Unit 1 / Lesson 2
Our Biggest Choice
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Teacher's Prep
Games
Deal Or No Deal
You can play the game at this website: https://kbhgames.com/game/deal-or-no-deal
If you have a PC with PowerPoint and not a Mac, you may want to download a different version of the game at the link below and get familiar with it. The downloaded version is better than the online version, but it is harder to use. Note, the PC version of the game works on PowerPoint but not on Google Slides.
Whichever version of the game you choose, you will want to be familiar with the controls of the game before the lesson starts.
Balloons Up
You will need a pack of 12 balloons, or enough for one balloon per child
Bible Teaching Portion in Point 2
You will essentially be sharing the Gospel in point 2. One of the challenges for that point is that you will be speaking for an extended stretch of time, perhaps about 8 minutes straight. To help with maintaining attention, it would be helpful to have some visuals – perhaps pictures on PowerPoint slides or some props. Also, familiarity with the teaching portion in point 2 will help.
For PowerPoint visuals, you may be able to use screenshots from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg2lkCxjMg8&ab_channel=CrossroadsKids%27Club
Main Activity (Movie Part 2)
You may want to provide some snacks for them, e.g. popcorn, and bowls
Intro
SLIDE 1
Gathering
How was your week?
SLIDE 2 - clip “LET’S GO” button to access game website
Intro Game: Deal Or No Deal
Instructions
We will start with a game of Deal Or No Deal!
Some of you may know how this game works. We will have a bunch of suitcases, and each case will have a different amount of money in it. We play the game by getting rid of suitcases, and every time we get rid of some suitcases, the bank will call and offer us money instead of a suitcase. We need to decide if we'll take the deal or not.
Teacher: you may want to play a few rounds of the game depending on time and interest.
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Debrief and Relevance
We played this game because it's about choices. We all had to make choices in the game. Now, some choices don't matter very much. In our game we were just trying to win pretend money. But, other times in life, we need to make choices that do matter. For example, we need to choose who to be friends with, and we need to choose how hard we will work at school.
Today, we are going to talk about the biggest choice anyone has to make. If you get this choice right, it will be the difference between a lot of happiness versus a lot of sadness.
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Big Question
Our big question today is,
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What is the most important choice we need to make?
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Big Idea
Our big idea is, we can choose to trust God or not trust God.
We’ll learn this from our Bible story today.
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Bible Reference
Let's watch the cartoon version of the story first. It's the story of the Garden of Eden.
Teacher: play this YouTube video:
God's Story: The Fall, by Crossroads Kids' Club
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg2lkCxjMg8&ab_channel=CrossroadsKids%27Club
Point 1
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Our first point is, we can choose to trust God
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Activity: Trust Fall
Instructions
We will start this point by doing a trust fall! Let's watch a video to see how it's done.
Teacher: play this video to show how it's done (by Kpop stars)
The idea is to stand in front of your friends. They'll all have their arms out to catch you. You need to tip backwards like a board without bending your knees.
You all have a choice. You can do the trust fall if you want, or you can watch or maybe help catch people.
Instructions for Teacher
Set up the catchers-pick some of the stronger people you have available. Then, ask each of the children if they would like to do the trust fall.
For those who are willing to do a trust fall, try a next-level trust fall, where they fall off a chair into the arms of the catchers.
You might even be able to do a super-next-level trust fall, where someone volunteers to fall off a table -- though you would have to make sure the catchers are strong and ready.
When everyone has had plenty of chances to do a trust fall, form a circle to debrief
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Debrief
For those of you who tried the trust fall:
How did it feel when you were falling over?
How did it feel when you were caught?
Were you glad you tried?
For those of you who didn't try: do you wish you tried?
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We did the trust fall because it's a bit like our relationship with God. It can be a bit scary to trust God, because you can't see what He's doing. But if you know that He will take care of you, you'll be glad you chose to trust Him.
The trick is knowing God will take care of us. But, why should we think that God will take care of us? We'll see why in the Bible.
Bible Reference
Let's read from Genesis 2
Genesis 2:8-17 (International Children's Bible)
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8 Then the Lord God planted a garden in the East, in a place called Eden. He put the man he had formed in that garden. 9 The Lord God caused every beautiful tree and every tree that was good for food to grow out of the ground. In the middle of the garden, God put the tree that gives life. And he put there the tree that gives the knowledge of good and evil.
[Skip to verse 15]
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15 The Lord God put the man in the garden of Eden to care for it and work it. 16 The Lord God commanded him, “You may eat the fruit from any tree in the garden. 17 But you must not eat the fruit from the tree which gives the knowledge of good and evil. If you ever eat fruit from that tree, you will die!”
Explanation
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Our Bible story tells us that God made a wonderful place called Eden. It was beautiful, and the food was delicious. But the most important trees in the garden were right in the middle. There was the tree that gave life that a person could eat from and live forever. There was also the tree that gave the knowledge of good and evil.
God told Adam he could eat from any tree, even the tree of life. There was just one tree he couldn't eat from -- because if he did, he would die.
But, how could Adam know that God was telling the truth about that tree?
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There was a way to know. Adam could know the same way we know when our closest friends are telling the truth.
Normally when your friend tells you about their day, you trust what they are saying is true, because you know them, you know they care about you, and they would have no reason to lie to you.
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It's the same with God. God was Adam's best friend. Every good thing in Adam's life was because of God. God didn’t need anything from Adam, and there really was no way for Adam to help God. God gave Adam everything out of the goodness of His heart.
So, God had given Adam a great reason to trust Him.
Application
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God has given us the same reason to trust Him. The Bible tells us that every good thing comes from God. He doesn't need anything from us, yet He has given us everything out of the goodness of his heart. God has been a better friend to us than anyone else. When we see how good He has been to us, we will see that we can trust Him.
The key is to remember how good He is to us.
Discussion Question
Let’s take a moment to think about what God has done for us.
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Can we think of ten things that God has done for us?
Teacher: you may want to write ten things on a whiteboard as the class brainstorms. For an additional challenge, you may want to go on and list twenty or thirty things.
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It helps when we remember what God has done. That’s how we know that God is good to us, and that we can trust Him.
It’s still up to us whether to trust God or not, which leads us to our next point.
Point 2
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Our second point is, we can choose NOT to trust God.
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Game: Balloons Up
Instructions
We'll start this point with a game! We'll call it "Balloons up." It's a pretty simple game. We'll start in a circle, and I'll toss a balloon in the circle. The goal is to keep the balloon from touching the ground by hitting it. You're free to move around, so you don't have to stay in the circle. The only catch is, you can't hit the balloon twice in a row before someone else hits it. You all need to work together to keep the balloon up.
Now if there's only one balloon, you'll probably find it pretty easy, so I'll keep adding balloons and we'll see what happens. Remember, you want to keep all the balloons up, and you can't hit a balloon twice in a row.
If a balloon touches the ground, we'll stop, and we'll start at one balloon again. We'll see how many balloons we can manage at the same time.
Teacher: It is probably best to call out the number of balloons as you introduce new balloons, as a way of keeping score. Also, you may want to discuss strategy between rounds. For example, you may want to break them into sub-groups, and each sub-group can handle their own balloons. Or, you may want to spread them out across the floor for a kind of zone coverage. Play as long as time and interest allows.
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Debrief
We played this game because it helps us understand what we can do and what we can't do. We managed to keep up a lot of balloons. After a while, there was only so much we could handle, and after a certain number of balloons this game is impossible.
Life is like that too. God has given us the ability to do some amazing things. But, we all have limits, and there are some problems in life that are impossible for us.
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Bible Reference
Our Bible story talks about one of those impossible problems. We learn that it’s impossible to live forever without trusting God. Let's read what God told Adam.
16 The Lord God commanded him, “You may eat the fruit from any tree in the garden. 17 But you must not eat the fruit from the tree which gives the knowledge of good and evil. If you ever eat fruit from that tree, you will die!”
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Explanation
Adam had a choice to either trust God or to not trust Him. If he trusted God he could have a great life with lots of things to enjoy. He could even eat the fruit from the tree of life and he would be able to live forever.
But he had to trust God when God told him not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Side note:
You might be wondering, what’s wrong with knowing the difference between good and evil? Actually, it's not wrong at all to know the difference between good and evil. In fact, in our story, Adam already knew about good and evil before he did anything wrong. He knew that most of the trees in the garden were good to eat from, and he was supposed to know that it was good to trust God. Adam also knew that it was wrong and terrible to eat from one tree in particular. God gave Adam some knowledge of good and evil, and there was nothing wrong with that knowledge. God wants us to understand what evil is, in our head. But, we're not supposed to DO evil. There's a special kind of knowledge that people only get when they DO evil. God didn't want us to have the knowledge that comes from DOING evil.
It’s like knowing you could steal from a store versus actually stealing. Or it's like knowing about a cliff versus actually jumping off a cliff. If you do the wrong thing, you'll know it in a way you were never supposed to.
Now back to our Bible story: God wanted Adam to trust Him and do what He said, and enjoy life. He could eat from the tree of life and live forever, but if Adam didn't trust God, he would do evil, and he would die.
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Application
Now this story might seem a bit strange, but actually it was put in the Bible to teach us something about ourselves.
All of us are like Adam. God has given us life and every good thing. He also gives us the same choice: will we trust Him or not?
If we don't trust Him, we'll end up doing things our own way, and we'll find out the hard way that some problems are too big for us. We can't fix all the terrible ways our world is broken, and we can't fix the problem of death.
There was a time when almost no one in the world trusted God. Almost everyone was lost without God, so He sent Jesus to fix all the ways we are broken, and to deal with our problem of death. That's why Jesus went to the cross for us. If we trust Him, His cross will be our tree of life.
Conclusion
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Let’s end this lesson with a short prayer.
God, help us to trust you. And when we lose our way, lead us back to you. In Jesus' name, amen.
Main Activity: Movie Day (Part 2)
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Now it's time for a movie!
Teacher: you may want to continue the movie from the previous lesson, or you may want to play a short film that fits within your remaining time.