And Jesus Said: Week #1: LOVE

We've started a new series of lessons this week, most of which are really old lessons in a new format. We're talking about the most important thing we could ever really talk about... We keep telling these kids to follow Jesus, follow Jesus, follow Jesus, and yet, we haven't really been teaching them what it is Jesus SAID. They know the basics of Jesus' life, but as for the words popping out of his mouth at every turn, we haven't gone there. So, that's what we're hitting these next few weeks.

We're taking a different word Jesus spoke about every week. On Sunday mornings, we talk about what was said, the meaning, the definition, what it looks like in our lives and what it's looked like in other people's lives. The kids are given a verse to memorize, and a story to read over the course of the week with some questions to answer. These are meant to get the kids thinking about the lesson over a longer period of time, to get the kids reading their bibles, and to get the kids and their families engaged in what's going on. The Wednesday night crew gets double the teaching... We take the same basic lesson from Sunday morning, but this time we apply it to the story that was the take home for the week... We use games, drama, movie clips, food, whatever it takes to reinforce the point. For those of you who want to get to this on your own, this week we studied Matthew 22:34-40, and the take home is the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).

In this lesson, we come across the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They are, like always, fighting! We had to understand, of course, why these two groups of people seem to always be at odds with each other. Well, the Sadducees and the Pharisees were both brands of the Jewish faith, but they were vastly different. The Sadducees believed in only the written word of God... This means that anything that was spoken ORALLY to the people by God was out of the Sadducees mindset... Think about some of these things... The kids got a few of them! One of them said "Don't kill Isaac!" which I thought was pretty funny and also very telling at the same time--what if Abraham had been a Sadducee!? Regardless, we tossed around a few ideas (Noah and the ark, Abraham and Isaac, etc, etc) before we finally hit on the big one. What about those 10 commandments we're supposed to be following? Those were definitely spoken to Moses! We talked about the Sadducees and how they lived a pretty sad life (pnemonic device! sad life, saducees!) because they didn't believe all of what God had for them. And they lived their lives in a mentality of "well if I think it should be right then it is!" which wasn't good. So those were the Sadducees, and they were always fighting with our friends the Pharisees. You see, the Pharisees took everything very literal. You know, so when the bible says "an eye for an eye", they literally thought you should pluck out someone else's eye if yours was plucked out (so they couldn't see, pnemonic device. Pharisees, couldn't see!)... So they took everything very, very seriously. So these two groups obviously didn't have much in common... But that's enough background for now.

So, the Pharisees come up to Jesus because they've heard that Jesus has basically zip-lipped the Sadducees. And hey, most of the time when someone zip-lips our enemies, we tend to think that person is on our side. So, you know. I suppose they did. Then all of a sudden, this lawyer-Pharisee (what a combination, huh?) asks Jesus, "hey, Jesus, old buddy, old pal, what's the greatest commandment?" (and you know these Pharisees are going to do so much with this info!) and Jesus basically says "Love." I mean, he says more than that. He says "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your soul." But really, it all boils down to love.

Now, I've been reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend that you do. I also recommend that you find a good time where you can be alone when you read it, and that you really take what it says to heart. I'm only on chapter five, and already I've been challenged. The book is all about how we don't love Jesus correctly. But I won't spoil it for you. Basically, the point is that before this lesson I was already thinking about this whole concept of loving Jesus. Really loving him. Full on with everything I've got. So this lesson was just another kick in the rear. But, back to the actual lesson.

We split the kids into groups after our super awesome discussion with them. In one group, we had the "mind" group. In another, the "heart". And in another, the "soul". We gave each group four markers, a piece of paper, and three to four brains (aka children). Each group had two tasks. The first was to draw a picture that answered this question: "How can I love Jesus with my whole ______?" (mind group filled in mind, soul group filled in soul, etc). Then, after they had done that, they were supposed to come up with a fun dance move to do whenever they heard the phrase "with all my ____" (mind, heart, soul). We gave them a few minutes for this activity.

We played the song "Love the Lord" by Lincoln Brewster, and had the kids jump up and do their dance as quick as possible when they heard their phrase. This was chaotic and super fun! By the end of the song, most of the kids knew the bible verse. AND if they didn't, we had moves for them to learn in the order of the bible verse. I'm interested to see how many of them retained it. We'll review it the next Sunday.

After this, each group shared their answers to the first question. We got some great answers.

• Heart : loving my neighbors, helping my friends, feeding hungry people, being like Jesus
• Soul : praising Jesus, worshiping, being happy with Jesus, praying
  
• Mind : thinking about Jesus, praying, reading my bible, doing my best in school

We had the kids each think about a way they can love Jesus this week. We ended with a game and challenged the kids to learn the Bible verse, read the Bible story (or live it, if they come Wednesday night!), and live out their calling to some crazy love. Next week will be the one parents don't want to miss... We're talking about obeying.

Hall of Faith: Week 1

This summer we'll be looking at the Hebrews Hall of Faith, which is found in Hebrews 11. Last week I gave the kids "homework" to read the first five verses of Hebrews 11 to prepare them for the lesson today. It definitely came in handy!

This week we focused on Hebrews 11:6, which has always been a verse that kind of haunts me in the things I do. "Without faith it is impossible to please God, for anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." It's chilling to think that those times when I don't have faith are the times when I'm not pleasing God. Not surprising, just chilling. Either way, it was important that the kids hear this verse, so we worked around it.

We started out playing a game of Sardines. The first game we played normal. The second game, I told the kids they would get a prize if they found the "sardine". Man! I haven't seen kids run that fast in a long time!!! We talked about how it's so much easier to really run hard after something if there's a prize involved. Both times "luck" worked in our favor as the kids found each other in about thirty seconds (in contrast to about five minutes the first time). We had the kids try and define "faith". All of our kids did a really good job. Faith is believing God, trusting God. Hoping in God even when we don't see how it can happen! We read Hebrews 11:1 which says that faith is basically confidence in things that have yet to happen and hope in things unseen. The kids accepted this definition and we went on our way.

We split the older kids from the younger kids and I brought the older kids into the library while Ms. Danielle did a similar lesson in the other room. Reading over Hebrews 11:6, we took it bit by bit. We talked about why it was impossible to please God without faith. As one of our kids pointed out, God really wants us to trust Him, and when we don't trust Him, that makes him sad. We talked about how important it is for us to have faith because we always want to please God. We talked about how silly it would be to walk up to someone and tell them they don't exist, and how that's what makes it so important that we believe God exists! It's super hard to have a relationship with someone who doesn't exist!

The last part was the trickiest. We talked about the rewards God gives us. I asked the kids if they thought God gave the same reward to everybody. At first they said, "no!" I challenged them, just to see if they would change their minds. I was so proud of them when they stuck to their answer--totally the truth!!! Last week we had talked about how God made us different and how he knows us intimately and loves us completely. We talked about how a God that knows us this well would know how to reward us best! God doesn't just give a blanket prize of gum to every student (even the ones who don't like it!). God makes sure to give us things we will really like!

This is where our morning got really amazing. I had the kids think about ways they've been "rewarded" by God. They all mentioned experiences they had--not gifts or tangible things. I thought that was really awesome, that they realized that experiences (ALL of which were experiences of being with and helping others!!) can be rewards. We talked about why those stuck out to them as being "rewards" from God, and they said because they felt really good when doing it. That they felt like they were doing the right thing and that feeling was probably a reward from God. I was really impressed with our kids and the depth of their understanding of God and how he made each of them!

Then we pulled it back around with the simple question that's not so simple to answer. "If we can't please God without having faith, where do you need to have faith even in those rewards God's given you?" This was really awesome and really got to the heart of the kids that were down there. They all expressed that they needed to have faith that what they were doing would make a difference, and that God would use them.

This was one of those Sundays that I think might have been more influential for me as a teacher than for them as "students". That fifteen minute conversation with our kids showed me that the kids at Holy Cross seem to understand that:

• God made them unique and gave them all special gifts.
• God is always looking to USE them to impact people for Him.
• God rewards them in ways that are more than tangible.
• The biggest rewards are in relationships and serving others.
• There is ALWAYS an opportunity for faith in God.

We closed with such an awareness of the ways God has blessed each one of us, and the ways we continually need to have faith in Him daily. I'm continually inspired by our kids and so thankful for the amazing reward God has given me in working with them.

Next week, the kids should have read through Hebrews 11:6-12. We'll be talking about our first big name Hall of Faith-er!

Is Jesus The Messiah: Week 14

Wow! This Easter was amazing! Our kids are just inspiring me so much and continuing to impress me with their faith in Jesus and their desire to follow Him. We had all of our kids that came downstairs in both services commit or re-commit to following Jesus as the Messiah, and that was just the coolest thing ever, hearing their voices as they accepted everything Jesus did for them and asked for God's help in their walks with Him. It was definitely one of the highlights of my life, watching these kids take off running for Jesus.

We've been working off a puzzle for the past however many weeks, and when we started Sunday's lesson, this is what our puzzle had finally dwelled down to. As you can see, there's a big white gap in the middle of what seems to be a pretty solid puzzle. We read in 1 Corinthians 15:14 that if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, all of our faith and all of our teaching is useless. If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, it doesn't matter that all of the other pieces of the puzzle are complete because there's one that isn't. And since we know God doesn't lie, we know that puzzle piece has to fit. So we were determined to find it! Along the way we read in both Hosea 6:2 and Psalm 16:10 and found three things that have to happen for us to earn that last puzzle piece. Jesus has to be missing from the grave/tomb, we have to be able to live in his presence, and on the third day, He has to rise. We decided to take great efforts to ensure that these three things are true. If this is the last piece of the puzzle, it could change our entire lives, so we wanted to be POSITIVE.

So we decided that instead of JUST looking at the bible for the answers to our question, we were going to explore a little bit around the bible. We asked the kids where the first place they look for something is... After a bit of help, we got to the real answer, which is "the last place I saw it!" So, we reasoned that if Jesus really did rise from the dead, we should check the last place we saw Him! If He's there, we know he didn't really rise. If He's not there, well, we can still think that maybe he did. So here's the evidence that we found that Jesus did in fact, rise from the dead:

• The whole movement of Christianity STARTED in the place where Jesus died and rose from the dead. It's kind of like if I went up to one of you and said, "hey did you see that awesome new amusement park right by the Walmart?" Every one of you would be able to tell me that I'm pulling your leg. Why? Because you pass by that every time you come to church and you've never seen it! Same thing with an empty tomb. These people wouldn't have just taken a disciple's word for it... and it wasn't something they heard about from a distant land. These were people who had SEEN the empty tomb and believed it! So we know there was some validity to what they said.
• Historically speaking, the burial and crucifixion accounts are accurate. This means that historians have said, "hey! that really happened the way he said it!" We can assume that since the same guy wrote the burial, crucifixion, and resurrection accounts of Jesus, that the third is just as accurate as the first two.
• People who aren't Christians, people who DESPISED Jesus, confirmed he wasn't in the tomb... Now, why would they do that unless it was ABSOLUTELY TRUE? This was their chance to really disprove the disciples once and for all. But they had no ammunition to go on. They saw the empty tomb.
• Really, really important people and prophets all had shrines where their bones lay. This dates back thousands of years ago... Yet, there's no shrine for who was considered the GREATEST and MOST IMPORTANT person in History... That tells us that perhaps they couldn't find his bones to build a shrine near... Hmm... No bones, no body!
• Paul says so.

So we looked at all that ammunition that says YES ITS TRUE. But then we decided we wanted to know the other part of the story. So many people don't believe Jesus is the Messiah because they don't think He rose from the dead... There's no dispute that the tomb is empty, but if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, how did He get out of that tomb? We looked at the two big conspiracies people say. And debunked them.

• Some people argue that the disciples stole Jesus' body - Okay first of all, this is totally inconsistent with the disciples' characters. Second of all, we know that 10 out of the 12 disciples (excluding Judas and John) died brutal, awful martyrs deaths for this cause they believed. They died because they believed Jesus died and rose again. If they had stolen the body of Jesus, they would have known that He didn't rise again. Who in their right mind would die for something that they KNEW was a lie? We won't even go to time-out for a lie, let alone die! And then you have to think, lastly... You know, the disciples had just watched their leader get hacked up and thrown on a cross... And people hated them. And they had been so afraid they had literally fled the scene and scattered.... And now we're thinking they risked being seen to go and move a two ton rock out of the way and steal a dead body wrapped in linen? Yeah, uh huh. Not to mention the guards in front of the tomb weren't about to let this body go stolen--that would have been their heads on a platter. So I think we can safely say this conspiracy is just that.
• Some people believe Jesus just got up and walked out - Okay, really? Let's think about this. Jesus is fully human. What happened to Jesus right before he was put in the tomb? He was beaten to the point where he had organs coming out of his body, he was scourged, he had a crown of thorns placed into his forehead, he carried a huge cross up a hill on the same back that was scourged and skinless, was attached with nails to it, hung on that very cross for six hours straining to breathe, had professional executioners announce him dead, and was pierced in the side by a sword so all his blood shot out... THEN on top of that, he was wrapped in 100 pounds of linen (we would liken this to a middle schooler), and he laid in a dark, cold tomb with no water or food for three days... And then, miraculously on the third day he just bolted right out of that linen and pushed that same two ton stone up a hill and appeared to his disciples and they said "HEY! ITS THE CONQUEROR OF LIFE!" Yeah, no. If he had managed to do that, I'm pretty sure the first thing the disciples would have said was "uhh, lets get you to a hospital buddy." I think we can safely assume this conspiracy is pretty much all fabrication... After all, I twist my ankle and I don't want to get up and walk around on it for a few days... Jesus had it much worse, and yet we expect him to just bolt out of the grave. No sense.

So, we can safely assume from all this that Jesus did in fact rise from the dead. Check one. So next we're going to look at how it said Jesus came down to live in our presence... HMM. Well, aside from us going up to Heaven to be with him, (Today you'll be with me in paradise, hmm hmm)... We know that Jesus appeared to his disciples AFTER the resurrection. In fact, there's even that instance where Jesus says to Thomas, "hey, come feel the holes in my hand and touch my side where I was pierced"... So we know that he appeared to Thomas AFTER death because he showed Thomas the markings of his death... And the disciples were there when Jesus ascended into heaven... So he definitely appeared after the death... But, those are all Christian sources... Maybe they had an agenda... So let's look at non-Christian sources and see what they say. Yep, even the regular, historical sources that don't believe in Jesus and don't buy into this Christianity thing said that Jesus did in fact appear to people after he died.... Okay. I'm convinced. Check.

So the last one... That it would happen on the third day. Well, this is where we read Luke 24:50:52 and Luke 24:1-7.... Yep, that says third day. Then we counted on our fingers.... What day is Good Friday? Friday. Saturday. What day is Easter Sunday? Sunday. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Three days. Check.

We put the last piece of the puzzle on the board until finally we were left with this. As Ben and Sam show you, the final puzzle piece is there and now we know without a doubt that Jesus is the Messiah! The one that saves us! YES! We had a huge cheer go up as soon as the puzzle was finished! All of the kids were so excited, and it was so awesome watching them get so thrilled about the end result!

We didn't just leave it there, though. We try to inspire faith with action in our kids, and so we asked the kids what we should do, now that everything we thought has been confirmed to us. What do we do with this knowledge that Jesus is the Messiah? We talked about how the Messiah is the person that saves us from our sins and that helps us live a good life and a life that honors God. So we all decided that since God had done what he promised and sent Jesus, and since Jesus had done what he promised and died for us (AND ROSE AGAIN!), we could trust God to lead us for the rest of our lives. So we put our faith in Jesus, and we prayed that He would cleanse us from our sins and help us lead a holy life. It was definitely really amazing watching as our entire children's ministry committed to following Jesus--I can't wait to see the fruit of it all!

Here are a few more pictures of the puzzle we worked on:

Here's a picture of the whole backboard the puzzle was created on. In the upper left corner was where we put the puzzle pieces with the "clues" on them (we played the whole thing up as a "GUESS WHO" kind of deal, with the Messiah being the answer... All of the prophecies God gave us were "clues" to help us figure out who it was).

Then below that is a timeline of when the Old Testament books were written, to help with showing the kids how much time passed between what God said was gonna happen and what actually did. Then the upper right corner has a checklist (enlarged to the left) of the various prophecies/clues we looked at (but not all of them that are out there!) and then below that is a timeline of Jesus' ministry, so the kids could see how it all played out. The puzzle pieces were attached with velcro, and you can't see it now, but originally there was just a big purple question mark. Each of the puzzle pieces had the old Testament verse and the New Testament fulfillment written on them, and the New Testament verse velcroed on top of the Old Testament verse that was written on the backboard. It was all very cool and the kids loved it, and Ms. Amanda, Ms. Danielle and I loved teaching it! We're looking forward to our next series of lessons, which will be teaching the kids HOW to follow the Messiah. I can't wait!

To see the full list of the prophecies with the verses, click here.

Is Jesus The Messiah?: Week 12

We've got two puzzle pieces left on our puzzle, which means this coming up week is make it or break it for Jesus. He's got to do something pretty powerful for us to be convinced he's the messiah, and as the kids reminded me this week, if that last puzzle piece doesn't fit, Jesus ain't our man. We're all hoping he is--we've started to really like this guy!

So this week we looked at the prophecy that says the Messiah will be betrayed by a close friend. In addition, the prophecy said that the price for the Messiah's body will be thirty silver coins, that the coins will be given to the potter and thrown to the temple, and that Israel and Judea will be scattered as a result.

The first part we looked at was whether Jesus was betrayed by a close friend. We talked about how Jesus' closest friends were the disciples, and how we knew Judas was one of his disciples. They went to church together, broke bread together.... And Judas was in charge of the money and the scheduling of the whole operation. Judas was of course secretly a thief. But, alas, it was Judas that betrayed Jesus. Check.

We talked about the thirty coins... When Zechariah wrote about the thirty coins, they were worth a lot more. In fact, the thirty coins were the price of a single slave. As time passed, the value of the coins went down, but the price stayed the same. By the time Jesus was betrayed for thirty coins, it was equivalent to about 25 bucks in today's time. You couldn't even buy a Wii game with that! Check.

Judas was so overcome with grief and remorse that he'd betrayed Jesus that he threw the coins into the temple. (CHECK). However, Jewish law prohibited money being put into the temple that had been come by illegally. So, the people gathered up all of the money and sold it to buy a potter's field (money to the potter, check).

As a result of Jesus' crucifixion, there was a huge fight between Israel and Rome. Because of this, one section of Israel stayed with Israel, and the other section joined what is now Palestine... In this way, Judea and Israel were scattered. (check).

Next week is Easter, and we're all so excited to see if Jesus is who he says he is! I'm thinking he is!!!

A break in the schedule...

My totally awesome brother filled in for me and miss Amanda and miss Danielle this weekend, as all three of us were unable to be at church. So, instead of updating you on a lesson plan, I'll update you on where I was this weekend. I saw God move in some really awesome ways!

My senior year of high school God called me and some of my friends to start an Anglican youth retreat for the diocese. This was an incredibly awesome and challenging experience and tested my faith in many ways. However, it was one of the single most growing things God has ever called me to, and I'm so thankful for it. The retreat occurs twice a year, and now, three years later, we're heading onto #8 in December. #7 was this past weekend, and I attended the church service that occurs for the community of believers in the diocese. There's a story that was told that blew me away, brought tears to my eyes, and still leaves me in awe of how much God loves me, and how resourceful He is. The fruit of obedience lasts for longer than a few seasons and is impacting people even today.

There was a young senior who is 18 years old at this weekend. He had been raised actively pagan, and had only become a Christian two months before. His friends signed him up for Dynamos and he went. On Saturday night, they were having a prayer section. As the kids filed out, Father Andrew offered to anoint each one of them and seal the healing work of the prayer session. This young man said okay, but then asked Father Andrew, "actually, can you baptize me tomorrow? Is there a service we can do it at, or something?" Father Andrew started to say yes, but then he decided they would baptize him that night. So they went down to the Suwannee River, filled a cooler with muddy river water, and started a bonfire. Now, normally during a baptism, a parent or someone presents the candidate and offers to help him/her in his spiritual walk. However, nobody was here for this kid. So the entire retreat filled with candidates and team members stood up, and as a community presented this kid for baptism. They dunked his head in the cooler of muddy water and baptized him in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I heard him tell this story at the closing service, and was in awe. His face glowed, and you could tell he was just alive with the Spirit. It was so incredible to see the change in this kid!

The spirit is alive and moving in our community and in the hearts of our kids. Dynamos is a wonderful reminder to me that what God says He's going to do, God does. That when we say "yes" to God, God continually says "yes" to the fruit that pours out of what we're doing. I would never have thought this retreat would be the catalyst for a baptism, but the work I did three years ago, and the obedience I had then is impacting people today. It's my prayer and hope that we can all live into this and start saying "yes" to God more often because it impacts more than just our current situation. I hope that we can instill in our kids the way of living a life that says YES to God. Reckless abandonment of our own lives for His purposes.

Also, Congratulations to the Strickland family :) So great to have another kid in our Ministry to pour into!

Is Jesus The Messiah?: Week 11

Before I go on, let me just give a shoutout to my pal Ava who's been reading these things! HEY AVA!

Alright, so this week we talked about a whole set of prophecies. I gave each of the kids a notecard. The notecard had one of three questions:

• How do these verses show Jesus' purpose?
• What do these verses tell us about Jesus' death?
• What do these verses tell us about what happened after Jesus' death?

There were about 4-5 sets of verses in each category. Each one had an Old Testament Verse on the back and a New Testament verse below it. Each of the verses showed part of what we've been studying about Jesus being the Messiah. Here's a good list:

• He came as a ransom for our sins.
• He died on a tree.
• There were nails in his hands and feet.
• No bones were broken on his body.
• They cast lots for His clothes
• He divided the spoil (criminals) with the strong (himself)
• He didn't speak
• Prayed for his accusers
• Marked among transgressors
• Rejected by everyone
• Spat on and struck

The kids got in groups according to their questions, then answered the question with their particular cards in front of everyone. We went over the crucifixion, the beatings of Jesus, and everything Jesus went through for us. We added about 12 pieces to the puzzle, which is awesome. The kids are starting to guess what the picture is. We even had one kid say she didn't need to know anymore, she was convinced. AWESOME.

Is Jesus the Messiah?: Week Nine

We were planning on splitting the kids to learn two different really important prophecies this Sunday, but instead we ended up keeping them all together to learn one. Thus, we're relying on a bit of "homework" (but is the bible really homework?) so the kids can learn as many of these awesome puzzle piece prophecies as possible. We won't hit all 200, but we're going to hit a good number of them!

I gave all of the kids a take home card with three bible verses/stories underlined. The old testament verse is Psalm 78:2. It basically said that the Messiah was going to speak in parables. Parables are pretty simply stories that describe or teach. Here's what I didn't know about parables before planning this lesson: A ton of people spoke in parables, it wasn't just Jesus. So this prophecy seemed so common to these people, and it made the future Messiah seem like a real king or teacher--only high end people did this. But here's the really cool part. Jesus spoke in his own form of parable. If you think of it like a group of categories, there are a category of parables that ONLY Jesus told! This is just plain awesome to me!

The parables can be split up into a few categories, but all of them before Jesus had one common thing. They were all told to explain things that were already written in the Old Testament. There was no new information! It reminded me of the story of the boy who called wolf... It's just a story on a truth we all already know--don't lie! No new information, just a new story to present it. That's the old way of doing parables. Now let's look at Jesus' new category!

Jesus basically spoke in four different types of parables. If you were to break them down, you'd categorize them as nature, discovery, contrast, and trustworthiness. The common thing between all of these was that Jesus ALWAYS spoke in parables about God's kingdom. Other parables were about the law and religious things, but Jesus spoke straight to the kingdom and the face of God. Take the parable of the mustard seed--it shows how vast God's kingdom is, and how small it starts but how great it will become.... Then the parable of the hidden treasure--it shows that we can happily abandon EVERYTHING to follow Jesus... Then the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector--it shows us how much God loves the lost and wants them back (in addition to the "unlost", whoever they are)... Then the persistent widow--it shows us God's trustworthiness no matter what is going on in our lives.

Jesus' parables were different because they didn't focus on explaining what God had already said. They focused on explaining WHO God is and HOW God acts! Jesus' parables couldn't be told with authority by anyone... except HIM. Who better to tell about God's kingdom and God's face and God's character than God himself! What I think is so AWESOME is that God wants us to know about him SO MUCH that he came down to earth not just to die for us, but to TELL US about his love and his awesomeness. Now, that's a God that loves his people!

If you look at the New Testament example in Matthew 7:24-27, you see an awesome parable about the foolish and wise men who built their houses on various foundations. Jesus is awesome in this parable. The basic point is listen to God! Don't build your house on anything that will fade away, but build it on the rock, the only thing that will stand. The parables prove to us that Jesus knows God better than anyone else--nobody else can talk about him the way Jesus can! So, we should build our houses on the foundation of God, because God doesn't shake! God stands strong!

Then read Matthew 13:34-35. We see in this that Jesus fulfilled the promise! Not just because the gospel writers wrote that he did, but we all see countless times in scripture where parables are how Jesus chooses to communicate. In fact 1/3 of the Gospels is filled with Jesus' parables and Jesus explaining God to us! NOW THAT'S COOL.

So, that's the homework for the week... Here's what we actually talked about yesterday morning:

We read Isaiah 35:5-6 and talked about what the verse was basically saying. Basically, God's saying that we're going to know the Messiah because he's going to be making lame walk and blind see and all of that fun stuff. AKA MIRACLES! We defined a miracle as something impossible that God makes impossible. These miracles show God's love not only to the quarantined person ('cause people had to be out of the town when they were sick) but also to the family because it reunited them! It's awesome. Ask your kids about it, they'll probably talk about how Molly was quarantined and then we got her back.

Is Jesus the Messiah?: Week Eight

This week, our prophecy studies lead us to a part of Jesus' character that the kids might not have known before. We looked in Psalm 69:9 where it says that the Messiah would have great zeal for his father's house. We talked about what zeal means, and here are some of the words the kids came up with as synonyms.

• love
• enthusiasm
• passion
• happy
• excited
• longing

The Messiah had all of these things for God's house. This is our clue! Then we turned to Luke and read the story of when Jesus was a young boy. His family went on a trip to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. They were there for awhile, and then when the festival was over, they headed back to Bethlehem. Jesus stayed behind (whoops!) and Mary and Joseph assumed he was just hitching a ride with someone else. So they got home, and they realized they'd left him, so they turned back around and a few days later, they finally found him.

At this point, we asked the kids if they'd ever been lost before, and if so, where they thought their parents looked first thing. They all said "inside the house", so we made the situation a little bit different. You get lost in Target. Where's the first place your parents look? One of the kids got it spot on when he raised his hand and said "THE TOY SECTION!" We asked him why, and he told us it was because that's where his favorite part of the store was, so he would be there most likely!

We shifted back to the Bible and talked about how Jesus was found in the temple, talking with Rabbis and other people, and they were amazed by him. When Mary came up to him and asked him where he'd been, Jesus was like, "Lady, why didn't you realize I'd be in my favorite place EVER!?" This makes total sense. Duh, of course Jesus would be in the temple!

The kids and I all decided that this story was definitely an example of Jesus' zeal for his father's house. He'd rather be there than anywhere else-even though his pets, video games, and all of his toys were back home. Jesus chose the temple over everything else, constantly. If that doesn't show love, enthusiasm, passion, longing, excitement and happiness for the temple, what does? Jesus was zealous about the temple, just like the Old Testament said he would be.

We could have looked at another story where Jesus overturned tables in the church as an adult, but we didn't get a chance. If you want to read it with your children on your own and talk about how it proves Jesus was zealous, it can be found at John 2:12-25 (or in any of the other Gospels, but John is my favorite if we're talking about zealousness!)

Is Jesus the Messiah?: Week Seven

This week we talked about the two prophecies in Isaiah 53:2 and Zechariah 9:9. One of these is a kind of difficult prophecy to digest, and the other is just kind of silly and random, so we had fun with it. We brought the kids downstairs, opened up the bible, and while kids were finding the lessons, we brought up a few things...

The kids and I discussed how God is all powerful and really mighty, and how it makes sense to us that if God could come down as anybody in the world, he would choose to be a King or someone really powerful and awesome. These people were expecting somebody to come in and kick some butt and have a lot of money, but they were in for quite a shock.

We read Isaiah 53:2. We talked about what a "tender shoot" is, and how the prophecy meant two things: 1) Jesus was not attractive (wouldn't you want to be attractive if you could choose how you looked? strange, God) and 2) Jesus was gonna not have a home. Hardly the kind of life you would think the God of the universe would choose for himself. Then we read Zechariah 9:9, where it says the Messiah's gonna come riding on a donkey. We talked about clunker cars... How at one point, those cars were really awesome and like "THE THING" to drive in. Donkeys are the same way. At some point, they were the advanced kind of ride... But then time passed, and people started realizing that donkeys poop everywhere and don't quite do what you want them to do, and they started being kind of like a clunker car... The poor people's ride. With that in mind, we focused our attention on this Jesus guy that people are saying might be the Messiah.

We read Luke 9:58 and Matthew 4:12-16, where we found out Jesus was a homeless dude who had to borrow a donkey. The kids were all shocked to find out they're following a homeless guy. These people thought Jesus was a big deal, and they were so surprised to find out that he was just a homeless guy with no donkey. We talked about WHY God would choose to come down as a homeless man. And one of the things we realized is that we shouldn't treat people any different whether they are homeless or not. They're all the same.

We listened to the song "One of Us" by Joan Osborne and were all kind of sobered by how we might have reacted to Jesus, had he come the same way now. We talked about how to show love to everybody, prayed, and went upstairs for worship.

Is Jesus the Messiah?: Week Six

We started off last week by putting on our yarmulkes and reading Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1. These two verses pointed at the prophet right before Jesus that would come to share the good news. We focused on the words 'desert' and 'prepare'. We talked about how God had been silent for 400 years (aka, no prophets) right before John the Baptist showed up. John's whole purpose was to prepare everyone for Jesus.

John was this crazy guy who probably had long hair and ate locusts and wild honey and he was just a little bit "different" than everybody else. We talked about how this showed John's purpose was fulfilled ( re Luke 1:17). We also read Matthew 3:1-6 and talked about how John looked a bit like a freak, but God still used him. And what's more, his appearance played a huge part. People tend to focus on others who look "different", and John certainly did!

The big kids learned about the story of John's birth (Elizabeth getting pregnant, Zechariah's mouth being shut, etc, etc. Then we talked about John's death, and how his death might have helped to prepare the way for Jesus. We discussed that perhaps if John hadn't have died, Jesus wouldn't have had the followers he needed. Even John's death was preparation for Christ! Then we talked about the importance of being obedient to God--> God knows what he's doing, and he gave us all a purpose and we need to fulfill it.

And of course, we talked about baptism.

Is Jesus the Messiah?: Week Five

This week was a really interesting lesson, and I heard a lot of the kids really excited about it! Some even said it was their favorite ever! We looked at the prophecies in Jeremiah 31:15 and Hosea 11:1 as a big group--they say that there will be weeping around the time of Jesus' birth, and that out of Egypt He'll come.

One of my favorite parts of this lesson was when we read, "and out of Egypt I will call my son". About five heads shot up, and I was so proud of them for the way they were critically examining the bible. I asked them what was wrong, and they told me that we already read Jesus came out of Bethlehem! What a conundrum, but we all had faith that God would figure this out for us.

We split the kids up into groups... The first group (3-5) went with me. We talked about how Abraham was the father of nations. Then we went on a little genealogy trip. Abraham to Isaac, Isaac to Jacob. We told the story of Jacob's inheritance (You know, the one where he tricked his blind father into giving him a ton of money by skinning a goat and pretending to be his other brother Esau?) and how he ran away. While he was running, he came across a field and fell madly in love with this girl, Rachel (is this a Disney movie, or what?). He asked her father, Laban to let him marry her, and he said "sure buddy, but you gotta work for 7 years!" So Jacob did but it felt like nothing because he was so enamored with this girl. Then he gets married and he wakes up the next morning and WHOOPS, it's the uglier sister, Leah. Crap. So, he goes back to Laban and asks him what his deal is, and Laban says "okay, work another 7!" and so Jacob does and he finally gets Rachel.

Meanwhile, Leah and Jacob have all these kids... but he can't get any goin' with Rachel, so he's really upset. God's closed Rachel's womb because of favoritism, and Rachel's upset about it. Then miracle baby Joseph comes along (remember, the favorite of the pack? I wonder why that could be...), and Rachel's like "hey! I want another one!" so miracle baby Benjamin comes along, and in the middle of delivery (cue the lights for drama), Rachel starts weeping frantically because she's about to die giving birth to this baby, and she starts weeping for her children. And so the Jews have called her the mother of all Jews (kind of like how some Christians refer to Mary).

So, that's what the first group learned....

Then the second group (K-2) went on a mission. They read Matthew 2:1-12, which basically says that the wise men met with Herod (bad guy!) before coming to see Jesus, and Herod told them to come back and tell him if the baby is really the King of the Jews 'cause he wanted to "worship" him (and by worship, we mean kill). So the wise men went, saw Jesus was awesome. God came down and said, "Listen, buddies, don't go back to Herod, 'cause he's gonna kill the baby", so the wise men were wise and went a different way back to their homelands. Eventually Herod started to realize they weren't coming back, so he headed to Bethlehem to kill all the boys under 2. So, we kids went on a mission with our baby Jesus (our shoes), and we heard God telling us to flee to Egypt, so we did. We ran away from Herod, and WHEW! we were safe.

Everybody came back together and we had the big kids tell the young kids about Rachel, and the young kids told the big kids about Egypt. We looked at the old testament verses again, and we saw that it totally came true! Rachel was weeping for babies being slaughtered, AND Jesus did come out of Egypt because he had to flee there. GO GOD!

Is Jesus the Messiah?: Week Four

This week we did something a little different and split the kids up into age groups. We have a new set up downstairs that's really awesome and allows us to be more creative and more savvy in how we teach the kids. We started down in the "basement" together as a group and reviewed the last few prophecies (David, Abraham, a virgin, Immanuel) and looked at the puzzle pieces to see how the puzzle looked. We had the kids color Yarmulkes (since we're Jewish children!) and then we prayed, read the Old Testament scriptures, and split into separate rooms.

K-2 went with Ms. Amanda into the library and focused on the prophecy that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem. They read Micah 5:2 and talked about how the verse tells us that the Messiah will come from a small town called Bethlehem, that it's a Jewish town, and that there will only be one Messiah who will rule from beginning to end. Then the kids read Luke 2:4-6, and Matthew 2:1-6 and they went on a journey.

In the passage, we learn that Joseph wasn't even supposed to be in Bethlehem. Joseph and Mary actually lived in a town called Nazareth, but they had to go to Bethlehem for a census since Joseph was part of David's line, and David was from Bethlehem (throw back to first prophecy!) So the kids all pretended to be Mary and Joseph going on a journey. Now, Nazareth was only about 80 miles away from Bethlehem but we've got to shift a minute... Remember the story of the Good Samaritan? The Samaritans and the Galileans were in a huge fight. Nazareth is located in Samaria, Bethlehem is in Judea, and in the middle was Galilee. Going a direct route to Bethlehem would have been REALLY dangerous. We had the kids sneak around the warring towns--it would have been too dangerous for Mary to go through the straight path! So, Joseph and Mary had to travel around the towns--almost double that amount!--to get to Bethlehem. This could have taken at least a week! God really went out of his way to make this prophecy come true.

Two things we found were special about Bethlehem:

• David is from Bethlehem - That's why Joseph and Mary had to go back there. They were part of David's line.
• Bethlehem literally means "House of Bread"- Many times in scripture, Jesus refers to himself as "the bread of life".

3-5 stayed with Ms. Karis in the big room and talked about the other part of the prophecy, found in Psalm 72:10. We talked about what it meant to bring gifts to someone. Usually gifts are given to someone you think highly of, or love. We talked about the difference between someone walking from Mexico to bring you gifts vs. sending it in the mail and what message it sends to you... that you're important and loved.

We then read Matthew 2:9-12. We talked about how the gifts that were brought to Jesus were both prophetic and common for a King. They were very expensive gifts and very common for royalty. The first things they show us is that the Magi recognized the importance of Jesus. The meanings of the gifts also point to the Messiah.

• Gold - the most precious, given only to royalty. Tells us that Jesus is a KING (per Daniel 2:38)
• Myrrh - heals wounds. We likened this to the potion Edmund got from Lucy in Chronicles of Narnia. It shows us that Jesus is a reconciler and a healer (per John 19:39)
• Frankincense - represents life and purity. Tells us that Jesus is sinless and a lifegiver (per Leviticus 5:11).

We also talked about how the Magi were not Jewish (they were astrologers!) so they knew nothing about this Jesus guy or the Messiah. They just saw a star and followed it.

Then all the children came back into the big room and taught each other about the prophecy they learned. We added a puzzle piece to the mix, prayed, and sent the kids upstairs. 6/200

Is Jesus the Messiah?: Week Three

Whew! I've known this week was coming up for a few weeks now, and I've been thinking and praying about how best to approach the prophecy for today. I think it's important the kids know the prophecy of Mary's virgin birth, but how to explain it to kids ages 5-12 in a way that won't leave parents scratching their heads is tough! But, I think we did it justice.

We began with a discussion of purity. We talked about how something that's pure means that nothing else has been mixed together with it. We used play-doh as an example. When you have one color (say, pink) and it hasn't been played yet, it's purely pink. But when you introduce blue to the mix, the pink and blue mix together and make purple and that pink play-doh is no longer purely pink. We talked about how that's what sin is like--it mixes with us and then we aren't pure anymore.

We told the kids that there are different types of purity. Purity of thought, purity of speech, and purity of action. Then we read our scripture. We read Isaiah 7:14, which says, in essence, that the Messiah would be born of a virgin and called Immanuel. This was where things got tricky! We explained to the kids that virgin is a subcategory of purity, but that it's a special kind of purity because only unmarried people can be virgins. We also told the kids that it was completely impossible to be both a virgin and a parent. We laughed about how that seemed pretty impossible then, to mix the two!

We then read Matthew 1:18-21 which says that Jesus was born of a virgin, and that he was named Jesus. We told the kids that even though it was impossible for a virgin to be a parent, God worked a miracle by putting Jesus in Mary and making her a parent, even while she was still a virgin. The kids were really excited about how God could work miracles, and I felt like they got the general concept of the Wow! factor without any disruptions of innocence. :)

We also talked about how Immanuel means "God with us" and Jesus means "God Save Us". We went to John 1:1 and talked about how when Jesus was on this earth he was GOD WITH US, and then when he died on the cross he was the God that saved us. So he is both Immanuel and Jesus. 4/200 :)

Is Jesus the Messiah?: Week Two

Our goals for this Sunday were to help the kids understand that we are all sons of Abraham and sons of God, and also to show them how God kept his promise to Abraham. I think it was all pretty effective

We began with a quick overview of who Abraham is. We went over the story of how he was too old to have a child, of how God promised him Isaac and many descendants.

We read Genesis 17:7 and Genesis 21:12, which both say that Abraham will have many descendants and that these descendants will come through Isaac. This is the point where we introduced the part of Abraham's story where Abraham was asked to sacrifice Isaac. We talked about how this was not just a test of Abraham's faith that God was good, but also a test of Abraham's faith in God's promises--after all, how would he have MANY descendants through a son that was sacrificed! This seems like a covenant that couldn't come true...

So then we read Hebrews 11:17-19, which says that God raised Isaac. We talked about how God stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son, and instead provided the ram for him. Then we read Matthew 1:2 where it shows us that Jesus came from the same physical line as Abraham. Since God is the father of all, it's true that Abraham has many descendants--all believers of Jesus are descendants of Abraham.

We read John 1:12 and Galatians 3:6-9 and talked about how we are all sons of Abraham and sons of God because we have faith in Christ. God kept his covenant and promise with Abraham, and the prophecies of the scriptures checked out! 2/200.

If you're keeping a checklist at home:

1) In David's line

2) In Abraham's line

Is Jesus the Messiah?: Week One

For the next semester, up until the kids get out of school in June, we're going to be focusing on Jesus as our Messiah. The idea and brainstorming for this section has been going on for almost a year, and it feels right for this point in our kids' walks with Christ and the life of our church. Each week we're going to take a different prophecy for the coming Messiah and put it up against Jesus. The kids are going to see as the entire puzzle plays out, and hopefully will be able to share with the parents what they learned.

First, a little background information. The Bible is split up into two parts--The Old and New Testament. What's the difference? All of the kids got that question right. There was an emphatic chant of JESUS from the crowd. I'm glad we know that much :) What the kids had trouble with was what do we do with the Old Testament? If we're followers of Jesus, why would we read a book that has no Jesus in it? One of the first-graders hit the nail on the head, "because it's how God and us get along. It shows our sins." True. At this point, I asked the kids what the word messiah means. We finally figured out that it basically meant Savior. We talked about how before Jesus, the Jewish children had to wait for the Messiah to come, and they were always on the lookout. But, God didn't leave them with nothing to go on--he put clues in the Old Testament to help describe who Jesus is. We decided to go back in time to when Jesus was born and to look at the clues and try and figure out if this Jesus character really is the Messiah. We also looked at the dates between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Thousands of thousands of years, in some cases!

The first thing the Jewish children would have looked for is a prophecy that happens multiple times in the scriptures. The scriptures say clearly that the Son of God will be a part of David's family. We read three or four verses and talked about what it meant to be a descendent of David and to be a part of his house. We talked about how this ruled out a lot of people when the Jewish children were looking. If they weren't part of David's family, they couldn't be the Messiah. So, now that we knew the Messiah was part of David's family, we had to figure out if Jesus was.

So, we went to the New Testament. We found more than a few confirmations that Jesus was part of David's family. The kids all thought that was really cool. Then I read to them from Matthew 1--we laughed about all of the names and silly phrasings, and we talked about how nobody ever reads the genealogy (woah! big word!), but the Jewish children did because it was so important that the Messiah came from David's line. The kids and I all decided we would continue to check Jesus against the Messiah. He hadn't steered us wrong yet.... Oh yeah, and we talked about how at that time, everything went back to the father. I asked the kids who Jesus' father was--Got a few Joseph's, a few God's. And his mother, Mary. We quickly realized that God was obviously related to David, Joseph was related to David, and so was Mary. So, there was no doubt that Jesus was related to King David. Awesomeness. 1/200.

We then played a little game to reinforce the whole point. We sent one kid out of the room. The rest of us picked a "golden person". When the other kid came back in, we had him try and guess who the "golden person" is. Everybody in the room gave one clue. We talked about how hard it would be to not have any clues whatsoever--the chances of being wrong would be way too big. Then we talked about how we're lucky God gave us clues. And that our clue this week was that the Messiah would come from David's line. And so far, Jesus stacks up.