The following craft and lesson could be used for teaching about Creation, the
fall, and God's plan of redemption.
Get each child to cut out a circular
piece of light colored cardboard, about the size of a small dinner
plate. Tell the children that they are to imagine that they are the
Creator, and that they have to create their own world by drawing on
their cardboard whatever they want to have in their world - eg.
flowers, birds, animals, people etc.
Allow about 10 minutes for this activity,
then have all the children sit down, holding their creations.
Tell the children to close their eyes, and to imagine their creations
coming alive. Stress that each creation is wonderful, with birds
singing, animals running and playing together, people laughing,
playing and enjoying each other, etc.
Next, tell the children they are to imagine that
something has gone horribly wrong with their perfect creations.
"Oh no! The people have started arguing and hitting each
other, weeds have started growing in their beautiful gardens, the
animals have started hunting, killing and eating each other. Now,
even the people are killing each other."
Explain that because of our deliberate
rejection of our Creator, this is exactly what happened with His
perfect creation, our world. The question is what could God do about
it?
State that the children each have to
decide what to do with their now spoiled creations. Give them four
choices (it is a good idea to have these displayed in some way):
1. Destroy their world.
2. Send someone to teach the people of
their world how to be good.
3. Go yourself to show the people how to
love each other.
4. Give them the power to change and
become good.
Have the children to indicate which of
the four options they would choose (In my experience the majority
usually choose the first option!).
Explain that God still loved His
creation despite what had happened, and therefore He rejected option
1, and did not destroy the world.
You may wish to elaborate on the other
options, but here is an outline plan.
What God did choose were options 2, 3,
and 4. He sent people (they were called Prophets) to teach us to be
good, but usually we wouldn't listen to them. Then God came Himself,
in the form of a man - we knew him as Jesus. He showed us how much
God loves us and how we should love each other, but people
still killed him. Now we come to option 4. The wonderful news is
that Jesus rose from the dead, and that because of his death and
resurrection we can be forgiven of our wrongdoing and receive God's
power to change us and make us good.
Copyright 2004 Maurice Sweetsur
http://mauricesweetsur.blogspot.com
mnmsweetsur@xtra.co.nz
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