Unit 19 / Lesson 6
Giving People Reasons to Believe
Slides for the Lesson
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Teacher's Prep
Games
True / False Elimination
Make or review the slides for each question in the game below.
Stacking Cups
For every four children, get 66 styrofoam cups.
Each team needs exactly 66 styrofoam cups, as that allows for a triangle with 11 cups on the bottom, and the triangle will be 11 cups high.
You will want to portion out 66 cups per team before the lesson, so that you can just hand each team a big stack of cups.
Knee Trembler
For the concept of the game, watch this video:
Minute to Win It: Knee Trembler (2 vs. 2), by Outscord
Materials needed:
Tape to mark a starting line
Two hula hoops (or one hula hoop per team)
Ten oranges -- five per team
If you have a lot of kids, and want to play the game with more than two teams, you need five oranges per team, so please multiply the numbers accordingly.
Main Activity (Galaxy in a Jar):
Watch this video for the concept of the craft:
Space & Astronomy | Galaxy in a Jar | DIY Experiment | Arts & Crafts | Science for Kids
You will want to make your own craft before the lesson so that you can show the children a sample, and also so that you can get familiar with the craft.
Materials needed for each child:
1 clear plastic jar OR glass mason jar
3 plastic cups for mixing paint
3 paint colors
Cotton balls -- enough to fill the jar when packed tightly
Glitter
A spoon for mixing
Water
Intro
SLIDE 1
Gathering
SLIDE 2
How was your week?
SLIDE 3
Intro Game: True / False Elimination
Instructions
Let's start our lesson with a game! It's called True or False Elimination! Here's how it works:
We have fifteen true or false questions that we need to answer as a class.
Your goal is to answer as many correctly as you can while you’re standing up. But, if you get a question, you need to sit down.
In order to say something is true, you put your right hand on your head. If it's false, you put your left hand on your head. If you get the question wrong, you need to sit down for the rest of the questions. But you can still help people with your ideas.
Now let's all stand up and do a practice round.
Teacher: Give the kids a practice round or two at the beginning. If everyone is eliminated (sitting down), everyone will stand up and get a fresh start. If they are bored, you can cut short the questions.
Questions (read one by one)
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1. Human babies have the same number of bones as adults
Answer: False; babies actually have more bones!
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2. Chalk is made of fossils
Answer :True!
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3. Chocolate-covered ants are eaten as a treat in Mexico
Answer: True!
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4. The earliest hockey pucks were made out of frozen cow poop
Answer: True!
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Debrief
We played this game because it reminds us that some ideas are right, and some ideas are wrong. And, life is like that. Life is full of right ideas and wrong ideas.
Now, sometimes it doesn't really matter if an idea is wrong.
If you're watching TV, and you don't remember one part of the story right, it probably won't make much of a difference.
Or, if you're reading a book, and you read a word the wrong way, it probably won't matter.
Or, if you're playing a game, and you make a mistake because you had the wrong idea, nothing bad happens most of the time.
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But, sometimes it really, really matters that we get an idea right.
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And, maybe the most important idea to get right is the good news about Jesus.
Relevance
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The good news is that Jesus died to forgive our sins, so we can live forever with God in heaven. This might be the most important idea in the whole world. But, a lot of people don't believe this idea. A lot of people think that the story of Jesus was just made up. Some people believe in a different god, or they believe there is no god at all.
Big Question
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So, our big question today is:
How can we know we have the right idea about God?
Big Idea
Here's the answer we're going to learn today:
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The right idea about God is like a puzzle that fits together well. And there are two ways that it fits.
The right idea about God fits with itself.
And, the right idea about God fits with other things that we know are true.
That's what we'll see in today's Bible story.
Bible Reference
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Now, let's watch a cartoon about our Bible story.
Teacher: please play this YouTube video:
Paul Teaches in Athens | Bible Heroes of Faith | Animated Bible Story for Kids [Episode 18]
Now, let's read some of the most important things that Paul said to the crowd.
Acts 17:22-25 (CEV)
22 Then Paul stood before the meeting of the Areopagus. He said, “Men of Athens, I can see that you are very religious in all things. 23 I was going through your city, and I saw the things you worship. I found an altar that had these words written on it: “TO A GOD WHO IS NOT KNOWN.” You worship a god that you don’t know. This is the God I am telling you about! 24 He is the God who made the whole world and everything in it. He is the Lord of the land and the sky. He does not live in temples that men build! 25 This God is the One who gives life, breath, and everything else to people. He does not need any help from them. He has everything he needs.
Acts 17:30-31 (CEV)
30 In the past, people did not understand God, but God ignored this. But now, God tells everyone in the world to change [their] heart and life. 31 God has decided on a day that he will judge all the world. He will be fair. He will use a man to do this. God chose that man long ago. And God has proved this to everyone by raising that man from death!”
Point 1
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The first thing we learn from this story is:
The right idea about God fits with itself.
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Game: Stacking Cups
Instructions
We’ll start this point with a game! It's the cup pyramid challenge! This one is super hard. In a moment, we will need to split into teams. Each team will have four people, and you will see how high of a pyramid you can build together.
The pyramid will be a big triangle, with eleven cups on the bottom, and if you finish it, it will be eleven cups high.
You'll have eight minutes to finish, and maybe you won't finish because it’s super challenging, BUT let's see how far you get in eight minutes!
Teacher: split the children into groups of about four people each. Each group should have 66 cups. Keep time so that each group has exactly eight minutes.
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Debrief
In this game, our cups had to stack together nicely. Everything had to work together, and if something was out of place, it would make the whole pyramid fall down.
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And that's what it's like when people believe things about God. People's ideas need to fit together. And, if they don't fit together properly, that's one way we can tell they have the wrong idea about God.
Bible Reference
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That's what we see in the first half of our Bible passage. Let's read again what Paul said to the people who believed in other gods.
Acts 17:22-25 (CEV)
22 Then Paul stood before the meeting of the Areopagus. He said, “Men of Athens, I can see that you are very religious in all things.
SLIDE 20
23 I was going through your city, and I saw the things you worship. I found an altar that had these words written on it: “TO A GOD WHO IS NOT KNOWN.” You worship a god that you don’t know. This is the God I am telling you about!
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24 He is the God who made the whole world and everything in it. He is the Lord of the land and the sky. He does not live in temples that men build!
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25 This God is the One who gives life, breath, and everything else to people. He does not need any help from them. He has everything he needs.
Explanation
SLIDE 23
In this passage, Paul talked about the God we believe in.
SLIDE 24
We believe in a God who created the whole world. Our God is so big that he won't fit inside a temple. And, our God is so strong that he doesn't need any help from us.
SLIDE 25
Paul was talking to people who believed in gods who were really powerful, but those other gods still needed people to help them. And, Paul was talking to people who thought they could make the gods live in a piece of metal or a piece of wood, and the people would put that metal or wood in a temple.
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Paul's idea of God made sense, but the other people’s idea didn't make sense. That was one way to know that Paul's idea was better.
Application
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Now that we know the truth, we want our friends to know the truth too!
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But, how can we help our friends find the real God?
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But, here’s the tricky part. If we want to help our friends find the real God, we should try to be nice about it. It's not good to laugh at their ideas. Instead, let's take time to learn what they think, and let's listen carefully to our friends. If we listen carefully, then maybe they will listen carefully to us.
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And, if you are a good friend, your friends will let you talk because you're their friend. And, maybe your friends will see that your idea about God makes sense.
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But, of course, before you explain what our God is like, you need to spend time learning about him, so that you’ll have something to say to your friends.
Discussion Question
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And that brings us to our discussion question:
What's a question that you have about God? (because if you're curious about a question, maybe your friend will be curious too!)
Point 2
SLIDE 33
Moving on, our second point is:
The right idea about God fits with other things that we know are true.
SLIDE 34
Game: Knee Trembler
Instructions
Let's start our time together with a game! It's called Knee Trembler. Let's watch a video to see what it's like:
Teacher: play this video:
Minute to Win It: Knee Trembler (2 vs. 2), by Outscord
So, here are the rules: we'll have two teams, and we'll take turns lining up at the starting line. When it's your turn, you'll pick up the orange between your knees, and try your best to hop across the room. Then you’ll drop the orange off inside the hula hoop on the other side of the room. Once you’re done and the orange is on the ground, the next person on your team can start. Your team can only carry one orange at a time, so if a person is still carrying an orange between their knees, all the other oranges have to be on the ground. The first team to get five oranges in the hula hoop wins!
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Debrief
We played this game because it's about using other ideas we learned outside the game. We know from other places that oranges are soft, and we can jump a certain distance, and we need to keep squeezing the orange between your knees in order to keep it in the right place.
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And the Christian life is like that too. One of the great things about being a Christian is, we get to use all kinds of knowledge to get to know God.
Bible Reference
SLIDE 37
Let's read what Paul said at the end of our passage:
Acts 17:30-31 (CEV)
30 In the past, people did not understand God, but God ignored this. But now, God tells everyone in the world to change his heart and life.
SLIDE 38
31 God has decided on a day that he will judge all the world. He will be fair. He will use a man to do this. God chose that man long ago. And God has proved this to everyone by raising that man from death!”
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Explanation
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Paul was saying, before Jesus came to earth, people didn't understand God very well.
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BUT, after Jesus came, they could all know that Jesus really was our savior. They could all know because God had raised Jesus from death -- and there were lots of people who saw it!
Application
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And, it’s like that for us too!, God gives us lots of reasons and lots of proof so that we can believe him. This is something special about being a Christian. We only need to believe things if we have really good reasons to believe.
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God has given us reasons to believe in him in places like science, and math, and history, and miracles, and our sense of right and wrong. In fact, if you pick your favorite subject in school, chances are that God has given you reasons to believe in him, using your favorite subject!
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So if you’re ever wondering why we believe the things we believe, it’s a good idea to search for answers.
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You can read books to try to find answers, but maybe the best way to find answers is to just talk to people who know more than you! And, if someone doesn’t know, talk to someone else! Because, if you keep asking, you’ll find all the answers you need. And you’ll be able to share your answers with other people. And you’ll be able to help some people to trust Jesus and live forever.
Discussion Question
Now, let's pause for a discussion question.
What is your favorite subject in school?
Let's pray that God will use our favorite subject to give us reasons to believe in him!
Teacher: you may want to lead the children in a prayer that God would use their favorite subjects in school to give them reasons to believe in him.
Conclusion
SLIDE 46
Now, let's wrap up this lesson by going over the big ideas again. Our big question today was: How can we know we have the right idea about God?
Our answer was that the right idea about God is like a puzzle that fits together well. And there are two ways that it fits.
1. The right idea about God fits with itself, and
2. The right idea about God fits with other things that we know are true.
Main Activity: Galaxy in a Jar
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And now it's time for our main craft! Today each of us is going to make a galaxy in a jar! Let's watch a video to see how to make it.
Teacher: play this YouTube video:
Space & Astronomy | Galaxy in a Jar | DIY Experiment | Arts & Crafts | Science for Kids
This craft reminds of the things we learned in our lesson. The Bible tells us that God is perfect. He is perfectly good in every way. God is so powerful that he can make galaxies full of stars. And, he's so creative that he can make every beautiful thing in the world. But, God is so full of love that he cares about us, even though we are so small compared to a galaxy. God knows us completely, and he loves us perfectly. That's the idea that the Bible teaches us to have about God. It's an idea that fits with itself, and it's an idea that fits with other things that we know are true.
Now, let's make our galaxy jars!
Teacher: lead the children in the craft.
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