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Praying About Evil

Unit 7 / Lesson 3

Praying About Evil

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Teacher's Prep

  • Games

    • Cup Pyramid Challenge

      • 66 styrofoam cups per group of three

      • Portion them out before the lesson for simplicity

    • Limbo

    • Pin the Hat on the Farmer

      • Game Concept:

        • This game is a variation of Pin the Tail on the Donkey. The point is to stick a hat on the farmer while blindfolded. 

        • For the hat, cut colored sheets of paper in half diagonally to make two triangles. 

        • You will want to use two colors, so that there are two teams.

        • For each round you will want to attach a generous piece of masking tape to the top of the farmer's hat so that it can stick to the target.

      • Supplies:

        • Masking tape

        • Sheets of paper of two different colors that are not white

        • A pair of scissors to cut the paper

        • Blindfolds (suggestion: COVID face masks work great as blindfolds)

        • For the farmer, you need one of the following:

        • A stickman farmer on poster paper taped securely to the wall. See this graphic: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kEJHoZKSDdE-PRhoH45pveuoDWVoUsOV/view?usp=sharing

        • You will want to draw this graphic above on a large sheet of poster paper, and hang the graphic at a height accessible to everyone.

  • Stained Glass Windows (Main Activity)


Intro 

  • SLIDE 1

  • Gathering

    • How was your week?

  • SLIDE 2

  • Intro Game: Cup Pyramid Challenge

    • Instructions

      • We'll start our time with a game! It's the cup pyramid challenge! In a moment, we will need to split into teams of three. Your goal as a team is to 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 five minutes to finish, and you might not even finish because this is super challenging, BUT let's see how far you get in five minutes!

      • Teacher: split them into groups of three. Each group should have 66 cups. Keep time, adjusting if groups need more or less time.

    SLIDE 3

    • Debrief

      • We played this game because it's really hard! If we mess up a little or bump our pyramid the whole thing could come down!

      • It's normal in the game to make a mistake. That's actually part of the fun. The challenge is to do your best even when things aren’t going your way.

    SLIDE 4

  • Relevance

    • That's a bit like real life too. A lot of people get really upset at all the messed up things that others have done. Some people don't really deal with their anger very well, so they are always angry, or always sad, or always carry around a bad attitude.

    • Jesus teaches us the best way to move on when we mess up, and when other people mess up.

    SLIDE 5

  • Big Question

    • Our big question today is: what can we do about all the messed up things around us?

    SLIDE 6

  • Big Idea

    • Our big idea is, we can pray for forgiveness, and we can pray for help against evil.

    SLIDE 7

  • Bible Reference

    • We'll see this in the last part of the prayer that Jesus taught us how to pray

    • Let's read from the Bible.

    • Matthew 6:12-14 (CEV)

      • 12 Forgive us for doing wrong, as we forgive others. 13 Keep us from being tempted and protect us from evil. 14 If you forgive others for the wrongs they do to you, your Father in heaven will forgive you. 15 But if you don't forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.


    Point 1

    SLIDE 8

  • Our first point is, we can pray for forgiveness.

    SLIDE 9

  • Game: Limbo

    • Instructions

      • We'll start our point with a game of Limbo! We'll have two people holding a stick, and we'll all take turns walking under it.

      • The tricky part is, the stick will keep getting lower, so you'll need to walk lower. The way to do this is to bend your knees and lean back.

      • You can't touch the floor with your hands. If you do, or if you fall, you're out, and you can stand to the side and watch your friends to see how low they can go.

      • https://youtu.be/uUGjS9xGn2U?si=WHPaLS15oyOqPT1c&t=116 

      • Teacher: try to do a demonstration with two volunteers to the side holding the stick.

      • Let's all form a line, and give it a try!

      • Teacher: Volunteers should hold the stick in cupped hands so that it will fall easily if touched. Also, you may want to play music during the game

    SLIDE 10

    • Debrief

      • We played this game because it reminds us that we all mess up sooner or later. That's what it's like in Limbo, and that's what it's like in real life. We all mess up, and we need to ask God for forgiveness.

    SLIDE 11

  • Bible Reference

    • Let's go back to our Bible passage again. This is what Jesus taught us to pray:

    • Matthew 6:12 (CEV)

      • 12 Forgive us for doing wrong,

        as we forgive others. (Skip to verse 14)

        Jesus explained:

        14  If you forgive others for the wrongs they do to you, your Father in heaven will forgive you. 15 But if you don't forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.

    SLIDE 12

  • Explanation

    • Who here has ever prayed, and God didn't give you what you asked for? (show of hands). Well, this prayer that Jesus taught us is special, because God always answers this prayer. If we pray for forgiveness, Jesus promises that God will forgive us, as long as we are ready to forgive others the same way.

    SLIDE 13

    • Here’s how forgiveness works. Imagine if you got angry and said some really mean things to someone, and your words really hurt them. If they forgive you, it means they won't try to hurt you back.

    SLIDE 14

    • This sounds a bit unfair, but God made things fair by sending His son Jesus. Jesus took all of our sins from us, and He died with them on the cross. He wants us to forgive everyone the same way.

    SLIDE 15

  • Application

    • So whenever we do something wrong, and we think we should be punished for it, we remember Jesus was punished for us. All the bad things that happened to us happened to Jesus, and we get to go free.

    SLIDE 16

    • Whenever someone else does something wrong, and they should get punished for it, we remember, Jesus was punished for THEM! All the bad things that should happen to other people, they happened to Jesus, and now someone else gets to go free. That’s forgiveness.

    SLIDE 17

    • I just want to make something really clear. If someone hurts us, we shouldn’t just let them keep hurting us. If they hurt us in the past, we forgive them, but we should stop them from hurting us again next time.

    SLIDE 18

  • Discussion Question

    • Let's break for some discussion questions.

      • What is something you need forgiveness for?

      • What is something that you could forgive someone else for?


    Point 2

    SLIDE 19

  • Our second point is, we can pray for help against evil.

    SLIDE 20

  • Game: Pin the Hat on the Farmer

    • Instructions

      • We'll start this point with a game! It's called Pin the Hat on the Farmer! All of you will get a hat with a piece of tape on top of it. Your goal will be to stick the hat on the farmer. 

      • Teacher: show the class the farmer, which is the stickman attached firmly to the wall.

      • The catch is, you will be blindfolded while you are finding the farmer. Fortunately, you'll have a teammate, and your teammate will tell you where to go.

      • Everyone, find a partner. One of you will be blindfolded, and the other will guide the blindfolded person to the farmer. Once you have all stuck the hat on, we'll play a second round and the other person will be blindfolded.

      • You’ll notice that there are two different colors of hats. Each team will have a color, and your team will try to get your hats closest to the place where they should go.

      • Teacher: play two rounds, so everyone pins the hat on the farmer. If there are a lot of teams, have just a few of them stick hats on the farmer at a time, to keep the noise and congestion down.

      • If there is a lot of interest, you may want to play more rounds, with more hats or the added challenge of being spun around before going to pin the hat.

    SLIDE 21

    • Debrief

      • We played this game because it's really hard to know where to go sometimes. However, you have someone guiding you away from all the wrong places. That's how it's like with us and God.

      • In our friendship with God, we are like the blindfolded person. We have some ideas for what is good, but we really need God to lead us away from all the wrong places, and we need God to take us to the right places.

    SLIDE 22

  • Bible Reference

    • This is why Jesus taught us to pray the last line of His prayer. Let's read verse 13 from an adult Bible. The prayer goes:

      • 13 And lead us not into temptation,

     but deliver us from the evil one.’

SLIDE 23

  • Explanation

    • It's a prayer that says to God, we want to stay out of sin and we want to stay away from Satan.

    • That's what the big words mean in this verse. In the Bible, “the evil one” is just another name for Satan. Satan has plans to mess up the great things that God is doing.

    SLIDE 24

    • God has a great plan for you. God wants you to make great friendships and help people, and God wants you to show your friends how to enter His family and live forever. It’s very important work! Satan hates it though and wants to mess it up.

    • One of Satan's most important tools is called temptation. Temptation is that feeling you get when you want to do the wrong thing. You know it's wrong, but you want it so much. That's how Satan gets us into trouble.

    SLIDE 25

  • Application

    • So, we ask God to lead us away from temptation and to save us from Satan.

    • This is a prayer that God always answers. If we really want to honor Him, work for His kingdom, and win the fight against evil, God will always give us a way.

    • God will help us to get out of Satan’s traps, and He will do amazing things with us.

    SLIDE 26

  • Discussion Question

    • Let’s break for some discussion questions!

      • Take a guess: what might be God’s plan for you?

      • How might Satan be working against that plan?


    Conclusion

    SLIDE 27

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

  • Our big question today was: what can we do about all the messed up things around us?

  • Our big idea was: we can pray for forgiveness, and we can pray for help against evil.


    Main Activity: Stained Glass Windows

    SLIDE 28

  • We'll end our time with a craft! Today we’re making stained glass windows!

  • This craft reminds us of what we learned today, because eventually we all mess up. Just like in the craft, we’ll all have parts that we don’t do perfectly. BUT, we have a way out of the mess, because Jesus forgives us, leads us and saves us from Satan.

  • Teacher: lead Stained Glass Windows craft.

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