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Free Sunday School lessons on line - from Flinders Christian Fellowship
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Find links below for other Sunday School resources
| Sunday school lesson The Armour of God |
| Teaching our children how to live the victorious Christian Life All of God's soldiers need protection from the enemy, the teaching of Ephesians is a good starting point for Children to understand how God protects us and how we can fight the good fight of faith |
Lesson 1 - We don't fight against each other Teacher/Parent notes Ephesians 6:10ff Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so tht you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood (people) but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and agianst spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Too often in todays world christians battle against each other or against people in other faiths. Paul is trying to teach us that we are not to fight with each other physically, we are to fight against the schemes and tricks of the spiritual dark forces that inhabit this world and even places in the heavenly realm. Obviously this battle is often fought in our mind. For what we think affects what we do. What we believe about God will affect our ability to live victoriously. Trying to teach children about spiritual powers is not always easy, but it is necessary as each child who is Christian wiil face opposition from the enemy - Satan. 2 Corinthians 10:3ff explains the idea of who we war against. "For though we live in the world we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. See here that Paul is talking about strongholds and arguments. These are weapons of the enemy that deal with our mind. Satan sets up thoughts, belief patterns in people that are contrary to the truth of God. We see this right in the begining in the Book of Genesis. Satan tricked Eve by twisting the truth, by subtley attacking what God said. Satan also sets up worldly kingdoms that are not God honouring. We can see this in countries where genocide, dictatorship and corruption exists in Government. Or how about the Kingdom of the "Entertainment Industry" - where blasphemy, pornography, violence are dished out daily to our families. If we live in this enviroment it will impact on how we think, and what we think influences our actions. The only remedy is to combat this with feeding on the word of God. Our focus for our children in Sunday School is how to fight personally for their faith. We want to enable them to grow in the knowledge of God so they can tell what is of God and what is not. Each week we made one piece of the armour and talked about what the particular piece of armour was used for in real life and what it corresponded to in Christian terms. For example the breastplate keeps our heart safe, our hearts without Jesus are attacked and blackend by sin but with the righteousness of Jesus they are safe and washed clean. We made note that most of the armour was for protection it keeps us safe. We also used some modern day equivalents to the armour like the PPE - personal protection equipment that emergency service and Fire Service use. One piece of armour is specifically for fighting - The sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. It "cuts up the enemies plans and strategies" it slices up the lies the Devil tells us with the Truth God reveals to us in His Word. We also noted that the Shield of Faith whilst protective could also be used as a weapon. Knights of old and Roman soldiers used it to push others away and to whack them. When we have dropped our sword or are to tired to wield it we can use our unshakeable faith to wack the enemy Games idea: Make up a large shield - poster size. Print out the sripture in large words and cut up into several pieaces. Stick onto the shield. Next cut up the shield into 'jigsaw pieces' and hide around the room. Have a treasure hunt and then get the kids to fit the pieces togther to discover the verse for the day. |
| These pictures print much nicer than they appear in the gallery above. To print a picture select which one you want, then set up page requirements. They are all created to be printed on A4. Some pictures are quite large and will require you to adjust print margins to minimum. We made these so the little kids could actually put them on. Always preview your print before printing to make sure they fit the page. Some may need landscape instead of portrait. Permission is granted for use in Sunday School and private home. They remain the property of www.outbackjack.info. No permission is granted for comercial use, or for use on other websites. If you want to share them then you may put this link into your site. No 'hotlinking' please. |
Sunday School activity - Word Search for Ephesians 6 Put on the armor of God HERE
Word Search for Romans 8 Life Through the Spirit HERE
Word Double Puzzle Ephesians 6 HERE
Word Search for Romans 8 Life Through the Spirit HERE
Word Double Puzzle Ephesians 6 HERE
Free colour in pictures Learn about Bush Tucker Why Pray ? Outback Kids Christian Thought today Outback Kitchen
Outback Jack
Running a Sunday School can at times be a daunting task, especially if you have mixed ages in your group. How do you keep the sessions fun, engaging and full of the Truth of God all at the same time? Stucture and organization is the key. Children like to have routines but at the same time they also enjoy 'surprises'. We have found that having the Sunday School Session broken into 4 x 15 min sessions works well.
We start our morning off with worship and prayer. We select songs that match the scripture theme and ones that can have actions to them. The actions help little ones to engage and remember the song. We then have prayer time, encouraging each to add their prayers.
Next comes games time. Having a couple of games helps burn off some energy - esp. for the boys and it also helps the children to intergrate with each other. The leaders join in too! We often try to think of a game which fits in with the scripture. For example we had a game where each person has to follow the leader balancing a table tennins ball on top of a foam cup. If you drop yours you go to the back of the line. We matched this game with Matthew 4:19 Come follow me... I also often have a game that physically includes the scripture. For the above Bible verse we made some colourful fish each with some of the scripture on them (you can get the pictures the HERE). We put metal paper clips on them and had a 'fishing competition' (with rods that had magnets), to see who caught the most. Then they had to put the fish in order to discover the verse.
After this comes Bible story time where we fit the scripture into a story, sometimes straight reading from the Bible narrative, sometimes put into our own words as well.
We finish off with an activity where we make, draw or colour something that fits with the overall theme. We have found so far that this format is working very well.
If you have any ideas about Sunday School share them with us jackie@outbackjack.info
We start our morning off with worship and prayer. We select songs that match the scripture theme and ones that can have actions to them. The actions help little ones to engage and remember the song. We then have prayer time, encouraging each to add their prayers.
Next comes games time. Having a couple of games helps burn off some energy - esp. for the boys and it also helps the children to intergrate with each other. The leaders join in too! We often try to think of a game which fits in with the scripture. For example we had a game where each person has to follow the leader balancing a table tennins ball on top of a foam cup. If you drop yours you go to the back of the line. We matched this game with Matthew 4:19 Come follow me... I also often have a game that physically includes the scripture. For the above Bible verse we made some colourful fish each with some of the scripture on them (you can get the pictures the HERE). We put metal paper clips on them and had a 'fishing competition' (with rods that had magnets), to see who caught the most. Then they had to put the fish in order to discover the verse.
After this comes Bible story time where we fit the scripture into a story, sometimes straight reading from the Bible narrative, sometimes put into our own words as well.
We finish off with an activity where we make, draw or colour something that fits with the overall theme. We have found so far that this format is working very well.
If you have any ideas about Sunday School share them with us jackie@outbackjack.info