Kingsford Church of Christ

The Beginning (Term 3 even years: 2012, 2014, ...)

This unit takes us back to the old testament to at the history of the world and the Israelite people.  The same God was in control then and his goals were much the same: revealing himself so that we could understand him.

No Visual Bible for these lesson, so we find other ways to approach the text.

A recurring theme is that God is in Control and we learn the Colin Buchanan song "Nothing take God by Surprise".

Creation

Print out Genesis 1:1 to 2:3 from an age-appropriate bible (e.g. New International Readers Version) and cut it up into suitable paragraphs to hand around.  Each child takes a turn reading their section and then suggesting an answer to the question "What is important to God?".

Keys points are:

• Things were given names - so we could know about the world and the universe
• Everything was done in an orderly way.  God was in control
• Different things that different purposes - though not everything has an obvious purpose.
• Everything was good. (Though next week it is not good for man to be alone)

Eden

Genesis 2 - Adam and Eve in Eden.  Ensure a link to last week when everything was good, but now we see things which aren't.

Hand out a copy of the passage, and two simple crossword puzzles.  Answering the across questions from the text reveals a 'down' word.

God wants us to have the best friends and comfort.

The theme is here is that God, who is still in control, wants us to have the best in the good world he created.

The Fall

The children act out a simple skit called "Truth, Lies, and Blame" with two narrators, Adam, Eve, a Serpent, and God.

Reflecting on the story focus on what the truth was, and when the truth was misrepresented - not only by the Serpent but also by Eve how claimed God said they mustn't even touch the fruit.

Then focus on the blame - Adam blamed both God and Eve, Eve blamed the serpent.  Wonder what might have happened if people took responsibility for their actions before  they were forced to.

Noah

Start out by asking the children what they know of this story. Capture some specific details.

Fragments from the Flood story are numbered and handed out to be read in turn.  There is also a list of simple comprehension questions.  As the story is read bit by bit we answer the comprehension questions.

The point of the questions is to realise that some of the details they thought they new aren't actually correct.  The flood lasted longer than 40 days and there was more than 2 of every kind of animal.  We shouldn't trust everything we hear about God, we should check it in the bible to be sure.

There are lots of good lesson to pick out as the story goes along.  I particularly like to think about the wisdom of sacrificing some animal when we have so few anyway.  Fortunately there were 2 pairs of those, but still it is an enormous act of faith to sacrifice some instead of letting them breed.

Abraham

TBA

Gideon

Judges 7:1-22.   Gideon teaches that God calls, God confirms his call, and God uses us in totally unexpected ways.

Vegetales has a segment about Gideon which can  help to focus thought and discussion.

I divide the reading up as verses 1-7, 8-15, 16-22 (which are good lengths for good readers) and talk about what we learn about God at each stage, and  how we might expect him to work in our lives.

It works well to have the first 2 readings, ask "How do you think Gideon will win the battle", then play the Vegetales clip (6 minutes) and (if there is time) have someone read the last passage.

Jonah

TBA