Tigers Christian Club -- Lesson for Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Adapted from “It’s All In How You Say It” from Kids Honor Club from Biblical Parenting Intro and follow-up questions: Can we start with a song? “For God So Loved the World” -- We tried it in a round! During our lessons this fall we’ve been talking about honor. Anyone remember the three parts of honor? -Treating people as special -Doing more than what’s expected -Having a good attitude One week we played a game where I read some statements and you said “whoops!” or “ahh!” depending on whether they showed dishonor or honor. Can we try that again just to refresh our memories? Today I’m going to hold up the statements, and we can respond by saying “whoops!” or “ahh!”, and then we’ll need to place the statement with the heart for honoring statements or the garbage can for dishonoring statements. (Get poster board and paste pictures of a heart on one side and a garbage can on the other -- have kids take turns placing the statements on the correct side.) Statements to read aloud: That shirt looks nice. My story is the best! Thank you. Are we there yet? Would you like a piece of my candy? Hey, Gimme my tape now! I like the way you drew that picture. No you can’t have any. They’re all mine. I’m sorry for hurting your feelings. Oh yuck, I hate that dinner. I think it’s your turn to go first. Today we’re doing to talk about the problem with boasting. Does anyone remember the statement “My story is the best!” That is an example of boasting. Boasting happens when people are only thinking of themselves and want to tell others how good they are. When we heard the statement “My story is the best!”, we said “whoops!” and placed it in the garbage can. Why is boasting wrong? Because it doesn’t honor others. We’re going to act out a story today about boasting and then talk about what we can do instead of boasting to honor others by making them feel special. Today’s Bible story is about a man named Haman who was full of pride and wanted everyone to notice him. Story and skit: Esther 5:11-6:12, told in paraphrase (quotes are from the Kids Honor Club curriculum): *For the skit need: 1 Queen Esther - crown, 1 King Xerxes - robe, crown, Haman, Mordecai, horse, crowd to bow down and later to witness Haman leading Mordecai Today’s story comes from the Old Testament, the book of Esther, chapter 5, verse 11 through chapter 6, verse 12. At the time of our story the Israelites who are God’s people are living in Persia under the rule of King Xerxes. The King had made an Israelite woman his queen, called Queen Esther. The king also had a man working for him named Haman who he treated with much honor. But “Haman was a prideful man. He wanted everyone to notice him. If something was going on, he wanted to be right at the center of it.” One day he bragged to his wife that the queen herself invited only two people to a very special dinner -- the king and Haman himself. This made Haman feel very important, so he said to his wife, “I am a very important person.” (actor repeat) “When Haman drove by in his chariot he wanted everyone to bow down low to show respect for him…. (Crowd pretend to bow to Haman riding by.) But Haman had a problem. There was a man in the town who loved the Lord and who wouldn’t bow down to Haman. His name was Mordecai.” Mordecai was a Jew like Esther and had raised Esther as his adopted daughter before she was made queen. “This made Haman very angry. In fact, Haman couldn’t enjoy all the good things that he had because he was angry in his heart toward Mordecai. Every day he would get mad and he wished that he could find a way to get rid of this guy who wouldn’t bow down to him.” He said, “I am so mad! I wish I could get rid of Mordecai!” (actor repeat) “One day the king called for Haman and said”, “Haman, I have someone I want to honor.” (actor repeat) “I need an idea of how to show how valuable this man is to me.” (actor repeat) “Haman thought to himself, “Oh, the king must be talking about me. I’m so important to the king. (actor repeat) He must want to tell everyone in the kingdom how great I am.” So, Haman told the king his idea. “I think you should put him on one of your horses and let him wear one of your robes and put a crown on his head and let someone else lead this man around town and announce to everyone that this person is special to the king.” “As Haman imagined himself on that horse, wearing the king’s robe and a crown on his head, the king said, “Good idea, Haman. I’d like you to be the one to lead the horse.” (actor repeat) “What?” thought Haman in shock. (actor repeat) He was thinking, ‘How can I lead the horse when I am supposed to be the one riding the horse?’ But the king said: “Yes, I want you to do all those nice things to Mordecai.” (actor repeat) “Haman couldn’t believe his ears. He had boasted and been so proud and been so angry with Mordecai every day. This was the worst thing he could ever imagine happening. Now he had to give honor to Mordecai. “This story illustrates something very important about honor. Some people try to build themselves up by boasting and talking about how good they are…. But people who understand honor don’t boast about themselves. They look for ways to build others up. We can do that right now by giving all of our actors a round of applause. Thank you, everyone. Let’s sit for today’s Bible verses and prayer and then I will explain our craft. Bible verse: I have two verses for us today. (Pass out verses.) Can someone read the first verse? “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:3-4, NIV) And how do we do that? Can I have another volunteer to read the second verse? “Kind words are like honey -- sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.” (Proverbs 16:24, NLT) Closing: Today we talked about how boasting is not honoring to others. After reading those Bible verses, does anyone have a guess of what we can do to honor others and make them feel special? Yes, we can speak kind words to others. The Bible says kind words are like honey, sweet to the soul and healthy for the body. Will you pray with me as we ask God to help us to remember this lesson? Prayer: Dear God, “teach us how to honor others instead of just building ourselves up. Help us to think of ways to make others feel special, like using kind words. Thank you for loving us and treating us as special. Amen.” Activity: Today we’re going to make beehives out of Honeycomb cereal, gluing the cereal to a picture of a beehive. You can use markers to color the branch and leaves and add bees around it if you like. Or you can just color a beehive. (If you are finished early you can work on the Seek and Find Puzzle.) Closing on rug: Why is boasting wrong? I’m going to show you. (Prepare dinner plate, large glass of water, shaker of black pepper, a small amount of dish soap in a bowl and a towel for clean up.) “Some people only think about themselves. They boast about how good they are.” Boasting is like adding pepper to a friendship. It makes the friendship unpleasant like this pepper does to the water. Can we fix this? Yes. “I have a secret ingredient that’s going to do something all that pepper.” (Dip your finger in the bowl of soap and then touch it into the water on the edge of the dish. All the pepper will move to the opposite side.) “Today we learned about a secret ingredient in life that works” to make the boasting and all other hurtful words go away. “That secret ingredient is honor,” and today we talked about honoring each other by using kind words to make others feel special. Hand out bags of honeycomb soap and honey candies to remind the kids of the Bible verse: “Kind words are like honey -- sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.” (Proverbs 16:24, NLT) *Bonus science lesson* Why does the pepper move away? Answer courtesy of Education.com: “The first question to ask is why the pepper flakes float. Why don’t they sink or dissolve in the water? Well, pepper is hydrophobic, meaning that water is not attracted to it. Because of that, the pepper can't dissolve in the water. But why do the flakes float on top of the water? Water molecules like to stick together. They line up in a certain way that gives the top of the water surface tension. Because pepper flakes are so light, and hydrophobic, the surface tension keeps them floating on top. The next question to think about is why the pepper shoots to the sides when soap touches the water. Soap is able to break down the surface tension of water—that’s part of what makes soap a good cleaner. As the soap moves into the water, and the surface tension changes, the pepper no longer floats on top. But the water molecules still want to keep the surface tension going, so they pull back away from the soap, and carry the pepper along with them.” (https://www.education.com/science-fair/article/pepper-and-soap-experiment/)
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