For those of you that teach Sunday School and are always looking for additional activities I thought I would share some of the things we are beginning to implement in our class which consists of children from 1st through 4th grade.
Years ago I heard James Dobson say that most
parents teach children to be defensive Christians and not offensive. What he
meant by that is, we teach them what to abstain from to maintain their purity
and innocence, a noble and grand work. But in so doing we often forget to teach
them to use their God given gifts and fail to ignite a passion to serve and
follow Christ in His missions of today. Children have hearts that are tender
and sensitive to the needs of others and if we train and expose them to the
needs that surround them here and abroad they can catch a vision of God’s
kingdom that extends farther than we often give them credit for.
The following is an attempt
to ignite that Godly vision of serving Christ in his many loving works going on
worldwide today.
In order to do this we
simply incorporate subjects and approaches to the wonderful curriculums already
in place.
I will show here some simple
ideas that cover worship, teaching, crafts and games.
I think in helping children learn that they are old enough to storm the gates
of hell, and if they are presented with themes on a regular basis, that it will
eventually become part of their thinking and they will see the hand of God and
hear his Spirit when it moves around them and be far more likely to act. My
hope is that after reading this it will spark ideas of your own and that
you will share them with me to expand this pamphlet.
Worship
In addition to all the
wonderful songs we sing to the Savior, I propose to add some that speak to what
he is doing today and praise Him for it. Often the songs we sing are directed
to receiving and frankly they can be somewhat self-centered.
Let me give you an example
of how a song can be changed to be service oriented.
Let’s take the old gospel
song “Give Me Some of That Old Time Religion.” We can add some verses that will
help visualize Christian service, such as –
Makes you care for widows
and orphans, makes you care for widows and orphans, makes you care for widows
and orphans and that’s good enough for me.
Another lyric addition could
be –
Makes you love foreigners
and strangers.
Makes you love everybody.
Makes you care for the downcast.
Makes you want to feed the
hungry
With these examples of these
lyrics, I’m sure you can think of many others.
Using Matthew 25 as a theme
of a song, we can express the lyrics with hand and body motions that represent
the acts of compassion Christ exhorts us to do. Acting out feeding the hungry,
giving a drink, inviting in the stranger, clothing the naked, tending to the
sick and visiting the prisoner.
Psalm 82:3,4 and Psalm
41:1-3, and Job 31:16 – 20, Isaiah 58 6-12 are examples of scriptures that can
be adapted.
In addition to adapting
songs to include deeds of compassion we can look to other cultures and
incorporate different modes of worship. For example in Liberia where often they
have no instruments they use their hands and clap to their songs.
If you have the class help
research different methods of worship around the world, it not only gives them
something new but it helps them see their brothers and sisters worldwide with a
sense of unity; it simply broadens awareness.
In other cultures they sing
songs that we can learn that are equally exalting to God but done with
different melodies and arrangements. For example the African nations have a
distinct sound to their worship and can be fun to learn.
Crafts
Most Sunday School classes
have a time of crafts and there are a host of activities that can be proactive
and help extend the power of love from the classroom to the local church, those
in need in our country and those abroad.
The children can produce
crafts, pictures, prayer cards that can be sent to shut-ins within the church
to let them know they are not forgotten. I have listed some additional ideas
below.
Letters to service men
and women.
I can’t think of anything
that would be more heartening than to receive letters from a Sunday School
class showing their appreciation for their sacrifice.
Widows in church
We are repeatedly encouraged
to visit and care for widows, and a picture of the class of Sunday School
children smiling and waving to those widows in distress can be a wonderful way
of showing love and let them know they are not forgotten.
Sick or shut-in
correspondence
The loneliness caused by
Isolation from sickness can be eased with correspondence from the children.
Many single parents struggle
with the heavy load of going it alone and a hearty hello from the children of
the church can help let them know they are remembered.
Prayer posters for those
in disasters
If there was a natural disaster we can, in an
age appropriate way, talk about it with some pictures and then plan to spend
the month doing something about it.
E.g. We can have the children work on a
special work of art for the month and sell them in the foyer one Sunday and
send the money to a Sister Church in the area to help fund emergency
items.
For those who are more
ambitious, I could actually see this art sale done in front of Fred Meyer or
some chain with informative signage; I think it is a good testimony, and if
student initiated, I think the public would donate by way of buying a picture.
Works for Girl Scouts.
We could Color a picture at
craft time and send a short compassionate note.
We could do a corporate art
picture with all the children’s hands and a short prayer or word of
encouragement from each child.
Support letters for
missionaries in church
We could write or draw or
paint things for our missionaries. Working in the mission field away from home
and those we love can be a very lonely task. What a wonderful way to let them
know we appreciate the work they are doing. We can ask them for updates to show
our interest in the work.
We asked one of our missionaries who works
with an orphanage in Liberia to give a presentation to the children where we
learned about the desperate needs through video, pictures and teaching.
Explaining the needs with age appropriate graphics helps them personalize the
needs and sets some children on fire with an eager compassion and missionary
zeal.
If the missionary project
has a computer, it may be possible to have a Skype call so the orphans can be
introduced to the supporting children and the supporting children can meet
those of another culture, what fun! Many cultures speak English, but even if
not, a rehearsed sign language using simple symbols could be utilized.
Correspondence with the
elderly in nursing homes is always appreciated. There are some residents that
never receive a card from anyone. Loneliness is a universal issue with those
that have had to leave their own homes and spend the remaining months or years
isolated from family and friends.
Correspondence needn’t be
during holidays only.
The ideal of course is to
contact the activities director at the Nursing Home and set up a time where the
children could come in a sing a few songs and hand out things personally.
Prayer card for the
President
In response to the
exhortation to pray for our leaders we can have the children send a personal or
corporate note.
Refugees
All across America there are
organizations that bring in and help refugees adapt to the new country; there
may be ways we could help them. Frequently they come in with nothing but the
shirts on their backs, and asking the children to share some of their toys with
the new residents may be an option.
Ideas for Projects
Child trafficking project
Newspaper articles to find
prayer projects
Gifts for nursing home
residents, sundries, bingo games etc.
Make a collogue? with photos
from newspaper
Work projects for shut-ins
Supporting orphans
Carnival day outreach
Games
Here are some simple games
that help remind us of the needs of others while having fun.
Rescue the kidnapped
Have one child sit in a
chair at one end of the room.
Form a line of children at
the other end of the room about halfway to the child sitting on the chair. The
child sitting represents a kidnaped child or an abandoned or otherwise needy
child; and the goal is for the other children to reach across the room and
touch the sitting child to set him free. The children can stretch out in order
to reach the sitting child and they can use any article of clothing to help
extend their reach, (belts, ribbons, coats) but they must be connected either
by clothing article or hands or feet.
Distance the children far
enough from the sitting child that it makes a real challenge to reach them.
For larger classes have two
teams compete.
Capture the Flag
This game is based on Jn. 4:35 about the fields being white unto
harvest and I thought about adapting a "capture the flag" game.
Have one child represent a kidnapped child and have three kids
guarding in a corner. Then have one child with a flag in their back pocket try
and reach the prisoner without having his flag removed. This of course would be
nearly impossible. So then to show the advantage of numbers the rescuers could
be gradually increased until there is such a number that reaching the child
would be easy.
Back to Matt 25, there needs to be a game to represent feeding
the hungry, quenching the thirst, clothing the naked, aid to the stranger,
visitation to the sick and those in prison.
I was trying to brainstorm and one idea came up of giving the
kids some tape, heavy gauge paper and scissors and have them try to make some
kind of shoe to help clothe. First to achieve is the winner. That could be fun
and as creative as some of the kids are there could be some interesting shoes.
They could work in teams of two or three. Now for the balance of the
applications I'm leaving that up to you 
Have one child stand at one
end of the room, have another stand about 10 feet from him and a third 10 feet
farther. The farthest child represents an orphanage or some place that needs
aid. The first child has a paper airplane representing air travel, also a balloon
representing a boat and lastly a wheeled cart or a skateboard could be used to
represent railroad travel. The furthest child from the “orphanage”, fly’s the
plane to the center child who then fly’s it to the orphanage.
If the plane flies off
course, the child intended to receive it, can reach for it but cannot move
their feet toward it, if so, they must start again. Once the plane reaches the
destination the boat, represented by a inflated balloon is batted to the middle
person same as the plane. And lastly the cart or skateboard, which is easiest,
is sent scooting to the middle person to be passed on to the orphanage.
We have three lines that
compete getting the supplies to the orphanage.
The children began
improvising and the most successful attempt was when the children taped the
balloon, and the airplane to the cart; and in addition they taped shoes,
representing clothing as well as magic markers representing school supplies.
Needless to say we were impressed.
We use the children’s offerings
to support projects the children have been informed about and are working on.
We encourage the Sunday
School children to bring their own money from their allowance or money they
have earned. I would encourage all parents to start their children on an
allowance - saving part for deeds of charity, of course part for their future
and some savings for things they want in the near future, even if it’s only ten
cents per week.
Collecting toys, stuffed
animals, food. When the children share something that is their own with someone
in need it helps personalize giving.
We could encourage the
children to bake something and have a sale at church.
Plant potting, encourage the
children to plant flowers that could be sold.
Jewelry, making items to sell.
Well there you have it, this
is an ongoing work and if you like these ideas and have some of your own you
would like to share with us please do.
Additions
Saving
This week I thought we
could send home a 3 part bank box for the kids so that they can save money at
home and have their own money to bring in on Sunday to donate.
Some of the kids made get well cards this week for Claire
because she had surgery that was cool. I will keep my ears open for
people in our church that need encouragement. Also I will get a group
shot of our kids and I will make prints so we can send that out or even use it
as a postcard to send out.
Prayer articles
I hope to have a bulletin board eventually for kids to bring in
articles of places to pray for and we can keep them up. If we get new
information we can bring them in and put it up with it.
Spread the Word
I have often carried a small New Testament in my purse and asked
God for an opportunity to hand one out as He may ask me to. So we could
ask all the kids and their families that are going on vacations around the
country/world to take some Bibles and give them to someone they felt the Lord
was prompting them to share with.
I have thought how cool would it be to have a map up on a
bulletin board with a heading "where are we spreading the word too?"
And then when the kids are going someplace they can take a little New Testament
and hand it out. Then they can have their picture take at that location
and then we can put a tack on the map with their picture. Maybe we can even get
the adults in on it. It sure is fun to see who God is going to put in
your path!
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