Bottom Line: Being Truthful with God Helps Keep You Close to Him

Small Group Leader Curriculum2nd/3rd

May 27th

Bible Story: Clean Your Hard Drive (Confession / Being Honest with God) •1 John 1:9

Bottom Line: Being truthful with God helps keep you close to Him.

Memory Verse: “Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out.” Proverbs 10:9, NIV

Life App: Honesty—Choosing to be truthful in whatever you say and do

Basic Truth: I can trust God no matter what.

Social: Small Groups (10 & 11:15)

Welcome kids and spend time engaging in conversation and catching up.

Get ready to experience today’s story.

Early Arriver Idea

Made to Connect: an activity that invites kids to share with others and build on their understanding

What You Need: Offering container

What You Do:

Welcome kids as they arrive and let them put their offerings in the container.
Ask for volunteers to share answers to the question: Do you have a friend or person you are really close with and love to tell everything to?
Then play a name game:
Start off by saying something like, “My best friend is Amy and we like to acquire stuffed animals!”
Then the next kid will do the same, but this time his friend’s name and favorite activity must start with “B.”
Continue as time and interest (and name/activity possibilities) allow.

Intro Activity

Phone a Friend

Made to Play: an activity that encourages learning through following guidelines and working as a group

What You Need: No supplies needed

What You Do:

Encourage your few to sit in a circle together.
Play a game of telephone.
Start off by whispering a phrase to the kid sitting to the right of you.
That kid will then whisper it to the kid sitting to the right of him. This continues around the circle until it gets back to you.
Once the phrase makes it all the way around the circle, say aloud the phrase you heard from the last kid.
Then tell kids what the actual phrase was that you began with, determining whether the phrase got jumbled up in the circle.

What You Say:

“Could you imagine how difficult this game would be if you weren’t sitting close to your neighbor? Can you think of some other things that are hard to do when you aren’t close? (Provide examples to get their brain juices flowing: talking on the phone, hugging a friend, etc.)[Transition] Today in Large Group, we are going to learn about something we can do to stay close to God.”

Lead your group to the Large Group area.

Large Group (10:25, 11:40)

Line your kids up at the door and quietly head to the Large Group room. You’ll sit with your small group near the front of the stage. Stay with your kids the entire time you’re in large group. Engage kids’ hearts through a dynamic and interactive Bible story, worship, and prayer experience in a Large Group setting.

LARGE GROUP TIMES:

Sunday:

10:25-10:45

11:40-12:00

Groups: Creating a Safe Place to Connect

(10:45, 12:00)

Create a safe place to connect and learn howthe Bible story applies to real life experiences through interactive activities and discussion questions.

Welcome visitors
Go over memory verse—give candy to kids who can say it
Offer snacks 10 amservice only

Activity #1 10 ONLY

Truthster

[Live for God | Application Activity]

Made to Move: an activity that increases the oxygen in the brain and taps into the energy in the body

What You Need: Cardstock, container with paper squares inside

What You Do:

Build the Truthster board by placing cardstock on floor in random color order, but in six columns and four rows.
Using masking tape, form a cross in the middle of the board by taping the edges of the middle pages together.
Instruct kids to form a line next to the board.
If your group is larger than six, begin with six kids while others watch.
After you are finished with the first group, you can rotate in the additional kids.
Explain that you will pull out a card and call out a color and a body part.
The first kid in line will place that body part onto the color indicated, while trying to stay as close to the cross as they can.
As the game continues and the board gets more and more crowded, any kid who loses his/her balance and falls over is out!
When that happens, other kids can rotate into the game.

What You Say:

“That Truthster game was a little tricky! Sometimes you were dealt a card that really tried to keep you away from the cross. You know, some things can make us feel far from God. We can get distracted and forget to talk to Him and read our Bibles. Or sometimes we mess up and we feel bad about it, so we don’t want to tell God about. [Make it Personal] (Share a personal story about a time when you felt distant from God because of something you did. Share how you felt in the moment and how you resolved the situation.) The awesome thing is that when we are being truthful, we do remain close to God. The even more awesome thing is that we can be honest with God about anything and He will still love us. If [Bottom Line] being truthful with God helps keep you close to Him, then let’s try to tell God everything all the time!”

Activity #2 11:15am ONLY

Honesty Jars

[Talk about God| Bible Story Review]

Made to Create: an activity that explores spiritual ideas through the process of drawing, building, and designing

What You Need: “Honesty Jars” and “Honesty Jars Labels” Activity Pages, jars or other containers, decorations, scissors, markers or pencils

What You Do:

Provide each kid with a jar or container, label, and decorations.
Encourage kids to place the label on their jar and decorate the jar however they wish.
After you have provided a few minutes to decorate, hand out the “Honesty Jars” Activity Pages, markers or pencils, and scissors.
Encourage each kid to cut out the strips on the page.
Give them a few minutes to fill in a few of the statements and then place those inside the jar.
They can place the rest of the blank strips in the jar as well, for whenever they feel like they need a “conversation starter” with God.

What You Say:

“I love how different each of your Honesty Jars look! They are so personal, which reminds me how very personal our God is. The cool thing about God is that He desires to have a relationship with us. One of the ways we can encourage this relationship is by talking to Him. Do any of you talk to God? How do you talk to Him? (Allow time for kids to answer.) We can talk to God about anything—even the things we feel like we can’t talk to anyone else about. And when we talk to Him, we’ll get closer in our relationship with Him. This week, I want you to take this jar home with you and practice talking to God by filling these cards out and placing them in your Honesty Jar. When you run out, you can use your own paper and talk to Him about anything that comes to mind. Remember, [Bottom Line] being truthful with God helps keep you close to Him. So use this activity to do just that!”

Prayer—All Services

[Pray to God | Prayer Activity]

Made to Connect: an activity that invites kids to share with others and build on their understanding

What You Need: No supplies needed

What You Do:

Encourage your few to sit in a circle together
Ask: “Is there a time or has something ever happened when you felt that God was close to you?”
Allow kids time to respond and share.

What You Say:

“Dear God, I want to thank You for always being close to me and always available to listen when I need to be truthful about what’s going on in my life. I want to learn to remain close to You as I learn to live a life of honesty. As I see Your hand in each day of my life, remind me of the open conversation that I get to have with You and that [Bottom Line] being truthful with God helps keep you close to Him. I pray that I truly live without blame and away from the crooked path so I may let others see You, my heavenly Father! In Jesus’ name, amen.”

If you have extra time you may…

-ask kids questions to get to know them better

-practice the memory verse

-allow them to play any games available in your classrooms

Dismiss at the door

Pass out any fliers that are on your table by the door.

Please take all parent tags as parents enter for pick-up. If a tag is not available, do not release their kid to them and please send them to the lobby to fill out a Parent Release Form or to have their parent tag reprinted.

Return your name tag to the check-in counter when you’re finished for the day.

Thank you for serving today!