Professor Speaks

SCRIPTURE:Malachi 3:10 “Bring the whole tithe into the Storehouse that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it”.

TOPIC: TITHING

PROPS: You may wish to dress up as a character for this presentation eg: A nutty professor: (white coat, black rimmed glasses, pens in pocket, crazy hair), or a school teacher in black hat and coat.

The idea of this children’s message is to teach the children the basic principle of tithing by using facts and figures. You can be a little slow at working out numbers if you wish, but be creative to help the children find the answers needed.

Dressing up will help make it a lot more fun.

Find a name that is fun and maybe used in a catchy rhyme.

White board/blackboard, writing equipment for whiteboard.

Lollies to use as an example of tithing 10%.

Enough lollies to give two to each child.

Child to keep one and will be encouraged to give one away to someone in worship time.

*INTRODUCTION:

Walk in and have children come to front of room or sit where you can see them.

Tell them who you are, and that you have come to teach them about a very important subject. (You can ask for a drum roll or whatever), and the subject is tithing!

(Write word “tithing” on board).

You can ask a child (You can include the adults in this) to sit up legs crossed hands in front of them, while you are going.

Ask the children/ adults if anyone has heard of the word “Tithing?”.

Explain how tithing is taught to us from the Bible.

(You can write the word “Bible” on the board and/or hold a Bible up to show it).

Explain how the Bible teaches us about tithing right from the very beginning so it must be an important part of a Christian’s life.

Teaching the children how: “In the old days the people were asked to provide a tithe on everything they grew or produced. As we read on in the Bible we find that the people’s tithing of their crops and animals actually went to help with the people’s worship of God and God’s work itself”.

Now the question is: “what does tithing mean?”

You may ask, “does any one know?”

The answer: “A tenth of something.” (You can write that on the board!) (10%).

“To help me explain tithing to us all, I am going to use some wonderful technology: Lollies!”

(Have the Lollies ready to use, or open a packet and count out 10).

(Get everyone to count with you) 1, 2, 3, 4, etc..

“Now one tenth of ten is…….” and pick up ONE lolly!

“If we had 20 lollies a tenth would be Two Lollies.”

(If you choose you can write 100 on the board and say 10% = 10

50 on the board and say 10% = 5).

“Tithing is actually a very simple sum when you think of it.

Lets go back to our lollies”.

Ask the Children, “What do you notice about the lollies?” (They are in two groups/piles - one small pile and one large pile). “How many are in this group?”,(the one where there is the most: 9 or 18 depending on how many you used).

“How many lollies are in this group: “(looking at where you placed the 10% i.e. one or two lollies depending on whether you’ve used 10 or 20 lollies overall).

Ask the Children, “If we were giving God a tenth of our lollies, which group would it be? “

(It would be the smaller of the two lolly groups).

Ask again: “Which group then is ours to use?”

Overemphasise the “Wow”, and say “ we have a lot left over for our use, and we can use these as we wish, we can give some away, eat some and keep some for another day. And it is the same with our money”.

“If we give some of our money back to God, then we also need to ask God to help us use the money we have left wisely. We can spend it all on lollies or we can pay the bills and bank some and spend a little on lollies”.

“Now tithing, setting aside a tenth for God can be a place where some people can jump right in to and commence their giving back to God. For some it becomes a target they may need to work towards. For other people it may be a place where they say, ‘yes I can do this, but because God has been really good to me I can give a bit more than the tithe’”.

“Tithing is a challenge God’s Word gives to us, so one of the best things we can do is to ask God to help us understand how this fits into our life”. (Read the Scripture verse from above).

“At the moment not many of you would be at work earning any money would you?” (ask the children to respond). “So none of you are at work, and that’s OK, but it is a good thing to try and learn about how we can be wise with money even at an early age, and I believe speaking to God about ‘money things’ is one of the best ways of being wise”.

Conclusion : give each child two lollies: one is to share with someone else and one is to keep.

*An alternative introduction to this message is to play hangman with the children.