Unit 4 / Lesson 1
How To Follow Jesus
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Teacher's Prep
Games
Intro Game: Penne Noodle Pickup
Materials:
Spaghetti
Penne pasta
Trays for the pasta
One bowl per group of four
Face the Cookie
One package of Oreo cookies
Sticky Note Challenge
Several pads of sticky notes (regular size or mini)
Main Activity (Minute To Win It Games)
There are some fine games on this website:
Below are some favorites:
Pom-pom & Straw Challenge
Materials:
Drinking straws- one per child, for sanitary reasons
Pom-poms or cotton balls (seven per group of five)
Tables- one per group of five
Rules:
Equipped with a straw, students will blow seven pom-poms across the table. Students win when all the pom-poms are off the table.
See this website for a visual:
https://www.weareteachers.com/minute-to-win-it-games-for-kids/
Oven Mitt Challenge
Materials needed:
Hershey Kisses
Bowls
Rules:
Give each player a pair of oven mitts and a bowl of Hershey Kisses. The object is to see how many Hershey Kisses they can unwrap through their mitts before the minute is over. As a bonus, once they’re unwrapped, someone’s got to eat them!
Traffic Yam
Materials:
Yams (one for each group)
Spoons (one for each group)
Directions:
Form teams of 4 or 5.
Using a spoon, they will roll a sweet potato to the opposite wall and back. (The game in the video is played by rolling the yam with a person’s nose. Spoons will be more manageable in this context)
This is a relay race. When one person is done, the next person can start.
Intro
SLIDE 1
Gathering
How was your week?
SLIDE 2
Intro Activity: Penne Noodle Pickup
Instructions
Teacher: set up trays of penne noodles, and some bowls. Provide one tray for every four people, and one bowl for every two people.
We'll start our time with a game! It's called the Penne Noodle Pickup. Let's watch how it works.
Teacher: Watch this YouTube video together:
Here are the rules: you'll all have a spaghetti noodle to put in your mouth, and your goal is to pick up the other pasta and put it into a bowl. You'll do this as a team, so everyone around your bowl is one team. We'll do this for three minutes.
SLIDE 3
Debrief
We played this game because there's a big idea. The big idea is to get the penne pasta into the bowl. It's harder than it looks, and we need to look after little details if we want to be good at it.
Relevance
That's what it's like for anyone who wants to be a Christian and follow Jesus. As Christians, we have big ideas, but in order for the big ideas to work, we need little details.
SLIDE 4
Big Question
Our big question today is: How can we follow Jesus?
Big Idea
We'll learn from our Bible story that we need to do little things, and we need to do big things.
SLIDE 5
Bible Reference
Let's watch the story first
YouTube: Jesus Calls Peter, by Saddleback Kids
Point 1
SLIDE 6
Our first point is, we need to do little things to follow Jesus.
SLIDE 7
Activity: Face the Cookie
Instructions
We’ll start this point with a game! The game is, Face the Cookie!
You will all get an Oreo cookie. You play the game by tilting your head up and putting the Oreo cookie on your eye. Your goal is to move the cookie into your mouth using just the muscles on your head and your face. If your cookie drops off your face, put the cookie back on your eye and try again.
Teacher: demonstrate how the game works. Alternatively, there is a video tutorial on YouTube which you can show to the children. Also, you may want them to play around a table so the cookies will drop onto the table instead of the ground.
Debrief
We played this game because it's about the small things. It's about using the little muscles on our face to move a cookie.
In our Bible story, Jesus asked Peter for some small things.
SLIDE 8
Bible Reference
Let's read the first half of our story from the Bible.
Luke 5:1-5 (CEV)
1 Jesus was standing on the shore of Lake Gennesaret, teaching the people as they crowded around him to hear God's message. 2 Near the shore he saw two boats left there by some fishermen who had gone to wash their nets. 3 Jesus got into the boat that belonged to Simon and asked him to row it out a little way from the shore. Then Jesus sat down in the boat to teach the crowd.
SLIDE 9
4 When Jesus had finished speaking, he told Simon, “Row the boat out into the deep water and let your nets down to catch some fish.”
5 “Master,” Simon answered, “we have worked hard all night long and have not caught a thing. But if you tell me to, I will let the nets down.”
SLIDE 10
Explanation
Our story starts beside a lake. Jesus was teaching a big crowd of people, and they were crowding around Him and it was hard to talk with everyone. He asked Peter for some help. He got on a boat with Peter, and they rowed the boat out a bit. That way, Jesus was able to teach people much better.
If you ever go to that part of the world, you can still see that lake. People have found that if you’re on a boat and you talk to people on the shore, the sound bounces off the water in just the right way so that one person can speak to hundreds of people, and they don't even need a microphone. Peter was able to help Jesus in a little way.
Then, Jesus told Peter to let his nets back into the water. Peter thought there was no point, because he had tried to catch fish all night, and had caught nothing.
However, he did the little thing that Jesus told him to do, and a little thing led to a much bigger thing, which we will discuss later.
SLIDE 11
Application
This story reminds us that sometimes little things matter a lot, because they lead to bigger things.
We don’t always get to do the big things. It's not every day that you get to save someone's life, or have a super important conversation, or meet a super important friend. If you can do the little things every day, as best as you can, the big things happen.
Let's do the little things, like practicing kindness, learning, and doing our best in everything we do. Let’s try to help people to know God better by the things we do.
Even the things we eat and drink matter to God. The little things matter.
SLIDE 12
Discussion Question
Now let’s break for a discussion question.
What is a little thing you can do every day for Jesus?
Point 2
SLIDE 13
Our second point is, God wants big things from us.
SLIDE 14
Activity: Sticky Note Challenge
Instructions
Let's play a new game -- it's called the Sticky Note Challenge!
It's really simple: we'll have teams of about four people each. Each team will have a pad of sticky notes. Someone will need to volunteer to have sticky notes all over them, and your goal as a team is to stick all the sticky notes to one person. When all your sticky notes are on the person, you win.
Teacher: divide the group into teams. Each team will have a pad of sticky notes to share, and to stick on a single person. You may want to play a few rounds of this game depending on interest. Afterwards you can play a follow up game, where in the final round, teams collect all the sticky notes that had been used, and stick them in a single stack. This would also allow for easy cleanup.
SLIDE 15
Debrief
We played this game because it's about using every sticky note, and we stick them on every part of a person.
When you become a Christian, it takes everything you are. Every moment of your day, and every part of you. We get to be on an adventure with Jesus.
SLIDE 16
Bible Reference
Let's watch another video. It’s our Bible story played by real life actors. In the story, Jesus starts by telling Peter to let down his nets.
Teacher: play from 0:00 to 4:49 of the YouTube below
Now let's read the end of the story
SLIDE 17
Luke 5:10b-11
Jesus told Simon, “Don't be afraid! From now on you will bring in people instead of fish.” The men pulled their boats up on the shore. Then they left everything and went with Jesus.
SLIDE 18
Explanation
One really neat detail that they got in the movie is what they did with the fish. They caught so many that their boats were almost sinking. One of the guys at the end said he would sell that fish. He was right -- all that fish was worth a lot of money, and that money would take care of their families.
After Jesus took care of their families, He told Peter and James and John to follow Him. They did, and followed Jesus day and night for the next three years.
Jesus asked these guys for a big thing, but He also gave them a lot of help. The work they did with Jesus and for Jesus was worth it, and they knew it.
Application
That’s how it works for us too.
SLIDE 19
When we spend time with Jesus, sooner or later, He's going to ask us for a big thing. Maybe He will want us to spend a lot of time with someone who needs our help, or maybe He will tell us to obey our parents and do a bunch of stuff for them. When we are older, He might tell us to do something with our money, or our job, or a relationship.
We can trust that every time He asks us to do something, He will give us help to do it, and He will make it worth it.
SLIDE 20
Discussion Question
Let’s break for a discussion question.
What is something big that a person could do for Jesus?
Conclusion
SLIDE 21
Let's wrap up this lesson by going over the big ideas again.
Our big question was: how can we follow Jesus? Our answer was, we need to do little things, and we need to do big things.
Little things are important because they happen all the time, and they lead to big things.
We always do our best for God, no matter how small the detail is.
Someday, Jesus will ask us for a big thing. He'll promise to take care of us. We will see that it’s worth doing what He says.
Main Activity: Minute To Win It Games
SLIDE 22
Let's end with some games! All of our games have a big idea and little details. In that way, these games are a bit like following Jesus.
Teacher: see the teacher's preparation notes for games, e.g. for the Pom Pom & Straw Challenge, the Oven Mitt Challenge, and Traffic Yam (Yam Edition)