Nov. 4th and 5th

Big Idea: Every good and perfect gift is from God

Key verse: James 1: 17 "Whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God above, who created all heaven's lights. Unlike them, He never changes or casts shifing shadows."

Thoughts: (from Terry) "God is personified as 'good;' He is the fountain to all that is good, for goodness originates with Him. God gives by creating heaven and Earth; God gives by sending His Son; God gives by pouring our His Holy Spirit to His children; The gifts God makes available to His people are good and perfect-everyone of them. They include spiritual and material. James talks about gifts, but also talks about the GIVER, GOD HIMSELF.
"Light"- (1 John 1:5) Unchanging - (Malachi 3:6)"

Oct. 28 and 29

Big Idea: God doesn't tempt anyone to do wrong.

Key Verse: James 1:13 "And remember, no one who wants to do wrong should ever say, 'God is tempting me.' God is never tempted to do wrong, and He never tempts anyone else either."

Initial Thoughts: This statement begs the question: Who is the tempter then? The garden story, Job, and the story of Jesus' tempations would be very applicable here. In every case its Satan who tempts not God. However, God was there and available in every situation. We want to encourage you all to read through these stories to find out what God is doing, where is He when we are being tempted? We don't want to focus on Satan even though its the focusing on negative (Satan is the tempter). We want the focus to always be directly about God, like: 'God is...' 'God wants...'. This is why we need to present the character of God and what His relationship is to our temptations.

1 Cor. 10:12,13 is another verse to meditate on.

October 21 and 22

Big Idea: We can trust God when bad things happen!

Key Verse: Romans 8:28

Thoughts: Other verses: James 1:2-4, 12; Romans 5: 3-5. Pretty much a kid may go through real trials when they are young (i.e. parents divorce) but to them, they think that things aren't going their way. We know that we really trust God when we are okay when things don't go our way or maybe things just don't happen they way we expected it to happen. Any child can relate to things not happening either the way they wanted or expected (sometimes its evident right away that it was better that something didn't go our way and somethimes it takes time). What we want the kids to understand is that God will always make things turn out for the best because He both all powerful and all good!

October 14-15

Big Idea: God made serving him fun!

Key verse: Eph. 2:10 "For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago."


Initial thoughts: We want to communicate how much fun we have when we serve God. This is our purpose: to serve God! And its a blast! Just like a phone's purpose is to make/receive calls, our (every human's) purpose is to serve God, which is fun. For the small group time we want the kids to realize that they serve God by serving people ("do the good things"). It may be weird to think about, but according to the Bible the way we serve God is by serving people. The first 4 of the 10 commandments in Ex. 20 focus on putting God first, then the last 6 are about how a person putting God first will treat other people (also see Matt. 25:34-46 for how people are judged). And when we serve people "as to the Lord," not selfishly it is so much fun. This is why it is so key for the kids to see the joy we get by serving them!

10/7;10/8

Big Idea: God wants us to be the light of the world!

Verse: Matt. 5:16