Random Lessons: Tower of Babel

This was a shorter Sunday lesson plan because we started in the service for some worship. So we only had about twenty minutes of lesson, but it was still good. We had about 12 kids--an even split of boys and girls which worked really well.

The first thing the kids did was open their bibles to Genesis 1:28, which reads, "God blessed them and said, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth!" We asked the kids what each of these phrases meant, including what it meant to fill the earth. We talked about why God would want us to fill the earth--if God created a big, gigantic universe for us to live in, why wouldn't he want us to inhabit and enjoy every bit of it. God loves to show off his creation--especially his prize creation, US!

Lesson: We then read in Genesis 11 about the Tower of Babel. We stopped every few verses to ask questions. We talked about how awesome it was that at one time, everyone in the entire world spoke the same language. We talked about how that would make everything a lot easier than it is now--easier to play, easier to communicate, easier to tell people about Jesus. Then we read the part about how the people built the tower to be closer to God, and how back then, people thought if they could be closer to God, they became more like God. And how they wanted to do things to be like God so they could be God. Then, we read about how the people said they wanted to build the tower so that they wouldn't be spread out. DUN DUN DUN! We talked about how the people were completely disobeying God! God wanted them to fill the earth, and they were trying to not do what God said! We talked about the consequence of their disobedience--that they now had a lot of languages and were going to have a hard time understanding each other. We brought a few kids up and had them speak gibberish, and all the kids laughed. Then we asked the kids what they would do if they showed up at school and only one other person spoke their language... Who would they befriend first? They said the person that spoke the same language as them because friendship is all about understanding each other. We talked about how at the Tower of Babel, people felt the same way, and that's how certain languages got isolated into certain areas. Then we asked the kids: Didn't God do what he said he would do? Aren't people filling the earth now? They all answered yes, so we led to the follow up question... Wouldn't it have been easier for the people to just obey God, since his will was done anyway? YES.

Activity: We split the boys and girls up into two teams, and blindfolded one girl, and one boy. We made a rope circle somewhere in the room, and placed kids from both teams around the room. The kids had to try and direct the blindfolded child to the rope circle, but the opposite sex team tried to distract the child. We timed them to see how long it took them to get to the rope circle and talked about how hard it is to give good information and hear good information when people are speaking differently and distracting you. We talked about how the Tower of Babel showed that disobeying God only made things harder for us.