Monthly Archives: March 2006

Inspiration

Imaginary Chains

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We live in a world of limitations. Limits protect us from very real dangers. But when those limitations are based on a lie, they become chains that prevent us from becoming all that we could be.

The little elephant was so curious, so full of life. He stretched his nimble little trunk, straining to catch butterflies. He bent down to take a closer look at the vibrant flowers that were just out of reach, their sweet scent drawing him nearer. He longed to play in the fresh cool waters of the river. Life was an adventure to be experienced. His future was full of dreams and of hope, but of a hope that was quickly dying.

In desperation, the baby elephant pulls and fights with all his strength against his bonds. Yet the heavy steel bracelet and chain still bind him to a tree. He learns he cannot break free, so he stops trying. The spark of life dims in his eyes. The joy of life is replaced with a lingering sadness. Hope is lost. Unable to free himself, he surrenders in defeat.

“Elephants never forget.” He will stay within the boundaries learned by his experience for the rest of his life. This remains true, even if the mahout replaces the strong steel bracelet with a weak leather strap and the heavy chain is replaced with a feeble little rope tied to a stake. When he becomes full-grown he will possess great strength, but he will not pull free. As soon as he feels the slightest tug on his rear leg, he remembers and surrenders in defeat. “Elephants never forget.”

It’s neither the rope nor the stake that binds him. It is the elephant’s belief. He is bound by something that really has no power to control him, except the power he chooses to give it.

Elephants aren’t the only ones bound by imaginary chains. We may have a dream in our heart, but our thoughts and beliefs, lock us into old limitations. Many of us have given up, believing that there’s no hope for change in our lives. But unless we grasp the striking fact that we are tied with a thread, that the chain is an illusion, that we are believing a lie, that others were wrong about us, that we were wrong about ourselves — we will continue to live within the confines of our fears and limitations. Our own chains of insecurity and self-doubt will forever bind us and blind us to the possibilities of success. We will allow our lives to be controlled by things that no longer have the power to control us, except the power we choose to give them.

It’s time that we, like Toomai of the Elephants, in Rudyard Kipling’s “Jungle Book”, take a stand and refuse to live according to our learned limitations.

I will remember what I was, I am sick of rope and chain–
I will not sell my back to man for a bundle of sugar-cane
I will go out until the day, until the morning break–
I will forget my ankle-ring and snap my picket stake.

“He replied, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
– Matthew 17:20

Copyright 2004 by Ken Sapp


MORE IDEAS? See “Creative Object Lessons”

200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.

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Icebreakers

Easter Card Puzzler

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Game Materials
Easter Cards

Game Objective
Youth match their pieces to the card design to find their groups in this Easter crowdbreaker.

Game Preparation
1. Select the front panels of several Easter Cards with different pictures. Use 2 identical cards for each group. Each group must have different card.
2. Cut one card of the 2 cards into pieces. The other card remains intact. The number of pieces is determined by the number of people you want to have on each team.
3. Write a question on the back of each piece. You can repeat questions. Questions should be along the lines of:

  • What is the true meaning of Easter for you?
  • What do you find most confusing about the Easter account?
  • What do you find most fascinating about the Easter account?
  • Which person in the Easter account are you most like?
  • Which person in the Easter would you most like to be?
  • How do you think you would have reacted to Christ’s arrest compared to the disciples?
  • What was your most memorable Easter? Why?
  • What is your favorite part of the easter story?

ETC..
4. Place the remaining uncut card on the wall or at each table.
5. One good idea is the keep the peices separate until needed. Once everyone has arrived, place the necessary number of peices in a bag and mix them up.
6. When each person enters the room they are given a piece of the cards that have been cut into jigsaw puzzles, with the question at the back of each.
7. Participants must ask people the question found on the puzzle piece and find the rest of the people whose pieces combine to form 1 card.
8. You may only reveal your puzzle peice after you have answered the question of each other.
9. Only once the puzzle is solved, are participants allowed to find out their respective table or location to group together by matching the picture of the puzzle with the uncut version.

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Teaching Illustrations

Watch His Ways

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When God wants to drill a man,
And thrill a man, And skill a man,
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part;
When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him
Into trial shapes of clay which
Only God understands;
While his tortured heart is crying
And he lifts beseeching hands!
How He bends but never breaks
When his good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses,
And with every purpose fuses him;
By every act induces him
To try His splendor out–
God knows what He’s about.


MORE IDEAS? See “Creative Object Lessons”

200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.

Learn More…

Icebreakers

Jelly Bean Teams

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jellybeans2.jpgMaterials
Bag of Jelly Beans

Game Objective
Use Jelly Beans to separate your group into teams.

Game Preparation

  1. Determine before your event how many teams you want to have and how many people you want on each team.
  2. Choose one color of Jelly Beans for each team and remove the unwanted colors.
  3. Make sure the remaining jelly beans are of equal numbers for each color.
  4. Place all the Jelly Beans you have selected into a bag and mix them up.

If you want to prevent stained hands, wrap the jelly beans with a small piece of plastic wrap before you play.

Game Play

  1. When participants walk into the party, allow them to reach into the bag and grab one color of Jelly Bean to hold onto–not to eat!
  2. When everyone has arrived and you are ready to form teams, tell everyone to shout out their color until they find everyone else in their team.

Variations

  • Make everyone hold the Jelly Bean in their mouth to compare colors and find their team.
  • Make everyone Hold the Jelly Bean in their teeth to compare colors and find their team.

Combine this with Jelly Bean Salvation for a fun Easter Gospel presentation.

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Games and Activities in celebration of Easter.

Get more than 80 creative ideas for planning a Youth Easter celebration or Easter Party. You can immediately download my best Easter Icebreakers, games, illustrations, Easter activity ideas AND MUCH MORE in a useful ebook!

=> Tell me more about the Easter Collection

Food for Thought

Zeal

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David McCullough in his book Mornings on Horseback tells this story about young Teddy Roosevelt:

“Mittie (his mother) had found he was so afraid of the Madison Square Church that he refused to set foot inside if alone. He was terrified, she discovered, of something called the ‘zeal.’ It was crouched in the dark corners of the church ready to jump at him, he said. When she asked what a zeal might be, he said he was not sure, but thought it was probably a large animal like an alligator or a dragon. He had heard the minister read about if from the Bible. Using a concordance, she read him those passages containing the word ZEAL until suddenly, very excited, he told her to stop. The line was from the Book of John, 2:17: ‘And his disciples remembered that it was written, ‘The ZEAL of thine house hath eaten me up”‘

People are still justifiably afraid to come near the “zeal” of the Lord, for they are perfectly aware it could “eat them up” if they aren’t one of His.

Author: David McCullough
Source: Mornings on Horseback

Food for Thought

Weakness

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“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” -The Apostle Paul- II Corinthians 12:8-10

Our world prizes strength–the physical strength of athletes, the financial strength of companies, the political strength of officeholders, and the military strength of armies. But Paul put a new twist on the notion of strength: weakness can make a person strong.

Most of us would have no problem with God using our natural areas of strength, such as speaking, organizing, managing, or selling. But suppose He chose instead to use us in areas where we are weak?

Moses claimed to be a poor speaker (Ex.4:10), yet God used him as His spokesman on Israel’s behalf. Peter tended to be impulsive and even hot-headed, yet God used him as one of the chief architects of the early church.

Weakness has a way of making us rely on God far more than our strengths do.

Source: “The Word in Life Study Bible” p. 2103

Game Ideas

Easter Back to Back

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Materials
A variety of simple Easter images as designs to be copied. (You can also use simple Easter cards for the design.)

Some secular examples can be found here:
http://www.preschoolcoloringbook.com/color/cpeaster.shtml

Some Christian examples can be found here:
http://www.teacherhelp.org/easter.htm#coloring

Activity
1. Form teams of six or more people.
2. Instruct each team to sit in a line, one person behind another.
3. Youth may not talk, make any sounds, or communicate in any way except to draw on the person’s back in front of them.
4. Give the first person in each line a pencil and a piece of paper.
5. Show the last person in each line a simple image of an Easter object. That person must use his or her finger to draw the object on the back of the person in front of him or her.
6. This continues until the drawing reaches the first person in line. He or she must draw it on the piece of paper.
7. Have judges determine which team’s picture closest resembles the original picture.
8. If time permits, play more rounds, letting team members change positions if they wish.

Application
Things get distorted the farther we get from the source, especially when we have our backs turned on God. In todays world, too often the meaning of Easter has degraded to eggs, chocolate, and bunnies. But the true meaning of Easter could be summarised by John 3:16.

Debrief
1. What does Easter mean to you?
2. What are some of the things the world associates with Easter?
3. In what ways has the Bibical concept of Easter been distorted over time?
4. If you had to identify a single word to associate with easter, what would it be?
5. How can we promote the true meaning of easter with friends and family without alienating them?

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Games and Activities in celebration of Easter.

Get more than 80 creative ideas for planning a Youth Easter celebration or Easter Party. You can immediately download my best Easter Icebreakers, games, illustrations, Easter activity ideas AND MUCH MORE in a useful ebook!

=> Tell me more about the Easter Collection

Object Lessons

Jelly Bean Salvation

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jellybeans.jpgMaterials
Jelly Beans of each color below: Yellow, Black, Red, White, Green. You can choose to place all of one color together inside a plastic Easter egg, or place one of each color inside an egg.

Gospel According to Jelly Beans: The meaning and explanation for each color is as follows:

Yellow Jelly Bean
The yellow Jelly bean reminds us of Heaven. Do you know what Heaven is? Heaven is God’s home. Heaven is filled with the glory, the shining brightness of God. There is no night ther The Bible says, “God is The Light and in Him is no Darkness at all”(I John 1:5). The Bible tells us that in Heaven, the street of the city is pure, clear gold-like glass (Rev.21:21). God tells us many other things about His home. No one is sick there. No one is crippled or blind. No one ever dies. Every person in Heaven will be perfectly happy-always (Rev. 21:4-2Psalm 16:11). The most wonderful thing about Heaven is that God the Father and His Son, the Lord Jesus will be there. God made Heaven. He made you too. He loves you very much. Because he made you and loves you, He wants you to belong to Him and be with Him in Heaven someday. Jesus promised long ago, “I go to prepare a place for you” (John 3:16; John 14:1-3).

Black Jelly Bean
There is one thing that can never be in Heaven. That is sin. Because you and I are sinners we want to have our own way instead of God’s way. Wanting our own way is sin. Doing, or saying, or thinking bad things is sin. Sin is anything that displeases God. Sin has caused sorrow and sadness in our world. God tells us in the Bible that all have sinned (Romans 3:23). All means every one of us.

This dark jelly bean reminds us of our sinful way (Proverbs 4:19). When it is dark, you stumble and cannot find your way. Because of your sin, you cannot find God. Your sin separates you from God, who is holy (I John 1:5). God cannot allow sin where He is. I am sure you can think of a sin which you have done. God has said that sin must be punished. The punishment for your sin is death-to be separated from God forever (Rev. 6:23). The Lord Jesus, God’s Son, said that if you die in your sin, you cannot go to Heaven where He is (John 8:21, 24). God knew there was nothing you could do to get rid of your sin. He knew you could not be good enough to please Him. But He loves you and He made a way for you to be forgiven.

Red Jelly Bean
The red jelly bean shows the way God made for you to have your sins forgiven-taken away. God loves you. He sent His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, from Heaven to take the punishment for your sin (John 3:16). Wicked men nailed the sinless Son of God to the cross, but while He hung there God put all of your sins on Him. The Bible says, “…God bath laid on Him [Jesus] the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). (Iniquity is another word for sin). All your bad temper, all your lies, your meaness-all your sin-was laid on the dear Son of God, and He suffered and suffered until He cried out with a loud voice and said, “It is finished.” When you finish a job, how much is left? Nothing. What did the Lord Jesus come to do? He came to save us from punishment for sin, didn’t He? And He finished the work. When He was nailed to the cross, what came from His hands, and His feet? His blood. God calls it the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and He says “…the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin” (I John 1:7). There is no other way, for God says, “Without shedding of blood there is no remission [of sin]”-no forgiveness, no payment (Hebrews 9:22). Jesus not only died for you, but He was buried, and He rose again. He is a living saviour (ICorinthians 15:3, 4). God showed His love for you by sending His own Son to die for you. Now he says there is one way for you to be saved from your sin.

White Jelly Bean
Tears cannot wash away sin. Prayers cannot wash away sin. Doing good cannot wash away sin. But the blood of the Lord Jesus can wash away all sin (Psalm 51:7; I John 1:7). This white jelly bean reminds me that you can be made clean from sin. Did Jesus die for everyone? (YES!) Is everyone going to Heaven? (No, because some do not believe that Jesus died for them. They have not received Him as their saviour from sin.) God’s word says, “…as many as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name” (John 1:12). God has promised you when you receive the Lord Jesus as your Saviour, you become a child of God. The Lord Jesus Christ died to save you from your sins. He wants to live in your heart and give you power to obey God. Are you sorry for your sin? Do you believe Jesus died for your sin? Would you like to receive Jesus today? You must decide. (Ask the Holy Spirit for discernment. Question the person to respond carefully. Encourage them to express to you before they pray: why they need to receive the Lord Jesus; what the Lord Jesus has done for them; what they want to tell God. When dealing with a group, emphasize what each person must personally believe and receive the Lord Jesus. Give opportunity for prayer. If possible, question each person individually after the prayer to clarify the meaning of His decision. Where is Jesus now? Where are your sins? What took them away?) (Any one of the following verses can be used effectively in helping to know what God has done: John 1:12; I John 5:13; Rev. 3:20.) God promises to you when you receive Him, “…I will never\leave nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). Ask Him to help you each day to please Him. When you do sin, tell God that you have sinned. He will forgive you right away (I John 1:9). Ask Him and trust Him to help you not to do it again. (Lead the person in offering a prayer of thanks).

Green Jelly Bean
The green jelly bean reminds me of the new life, everlasting life, you have received from God. The color green reminds me of things which are growing outdoors, like leaves, grass, flowers, and trees. when you receive the Lord Jesus as your saviour from sin, you are like a newborn baby in God’s family. The Bible tells you to “grow in grace in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (II Peter 3:18).

(As the time permits, talk with the person about those things which help him grow as a member of God’s family. Explain you are not talking about growing taller or gaining weight, but the kind of growing which will help others know that he loves the Lord Jesus.

* 1. Listen to God- Learn God’s Word reading and memorizing it (II Timothy 2:15; Psalm 119: 11).
* 2. Talk to God. Pray (I Thessalonians 5:17).
* 3. Talk for God. Witness or tell others (Mark 16:15).
* 4. Worship God. Go to Sunday School and Church (Hebrews 10:25).

Blue Jelly Bean
Optional
Some will add a Blue Jelly bean to represent Baptism

Applications
1. Use the various colors of the Jelly Beans to present the plan of salvation.
2. Use this as a presentation of the plan of salvation for easter.
3. Instead of Jelly Beans, you can use balloons or other items of the different colors… even simply colored pieces of paper (sometimes known as the “Wordless book”) and beads for bracelets (sometimes known as the “Wordless Bracelet”)

MORE IDEAS? See “Creative Object Lessons”
200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.
Learn More…

Get Creative Youth Ideas: "Easter Collection" ebook Easter Collection
Games and Activities in celebration of Easter.

Get more than 80 creative ideas for planning a Youth Easter celebration or Easter Party. You can immediately download my best Easter Icebreakers, games, illustrations, Easter activity ideas AND MUCH MORE in a useful ebook!

=> Tell me more about the Easter Collection

Food for Thought

Waiting On God

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Waiting for God is not laziness. Waiting for God is not going to sleep. Waiting for God is not the abandonment of effort. Waiting for God means, first, activity under command; second, readiness for any new command that may come; third, the ability to do nothing until the command is given.

Author: G. Campbell Morgan

Teaching Illustrations

The Water Jar

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“Then the woman left her water jar and went back into the city. She told the people, ‘Come with me, and meet a man who told me everything I’ve ever done. Could he be the Messiah?’ ”
-John 4:28,29

“Don’t miss the drama of the moment. Look at her eyes, wide with amazement. Listen to her as she struggles for words…And watch as she scrambles to her feet, takes one last look at the grinning Nazarene, turns and runs right into the burly chest of Peter…

Did you notice what she forgot? She forgot her water jar. She left behind the jug that had caused the sag in her shoulders. She left behind the burden she brought.

Suddenly the shame of the tattered romances disappeared. Suddenly the insignificance of her life was swallowed by the significance of the moment. ‘God is here! God has come! God cares…for me!’

That is why she forgot her water jar. That is why she ran to the city. That is why she grabbed the first person she saw and announced her discovery, ‘I just talked to a man who knows everything I ever did…and he loves me anyway!’

The disciples offered Jesus some food. He refused it–he was too excited! He had just done what he does best. He had taken a life that was drifting and given it direction.”

Author: Max Lucado
Source: “Six Hours One Friday”


MORE IDEAS? See “Creative Object Lessons”

200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.

Learn More…