Teaching Joel

Teaching Joel

3-5s

Theme: God has come to live with us by His Spirit and will take us to make a perfect world.

Intro: [Hold up a locust] Do you know what this is?

It’s called a locust. And it’s a very hungry beast. Can you imagine lots of them, so many you can’t see. [Get them to nibble and buzz like a locust.]

A long time ago God’s people had just had lots of locusts come and buzz through all the land. And when locusts come they eat all the food. [nibble and buzz again]. Can you imagine how horrible that must have been? All these locusts and no food left!

A prophet, God’s messenger called Joel came to speak to the people. Can you say Joel? [have a Joel puppet, or leader dressed up]

And here’s what he said,

‘Things are going to get worse than lots of locusts…’

Worse, oh no!

‘So turn to God and say sorry.’

But Joel says 2 amazing things will happen if we turn to God.

‘God will give us His Spirit and we will be able to know Him and talk to Him.’

If we turn to God He will come and live with us by His Spirit. Isn’t that amazing? God is with us now, looking after us.

Secondly Joel says that God will take us to a beautiful and perfect world where there aren’t any locusts to take away the food:

Then you will know that I, the Lord your God,
       live on my holy Mount Zion.
    Jerusalem will be a holy place,
       and strangers will never even go through it again.

On that day wine will drip from the mountains,
       milk will flow from the hills,
       and water will run through all the ravines of Judah.
    A fountain will flow from the Temple of the Lord
       and give water to the valley of acacia trees.

[Have a little model with earth and cardboard trees, etc. Pour some milk over it.]

It’s a strange sounding picture but what it means is that one day God will take us to His perfect world and it will be so wonderful because the Lord Jesus will be there and we won’t ever be sad.

Pray:

Dear God

Thank you that you are with me

Thank you for the perfect world

That you will take me to.

Amen

Activities:

·        Make locust craft (at the beginning of lesson)

·        Playdough trees and food

·        Colouring sheet of Joel saying the theme sentence

Songs:

·        No more pain, no more sadness

·        There’s a way back to God

5-11s

Theme: Disasters are a warning to turn to God, if we do He will come and live with us and take us to His perfect world.

Intros:

Locusts – Captain’s coming. When leader shouts ‘Disaster’ they need to act like locusts, nibbling and buzzing.

Story:

Today we’re looking at another prophet, another messenger of God, called Joel. We don’t know for sure when he lived, but it was before Jesus, probably about 800years before. And he gave a warning of these:

[If possible show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YNy2R3hg2Q ]

Get a Joel to read 1:4

Joel was saying that when disasters like these locusts come, it’s a warning of an even more terrible day when God will bring disaster on those who have ignored Him.

Get Joel to read 2:1-2

But there is a way to avoid that disaster: call on the name of the Lord Jesus. If we do Joel tells us what will happen:

Read Joel 2:28-32

Firstly, God will send His Spirit to come and live with us. That means we can know Him and He is with us wherever we are and whatever we do!

Many years later, after Jesus died and rose again, this happened:

[Show Pentecost video, possibly from 2:50-6.00 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIJrk9-dtRE ]

Do you see? The promise of Joel is for us. God comes and lives in us.

Secondly, Joel promises that if we turn to Jesus then God will make a perfect world for us.

Get Joel to read 3:17-18.

It’s a bit of strange picture. [Have a mound of earth with trees and pour milk over it.] But the point is, that there won’t be any shortage of food in the new world Jesus will make. He will look after us there.

So what do we do?

Turn to God as Peter told the first believers to do! When disasters strike, turn and trust Jesus’ forgiveness. Trust that He is with you by His Spirit, and look forward to the wonderful world He will make.

Table time:

·        Funsheet

·        Decorate perfect world with more trees, etc

·        Make locusts of warning

Teaching Nahum

[This is part 5 of our series on the minor prophets]

Teaching Nahum

3-5s

Theme: God will deal with those who are against Him

Intro:

·        Build a model of Nineveh to use in the story either out of boxes, lego or jenga blocks. As they do so talk about the story of Jonah from last week.

Story:

Do you remember this place? [Put up picture of Nineveh from last week] Last week we saw that they were the enemies of God’s people and yet when they said ‘sorry’ to God, He forgave them. [put another little model of Nineveh on the table]

The sad thing is that it did not change them completely, and they went back and started doing some really horrible things; things that I couldn’t possibly tell you about they are so bad.

God was patient with them, but they kept shaking their fists at Him and telling Him to shove off. And they did some terrible things to God’s people. God’s people were crying out to God, asking Him to deal with Nineveh.

About 100 years later God had had enough! He was very patient, giving them lots of time to say sorry again, and come back to him. But, although He is slow to anger, there comes a time when wrong things have to be dealt with, they have to be punished.

So God sent His messenger, Nahum. And Nahum brought this message to God’s people, that their great enemy, who had treated them so badly, will be punished. Here’s what Nahum said:

[Dress a leader up as Nahum]

God says ‘I’m very angry with Nineveh!’

God was angry with Nineveh in Jonah’s day, too. Maybe he will forgive them?

God says, ‘It is too late. I’ve given them enough chances to say sorry!’

Oh dear, this isn’t good. God’s not going to put up with people shaking their fists at Him and telling Him to shove off. That’s a really serious thing to do.

Nineveh thought they were really strong. Look at us, they said, with our great armies. No-one can defeat us. But they were wrong, and they should have known it. God has already done the same thing to Egypt! (see 3:9-11).

God says, ‘I’m going to smash Nineveh!’

Soldiers are coming to wipe out Nineveh! [Get them to smash up the model on the table!]

What do you think that would have been like for the Ninevites? Terrible. Let’s see what Nahum has to say about it:

God says, ‘It will be terrible for people in Nineveh when I do.’

Do you know that God will deal with people who deliberately don’t do what He wants and shake their fist at God saying, ‘Go away. We don’t want you.’ God is angry with them. He says to them, ‘You can be forgiven. But not forever. One day I will stop you!’

Crafts:

·        Colouring sheet of prophet saying the theme verse

·        Make model Nahums

·        Make Loudhalers with theme sentence on out of rolled up card

Songs:

·        There’s a way back to God

5-11s

Theme: God will deal with those who are against Him

Intro:

·        Build a model of Nineveh to use in the story. As they do so talk about the story of Jonah from last week.

·        Have a game of ‘Good news, bad news’ eg Bad news, I have to go to the dentist. Good news, I get the day off school.

·        Quiz on Jonah from last week

·        Thumb wars/arm wrestles – idea: opposing each other

Story:

Do you remember this place? [Put up picture of Nineveh from last week] Last week we saw that they were the enemies of God’s people and yet when they said ‘sorry’ to God, He forgave them. [put another little model of Nineveh on the table]

The sad thing is that it did not change them completely, and they went back and started doing some really horrible things; things that I couldn’t possibly tell you about they are so bad.

God was patient with them, but they kept shaking their fists at Him and telling Him to shove off. And they did some terrible things to God’s people. God’s people were crying out to God, asking Him to deal with Nineveh.

About 100 years later God had had enough! He was very patient, giving them lots of time to say sorry again, and come back to him. But, although He is slow to anger, there comes a time when wrong things have to be dealt with, they have to be punished.

So God sent His messenger, Nahum. And Nahum brought this message to God’s people, that their great enemy, who had treated them so badly, will be punished. Here’s what he said:

[Get one up dressed as Nahum and get him to read 1:2-5. Needs to be a strong reader]

God is angry with Nineveh!

Listen to how he’s going to deal with His enemies:

[Nahum reads 1:6-10]

He’s not going to put up with people shaking their fists at Him and telling Him to shove off. That’s a really serious thing to do.

Nineveh thought they were really strong. Look at us, they said, with our great armies. No-one can defeat us. But they were wrong, and they should have known it. God has already done the same thing to Egypt! (see 3:9-11).

Listen to what God is going to do to Nineveh:

[Nahum reads 2:1-6 with feeling!]

Soldiers are coming to wipe out Nineveh! [Get them to smash up the model on the table!]

What do you think that would have been like for the Ninevites? Terrible. Let’s see what Nahum has to say about it:

[Nahum reads 2:10-13]

This will be a terrible day for Nineveh. But, do you know what? It points us forward to another day. There will be a day when God’s patience wears out with those who shake their fist at Him. God will punish those who say ‘no’ to Him. He will deal with those who treat His people, Christians, badly. And that will be a terrible day for them and we need to warn them. Because in the meantime they can turn to God and say sorry.

But also, we deserve this too. We only escape this terrible day because of Jesus’ forgiveness. He has been patient with us, waiting for us to turn to Him and say sorry. Isn’t that a wonderful thing?

Table time:

Funsheet

Craft – Loudhailers with theme sentence or memory verse on (Nahum 1:7)

Memory verse shields – Nahum 1:7 is written on shields. They need to get in order, then read out. Remove one shield at a time to learn it.

Harvest talk

[This is a talk given to infant and junior children for a harvest service in my local schools.]

[Needed: 5 rolls and 2 fish]

Intro:

I wonder if you have ever prayed a prayer like this: Dear God, please can I have a new bike. Amen.

And then you’ve been disappointed that you’ve not got a new bike.

Or maybe it was more like: Lord Jesus, please can I have a new Xbox. Amen.

But you wake up the next morning and there’s no Xbox waiting for you. And you’ve wondered whether God has heard you.

The bible says God has heard you, but it also says that God doesn’t give you everything you want. But He does give you everything you need!

And that is what Harvest is all about, God knows us, He knows everything about us and He gives us everything that He knows we need.

Here’s a true story from the bible:

Jesus and His followers were in the middle of nowhere and Jesus was teaching a huge crowd of 5000 men and probably lots more women and children.

But the crowd became really hungry after a while but the only food was 5 barley loaves and 2 fish which belonged to a little boy [hold up rolls and fish]. Jesus took this food, gave thanks to God and broke it up amongst the people.
And here’s the amazing thing: There was more than enough to feed all the people. In fact there were 12 baskets of leftovers!

You see Jesus provides everything we need. That is what Harvest is about.

But Harvest points us and reminds us of an even greater need, and that is to make peace with God. You see Jesus didn’t come to earth just to do miracles with bread and fish. No, He came to die on the cross and rise again from the dead so that we might have forgiveness with God for all the things we’ve done wrong.

So when we eat and drink, we should remember 2 things: Jesus gives us everything we need; and our greatest need is to be forgiven by God!