Happy Friday, KidMin Friends! I hope you've all had a wonderful week and are ready for your ministry this weekend. :D
As I was reading Scripture today, I suddenly had the thought...that's it!...my blog post for today! I love when that happens. LOL So, today's blog post is basically a lesson idea. It will in no means be EVERYTHING you need for a lesson, or be all printed out exactly how you need to present it. It will be more of an "idea" of a topic and props idea to build your lesson around. I'm going to write my thoughts and what the Lord impressed upon me, during my Bible reading. Then, you take it and arrange and organize it however it will fit your style best and your class or service. Enjoy!
TITLE: TREASURE IN CLAY JARS
VERSE in CSB: "Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us." 2 Corinthians 4:7
VERSE in NLT: "We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves."
GAME: Do a treasure hunt. Hide things inside items in your area. A number of ways you can do this, so have fun with it:
> Lots of little treasures hidden in obvious places
> One SPECIAL treasure hidden in the least expected place
> A list of items to be found
> Riddles to direct to items to be found
...Use your imagination and be creative to make this fun!
PROPS NEEDED FOR MESSAGE:
> A beautiful, jeweled treasure box, filled with JUNK!
* Broken items
* Holey socks
* Dirty Rocks
...etc...you get the point
> A clay jar, pot, with a lid
> Inside the clay, place sparkly/lighted items:
* Iridescent gift bag filler
* Lengths of sparkly beads
* Beautiful Christmas ornaments
* Battery operated light string
> If you use the light string, you will need to find a way to have the battery pack on the outside. OR you could turn it on before starting your lesson. Just be sure that the lid completely hides everything inside this clay jar!
MESSAGE POINT IDEAS (Use your imagination and make it into something amazing! This is just a starting point!):
> Like the beautiful treasure box, the world shows you all the things that look wonderful.
* Discuss examples:
- billboards of beautiful women smoking cigarettes
- tough cool guys on big signs advertising alcohol
- events planned during regular church services
- (depending on your age group and "worldly-wise" level) sex education making it a desired and normal activity for children
- ease of cheating to get what you want
- little white lies are ok to keep from making a huge deal out of something not so big
>>>Come up with ideas of what your specific children deal with in your area. Don't just resort to the normal "sins" that everyone uses for examples.
> Clay Jar * We were created out of clay by God's own hands. * We aren't perfect. Jars have imperfections (show cracks and bumps in the jar) * But OH! how glorious it is to have Jesus living inside us! (open jar and reveal sparkling lights) * How amazing to be filled with His Spirit. * We aren't perfect, we make mistakes, we might not always look handsome/beautiful...but with Jesus living inside us, we outshine them all!
Depending on your age group, and their involvement in ministry, etc. you could go even further with this, if you'd like. Talk about how that because we are unworthy and just a simple "clay jar", we know that our anointing, our ministries, anything we do for Jesus; is NOT because of who we are, how we look, or what we or our parents have done. It's only because of Jesus! After all, we ARE only vessels of clay!
ALTAR CALL:
Now is a great time for children that don't have Jesus' Spirit to be filled!
Ask them if they want to be like the treasure box - beautiful on the outside, but filled with junk on the inside
OR
Do they want to be like the clay jar. Just a simple person, but OH! so beautiful on the inside!
Well, like I said, this was going to be points for you to build on. I'd love to hear how you use the lesson idea!
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I look forward to seeing you there!
God Bless,
Sara Vojtasek & Joel's Vision Ministries