Today I will be looking at the Holy Spirit in preparation for Sundays group talks at the 10am service.
This is to help give some background to what we are studying on Sunday.
If you are a NOISE CREW Leader then this is especially good for you to read so that you are all clued up for your Sunday group Lesson.
Here is the Lesson plan that we will use Sunday...(click on image to enlarge)
To be able to teach this lesson really, you will need to have read the lesson
plan ahead of time and have thought about the topic yourself. Kids will soon pick up if you are simply reading something you have just yourself learnt.
If you as a leader have read and studied the verses yourself you will.. oooozze the ideas you are trying to teach and it will be much easier. So have a read of the lesson plan and my notes below and come Sunday you will oooozze the Holy Spirit and you watch the kids will come alive and really listen.
The actual lesson plan will be in the blue font and my extra notes will be in orange:
PRAY (1 min)
Open in prayer
This is important as it shows our dependence on God during this learning time and our need for his guidance and the Holy Spirits understanding as we read the word.
GAME (10 mins)
Choose appropriate Game from Game List
BRAG (5 mins)
Each say 1 cool thing that happened this past week
Each say 1 cool thing they learnt about God or saw God do this week
This is a very important habit that we are forming in the kids...to be thankful to God for everything. The Bible says that Every good thing we have come from God (Psalm 16:2) and that we should be thankful always (1 Thess 5:16-18). We as leaders should be active in this habit daily and in our small groups.
WORD (25 mins)
Imagine you are a disciple from the Bible, and you are hanging out with Jesus all the time. You are his student and he is your teacher and he has been with you for 3 years now.
Discussion
- What kinda things have you learnt from him?
- How have your lives changed since meeting Jesus?
- What benefits are there from following him, being with him?
This exercise will help the kids think what it might have been like with Jesus as there friend and teacher. This will help the kids later on when we talk about the Holy Spirit being with us all the time.-If you had Jesus with you everyday as your teacher right now how would you life be different?
If you had Jesus with you as a friend everyday, helping you, teaching you, protecting you life would be a lot different. The hope that we have as Christians is that the Holy Spirit(who is fully God) lives in us as believers and helps us, teaches us and making our lives different.
Read Matthew 28:16-20 in different versions to get a better understanding of what it could mean.
Leader read v20b “I will be with you always, even until the end of the world.”
Discuss (1 min) the kids ideas of what this could be saying...
This is just after Jesus has risen from the dead and few people had seen him, and now he meets his disciples and tells them this.
16Jesus' eleven disciples went to a mountain in Galilee, where Jesus had told them to meet him. 17They saw him and worshiped him, but some of them doubted. 18Jesus came to them and said:
I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth! 19Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, 20and teach them to do everything I have told you. I will be with you always, even until the end of the world.
This is one of the last things Jesus said to his disciples before going to heaven for the final time. We call this the great commission, Jesus' final command to GO and to PREACH to ALL peoples. It includes a huge challenge but also a huge promise, that Jesus will be with us always. The practical part of this however we do not see until Acts 1:8 when the Spirit is promised.. and Acts 2 when the Spirit is actually given and falls on the people for the first time.
Think what it must have been like... your savior who you have listening to for so long and who has been eating, sleeping and living with you has now been murdered, but has come back.. and will soon leave again, as we read in Acts.
Then Read Acts 1:6-10 in different versions
6While the apostles were still with Jesus, they asked him, "Lord, are you now going to give Israel its own king again?" 7Jesus said to them, "You don't need to know the time of those events that only the Father controls. 8But the Holy Spirit will come upon you and give you power. Then you will tell everyone about me in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, and everywhere in the world." 9After Jesus had said this and while they were watching, he was taken up into a cloud. They could not see him, 10but as he went up, they kept looking up into the sky.
As I just mentioned above, this is Jesus' last appearance before he is taken to heaven. The Disciples were enjoying time with Jesus and they started asking him about what would happen, becuase they saw Jesus as the New King who would change the world and make everything better for them. But Jesus told them not to worry about that but promised them the Holy Spirit to help and empower them.
Leader read v8 “But the Holy Spirit will come upon you and give you power. Then you will tell everyone about me in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, and everywhere in the world."
Discuss
-(1 min) the kids ideas of what this could be saying…
Discuss what these two verses together mean…
-What happened in the verses?
-Where is Jesus now?
-Jesus has left earth but he promised something to the disciples? What/who was it?
Leaders say:
The Holy Spirit come and lives in our hearts when we ask and give our lives to God.
Read John 14:16-17( spirit of truth) and John 14:26
Discuss:
-What this could mean, that we have the Spirit of Truth with us always?
We will later in the year look more into the Holy Spirits roll in our lives but for now there are some aspects we will look at here.
John 14: 16-17
16Then I will ask the Father to send you the Holy Spirit who will help you and always be with you. 17The Spirit will show you what is true.
John 14: 26
26 But the Holy Spirit will come and help you, because the Father will send the Spirit to take my place. The Spirit will teach you everything and will remind you of what I said while I was with you.
These two points are very important. Today main lesson is that Jesus via the Holy Spirit is always with us. Hopefully we have seen this today. But the more important point and one that follows throughout the teaching here is that the Spirit will change an individual. The opening imagination segment was to get the kids to think what there lives would be like with Jesus present all the time.
Not only is the Holy Spirit present all the time for believers but the Holy Spirit has some very important roles perform. One of these is taught here today.
The Holy Spirit is often called the SPIRIT OF TRUTH and this is from John 14:16-17, the CEV above does not use that language but the NIV does... John 14:17 "the Spirit of truth...".
The Holy Spirit as John 14:26 tells us will help us to know the truth, the truths Jesus taught and lived and truths about God that we need to know to do his work.
This is a vital role and work of the Spirit becuase so often we are deceived and tricked by sin and cannot see the truth. It is comforting to know that there will always be someone there to whisper in my ear truth when I need to hear.
QUESTIONS (5 mins)
Kids can ask the leaders any questions to do with today’s topic
Be open with the kids ond try and answer what questions they have. It is ok to say " I don't know" but follow it with "but I will find out for you next week".
This is a huge stretching time for you as a leader. Kids will ask some tough questions and if you don't know you will need to research and find out, and RiCO will be there to help along the way.
PRAY (5 mins)
Pray about whats going on in their lives and about what we talked about today?The kids and even yourself could quite possible be a little confused and wondering if this is true, or maybe they wont understand. This is ok, it happens often.
Pray and ask that God would help us to understand what his word is saying and that he would protect and help us this week.Thanks for reading. You will be amazed how much it will help in your small Group now that you have spent time in God's word, preparing to change lives in your small group.
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