3-5s
Theme: Sometimes there
are pretend Christians
Aim: Don’t be like
them!
Intro:
·
Real or pretend – have toy fruit and real fruit.
They need to separate.
·
Let’s Pretend – they have to pretend to be eg an
animal., and the others have to guess [possible spare for the end]
Teaching:
[have a large outline of a false teacher which you will add
symbols to and a tick list]
Recap – can you remember who Paul was writing to? Last week
we saw that Timothy was to keep loving Jesus and keep loving all the people in
the church.
This week Paul tells Timothy that there are pretend
Christians in the church. They say that they love Jesus but they don’t really.
How would Timothy know who they were?
Paul gives Timothy a tick list so he could know. First of
all he says, that they will love themselves [stick on a heart with a picture of
the cut out in it]. That means instead of loving Jesus and what He wants, they
would only do things that made them happy.
Secondly, they were lovers of money [stick on heart with
picture of money]. They wanted more and more things, more and more sweets and
toys, instead of loving Jesus. They will not love God.
And because they were not loving Jesus, it meant that they
said horrible things [stick on a speech bubble]. They would say how brilliant
they were and how horrible everyone else was. They were rude to their mummies
and daddies. They wouldn’t forgive people when they said sorry. They were cruel
and hated doing good things. They would do silly things without thinking about
it.
You see lots of people would say they were friends of Jesus
but actually they weren’t they were just pretend. If we love Jesus we will stop
being like this. We will begin to change and be more like Jesus. And Jesus was
never … [read through the list]
So shall we pray that we would be able to spot when people
are being pretend friends of Jesus. And let’s pray that we wouldn’t be these
things.
Pray
Craft:
·
False teacher sticking – have a smaller outline
and stick on symbols from the story. They could also do themselves and stick on
opposite symbols (eg a heart with a J, a speech bubble with good things, etc)
·
Prayer badges – Help me not to be…
Songs:
·
Fruit of the Spirit song – Colin Buchanan
·
Little by Little Jesus is Changing Me – Colin
Buchanan
-----
5-11s
Theme: Paul warns of
pretend Christians who say they love Jesus but live differently
Aim: Don’t worry about
them but have nothing to do with them
Intro:
·
Follow my leader – have two leaders up front.
One gives angry directions and calls the other leader names. The other speaks
gently and lovingly. Children need to decide who to follow.
Teaching:
Recap –
last week Paul warned Timothy about these false teachers. This week he carries
on telling him about people who say they are followers of Jesus, but just don’t
live that way. They’re pretend Christians.
[have one
‘real Christian’ and one ‘pretend Christian’, put wigs and moustache, etc on
both to show that they’re not actually ‘pretend Christians’]
Paul begins
with a warning – read v1. The ‘last days’ are all the time until Jesus comes
back. And there will always be ‘pretend Christians’, those who say they are
Christians but don’t live like it. Paul is particularly talking about church
leaders here as we’ll see.
This is
what they will be like: read slowly v2-5 and stick each word and its opposite
on both volunteers. Get the children to think what each means and looks like.
Paul then
talks about two men – read v8. These were the magicians in Pharaoh’s court
[picture]. They could do some of the miracles along with Moses. It looked like
they also had God’s power…for a while. The same is true of these church
leaders, people will follow them for a while but it will soon become clear that
they are not God’s friends.
So, there
will be church leaders who don’t live in a way the pleases Jesus and lead God’s
people astray. Let’s pray for good leaders.
Let’s pray
that we would be more like our ‘real Christian’ than our ‘pretend Christian’
Pray
Table time: [younger ones stick words from v2-5 on body
outline]
Knowledge
·
What were the pretend Christians like?
·
What did the pretend Christians do?
Understanding
·
Why was Timothy not to be surprised?
·
Why was Timothy not to worry?
Application
·
Which of these words are true of you?
·
Where do we need to pray that we would change?
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