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Ups and Downs of Faith

Unit 5 / Lesson 3

Ups and Downs of Faith

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Teacher's Prep

  • Games

    • Guess Who

      • Materials: 

        • 1 pack of sticky notes

      • Load this picture ahead of time on the computer:

      • Teacher: if you have never played Guess Who before, here are instructions to the traditional board game:

      • We will be playing a modified version of the game, in which all the children are on one team, and they will all take turns asking "yes / no" questions. As they guess, you will eliminate possible answers by covering faces on the TV with sticky notes. You will need to clean the TV after the lesson so that the sticky note residue does not remain. Alternatively, if sticky notes are not a feasible option, you may be able to load the image on a computer program such as Microsoft Paint, and cross out characters using the computer program.

    • Breakfast Scramble

      • See this YouTube video to see how the game works

      • One cereal box per 8-10 children. 

        • Note: you can make two puzzles out of one cereal box, because a cereal box normally has two usable sides (the largest faces of the box with pictures on them)

      • If you don't have a cereal box, any colorful picture will do (from a magazine, or a printed picture). A cereal box has the benefit of heavier paper, vivid colors, and a familiar picture.

      • Make a reasonable number of puzzle pieces, e.g. a 6x6 grid. You can cut pieces freely without worrying about their exact size and shape. Between 35-40 pieces per puzzle should be good.

      • Set up tables so that each table can have 4-5 children working on a single puzzle. In the absence of tables, this game can also be played on the floor.

    • Fishing with Magnets

      • See this website for the basic concept of the game

      • Magnets do not need to be ring shaped, though that is ideal; they can also be horseshoe shaped, or they can just be a solid disc that is taped very securely to a string.

      • Instead of fish, you can use multicolor paper clips, and you can have them target one color at a time.

      • Materials:

        • Broomsticks (one per group of five)

        • Strings (one per broomstick, each about one meter long so the magnet will swing from side to side to make the game more challenging)

        • One magnet per broomstick (you can buy magnets at Home Depot, and maybe the dollar store)

        • Tape to attach string securely to the magnet.

        • A bag of multi-colored paper clips (100 - 200 paper clips would be good). Alternatively, if they are standard metal paper clips, you can mark some paper clips with a certain color, e.g. with painter's tape, or by taping a paper cutout of a fish to them.

  • Painting (Main Activity)

    • Materials:

      • Child-friendly Paint

      • Paintbrushes

      • Canvases

      • Bowls with water

      • Objects that are fun to paint, e.g. a fruit bowl.


    Intro

    SLIDE 1

  • Gathering

    • How was your week?

    SLIDE 2

  • Intro Game: Guess Who

    • Instructions

      • Let's start this lesson with a game! It's called "Guess Who." Some of you might have played it before.

      • Teacher: put this image on screen:

      • I'm going to pick one character on the screen, but I’m not going to tell you which one. As a class, you're going to try to guess who I picked, just by asking questions. For example, you might ask, does this person have glasses? All I can say is yes or no. If I don't know the answer to your question, I'll just have to guess, but I can only say yes or no. 

      • Take a good look at the characters, and then you can all ask one question each. 

      • Teacher: when they ask a question, you can mark which characters in the game are eliminated by placing a sticky note over their faces. Play a few rounds of the game, depending on time and interest.

    SLIDE 3

    • Debrief

      • We played this game because today we're learning about different people. They are all unique, just like you and me. They all had their ups and downs, their good days and bad days. But one thing they had in common was that they all trusted God.

      • Different things happened when they trusted God. Sometimes God helped them with amazing miracles, but sometimes God let them go through a lot of trouble.

      • Together their stories help us to understand an important question.

    SLIDE 4

  • Big Question

    • Our big question today is: What can we expect when we trust God and follow Him.

  • Relevance

    • It really helps to know what could happen. Some people do what God wants, and then bad things happen and they get angry at God and quit. They don't realize that God has a great plan, and that He will eventually make everything better.

    • Other people are really afraid to start doing what God wants. They think that if we do what God wants, we will just have a really hard time. But really, our friendship with God can be the greatest adventure ever.

    • It helps to know what to expect so that we won't get too discouraged.

    SLIDE 5

  • Big Idea

    • Today we will talk about different people who had faith. Does anyone know what faith is?

      • Suggested answer: faith is knowing things without seeing.

    SLIDE 6

    • Our big idea today is that faith can lead to victory or pain, but it's always worth it to trust God.

    • We'll see this in our Bible passage today.

    SLIDE 7

  • Bible Reference


    Point 1

    SLIDE 8

  • Our first point is, faith can lead to victory

    SLIDE 9

  • Game: Breakfast Scramble

    • Instructions

      • Teacher: you may want to set up tables with a puzzle on each one, so that each group of 4-5 can access their puzzle.

      • We'll start this point with a game called Breakfast Scramble. We'll form teams of about 4 people, and your team will put a puzzle together. We'll see how quickly you can do the puzzle.

      • Teacher: you may want to play multiple rounds, with the children switching stations each round so they have a fresh picture to work with.

    SLIDE 10

    • Debrief

      • We played this game because we needed faith to play. We needed to know that the pieces would fit together and there would be a beautiful picture in the end.

      • Once we knew there would be a picture at the end, we just put the pieces together, and it worked great.

      • That's sometimes what happens when you have faith: sometimes it all works out great. The Bible gives us lots of stories in which people obeyed God and everything turned out great.

    SLIDE 11

  • Bible Reference

    • Let's read the first half of our Bible passage today.

    • Hebrews 11:32-35a (CEV)

      • 32  What else can I say? There isn't enough time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets. 33  Their faith helped them conquer kingdoms, and because they did right, God made promises to them. They closed the jaws of lions

    SLIDE 12

    • 34  and put out raging fires and escaped from the swords of their enemies. Although they were weak, they were given the strength and power to chase foreign armies away. 35  Some women received their loved ones back from death.

  • SLIDE 13

  • Explanation

    • These Bible verses remind us of what God did for His people in the past. One guy was put into a den of lions even though he had done nothing wrong. Everyone expected the lions to eat him, but he was fine because God sent an angel to close their jaws. Some other guys were thrown into the fire, but the fire didn't hurt them at all. Sometimes God’s people fought against powerful armies, and even though God's people were very weak, He helped them to win.

    • These verses remind us that God can do these things for us too.

    SLIDE 14

  • Application

    • The Bible encourages us to pray because God listens to us. The Bible tells us the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. A righteous person is a person who has the right kind of relationship with God. They are doing God's work, listening to His instructions, and they want the same things God wants. God gives His power to people like that. Sometimes He gives us what we ask for, and sometimes He doesn’t give us what we ask for, because He has a better idea. But He always listens to our prayers and gives us what is best.

    SLIDE 15

  • Discussion Question

    • If you could ask God for one thing, what would you ask for?


    Point 2

    SLIDE 16

  • Our second point is, faith can lead to pain, but it's worth it.

    SLIDE 17

  • Game: Fishing with Magnets

    • Instructions

      • Teacher's setup

        • See Teacher's Preparation section of the lesson above for preparation details.

        • Split the children into as many teams as there are fishing rods.

        • Spread out paper clips so that one magnet can only pick up one or two at a time.

      • Let's start this point with a game! We will be fishing with magnets! It's a simple game. We'll split into teams, and each team will have a fishing rod. You’ll take turns using the fishing rod to get as many of the RED paper clips as you can.

      • Teacher: run several rounds so that each one gets a chance to use the fishing rods. You may consider keeping score, depending on how competitive you want the game to be.

    SLIDE 18

    • Debrief

      • We played this game because it reminds us that we don't always get what we want. In the game, the string was swinging around. Maybe your string got tangled with someone else's string, or maybe you picked up all kinds of other colors that you didn't want.

      • That's what it's like sometimes when we are trying to do the right thing. We're always aiming to do our best, but we end up with a lot of things we don't want, and sometimes we run into trouble.

    SLIDE 19

  • Bible Reference

    • The second half of our Bible passage reminds us that trouble is normal. Let's read it together:

    • Hebrews 11:35b - 40 (CEV)

      • Many of these people were tortured, but they refused to be released. They were sure they would get a better reward when the dead are raised to life. 36  Others were made fun of and beaten with whips, and some were chained in jail. 37  Still others were stoned to death or sawed in two or killed with swords. Some had nothing but sheep skins or goat skins to wear. They were poor, mistreated, and tortured.

    SLIDE 20

    • 38 The world did not deserve these good people, who had to wander in deserts and on mountains and had to live in caves and holes in the ground. 39 All of them pleased God because of their faith! But still they died without being given what had been promised. 40 This was because God had something better in store for us. And he did not want them to reach the goal of their faith without us. 

    SLIDE 21

  • Explanation

    • The Bible tells us that sometimes God’s people did their best and did what was right, but they ran into trouble. Some of them got really hurt, some of them got really uncomfortable, and some of them even died. But we know that even if they died, that wasn't the end of the story, because God had something better planned for them. They got their reward after they died. 

    SLIDE 22

  • Application

    • The lesson for us is that sometimes we will get hurt when we do the right thing. Sometimes we need to wait a long time for God to reward us, but He always does, and it’s always worth the wait. While we wait, we can always remember that He is pleased with us when we do our best for Him.

    SLIDE 23

  • Discussion Question

    • What is one thing you are afraid of?

    • Why do you think God lets bad things happen to us even when we are trying to do our best for Him?


    Conclusion

    SLIDE 24

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

  • Our big question today was: What can we expect if we trust God and follow Him? 

  • Our answer that we saw in the Bible was that trusting God can lead to victory or pain, but it's always worth it.


    Main Activity: Painting

    SLIDE 25

  • We'll end with some painting! We'll all get a little canvas, a paintbrush, and some paint. 

  • Painting is a bit like trusting God, because we start off not seeing anything on our canvas, but we just need to do our best.

  • Teacher: suggest things that they can paint: maybe a fruit bowl, or a picture that you put on the screen.

  • Teacher: if you played the game Guess Who by putting sticky notes on a TV screen, this might be a good time to clean the screen to make sure no residue is left behind.


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