it. He wants us to be like that too. Then, when people look at us they can understand God. And if they like us, we can tell them God is even better than us. Then maybe the other person will want to get to know God, and we can really help the other person that way.

  • Application

    SLIDE 22

    • Let's always try to be like God. Let's always do our best for others. This will help other people to get to know God. We want people to know that God loves them, and God wants them to trust Him and love Him back. If they do, they will have a friendship with God that lasts forever.

  • Discussion Question (optional)

    SLIDE 23

    • What's one way you can help other people?


    Conclusion

    SLIDE 24

  • Let's wrap up our lesson by going over the big ideas again.

  • Our big question today was: why did God give us life?

  • Our answer was: 

    • 1. God gave us life so we could enjoy Him, and 

    • 2. God gave us life so we could point others to Him.

  • SLIDE 25

  • If we can follow God's plan it will be really good for us, and it will be really good for other people too.



    Ending: Movie Day (Part 1)

    SLIDE 26

  • Today is movie day! A movie helps us appreciate our lesson, because every movie contains a story that shapes our imagination. Most of the time, the stories in the movies were just made up by people. The Bible also contains stories to shape our imagination, and the Bible's stories were made by God. So it's alright to watch a movie, but let's make sure we are also thinking about stories from the Bible.

  • Let’s pick a movie!

  • Teacher: during the movie, you may want to pass out snacks, or the uneaten Froot Loops from earlier in the lesson. You may want to put uneaten Froot Loops in Ziploc baggies to be taken home.

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