Sunday February 24th: Tower of Babel. Te Ngahere. Morning tea and news: Madi Prepare room for story: Everyone Story: Emmaus Wondering questions: Emmaus to ask, and invite discussion. Bible engagement: Jo 1) Race to the Place: who is the first to find the passage Genesis 11: 1 - 9 2) Bible Jamming: Round 1: One person to start reading, then stop suddenly at any point. The next person to pick it up, and then stop suddenly, and so on. Round 2: One person to start reading, then the next person to suddenly butt in at any point and keep reading the passage. Until the next person butts in, and so on until the end. Once you have been interrupted you can stop reading J Game: Both Building towers: Divide kids into two teams, and each team should form a separate circle. Each team has 5 minutes to build the tallest tower - but kids can only go up one at a time and place a block, then let the next person in their team place a block. See who can build the tallest tower this way. Discussion time: Madi Re-cap last week: Abram and Sarai were faithful to God’s call to travel from their home. They went to a few places: here they are! Can you put them in order? (Will have names of cities printed out). What they discovered was that God was with them in every place, and he fulfilled his promise to them to have a baby boy when they were really quite old! That was baby Isaac.
Transcript
Sunday February 24th: Tower of Babel.Te Ngahere.
Morning tea and news: Madi
Prepare room for story: Everyone
Story: EmmausWondering questions: Emmaus to ask, and invite discussion.
Bible engagement: Jo1) Race to the Place: who is the first to find the passage Genesis 11: 1 - 92) Bible Jamming:Round 1: One person to start reading, then stop suddenly at any point. The next person to pick it up, and then stop suddenly, and so on. Round 2: One person to start reading, then the next person to suddenly butt in at any point and keep reading the passage. Until the next person butts in, and so on until the end. Once you have been interrupted you can stop reading J
Game: BothBuilding towers: Divide kids into two teams, and each team should form a separate circle. Each team has 5 minutes to build the tallest tower - but kids can only go up one at a time and place a block, then let the next person in their team place a block. See who can build the tallest tower this way.
Discussion time: Madi
Re-cap last week: Abram and Sarai were faithful to God’s call to travel from their home. They went to a few places: here they are! Can you put them in order? (Will have names of cities printed out).What they discovered was that God was with them in every place, and he fulfilled his promise to them to have a baby boy when they were really quite old! That was baby Isaac. We’re going to keep going with the descendants of Abraham sometime soon.
Babel:But today we’ve heard a different story from Genesis: one of a lot of people trying to become like God, and build to the heavens! Can you think of another story when people said ‘we don’t need God’? That was Adam and Eve - the snake told them ‘you don’t need God - you can become like him’. And today we heard about people who were also trying to live without God, and be strong and powerful. Let’s see what we can remember from the story: When you hear the following statements, run to that side of the room if it is true, and that side of the room if it is false:
The people decided to build a really tall wall (F - they built a tower) The people decided to build a really tall tower because they wanted to
show that they did not need God (T) The people thought that they could get to heaven by themselves (T)
Building a tower was a really good idea (F - it made the people think that they could live without God)
If the people had built the tower, they would have ended up destroying and hurting themselves (T)
Because He loved them, God decided to stop them building the tower (T)
To stop them, God sent a flood (F - that happened in the Noah story, and never again)
The people did not need a flood - they needed a Rescuer (T - rather than people get themselves up to heaven, heaven needed to come down to them! And it did, in Jesus.)
So: they began to build a huge tower: like this! Who knows what this is? (Have bigger pictures)At over 828 metres (2,716.5 feet) and more than 160 stories, Burj Khalifa holds the following records:
Tallest building in the world Tallest free-standing structure in the world Highest number of stories in the world Highest occupied floor in the world Highest outdoor observation deck in the world Elevator with the longest travel distance in the world Tallest service elevator in the world
And there is another project underway: the Kingdom Tower! It is meant to be the tallest tower in the world - one mile high. Crazy. Here is a picture of it under construction:
Do you think they wanted the Tower of Babel to look a bit like these? I think they were dreaming though - they had to use sun-baked bricks :-)In any case, they were thinking that they were going to be pretty happy without God. This is something that many people fall into.Let’s grab our scrapbooks and we’ll do an exercise together.Write on whiteboard: ‘Lies we hear:If I….. then I won’t need God.’
Can you help fill in the gaps? Let’s write them in your scrapbooks when we have some:(am rich; get really fit; am really good-looking; have lots of fun times; have lots of friends…)It is easy to think that we don’t need God. But we really do: He is our Creator and our Protector, who sent us Jesus. Let’s read this out loud together, then write this in our scrapbooks in big letters. Circle the words Way, Truth, and Life.
John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Game: Telephone game (Chinese whispers!) - Just like what happened to the builders of the Tower, the words are all muddled!OR: Dead Ants, if they need to get rid of some energy!
Prayer time: Praying in Colour - Jo I will go through this with both of you beforehand.
