Not Good Enough

Acts 10:1-33

We re-told the story of Peter going to visit Cornelius and the spread of the gospel to the Gentiles as a result. We talked about how no matter how charitable someone is, how kind they are to others, how often they go to church, or how many good deeds they do, it is never good enough to get them into heaven. Like our hard-boiled eggs lesson a while back, we reminded the kids that looks can be deceiving and talk is cheap. We cannot judge someone's spirituality by their outward appearance, actions, or even what they say. Even Satan knows Scripture!

To demonstrate this, we had two identical tin containers. We put packing peanuts into one, each peanut representing some good work, thing said, or action that made the person "appear" Christian. The container filled up very fast and we told the kids that some people see their salvation bank account this way...."I'll get to heaven if only I keep this full and even overflowing." Then we pulled out the other container and told the kids that it represented our salvation account, but with Jesus as the banker. What the kids did not know was that we had an inch of acetone in the bottom of the container, which instantly dissolves packing peanuts on contact. No matter how many good works, actions, and Christian speech we put in the account, it never filled up! It just kept dwindling, as if there were a leak in the can!

And that's because no amount of good deeds, actions, or words on behalf of anyone will ever make him or her good enough to get into heaven. There is only ONE way...salvation through a real and personal relationship with Jesus Christ...and not by anything we could ever do or say, but only through His sacrifice on the cross for us. We talked about the importance of not judging others based on where they are spiritually or otherwise too and how, after tonight's lesson, very important it is to be bold in their witness for Jesus Christ.

We worked on Billie art tonight also for Bites for Billie, as well as decorated our own ZG cups tonight for snack time. We decided to invest in these after realizing we were using almost 60 styrofoam cups a week! Now we have permanent and personalized cups we can rinse out each week and reuse.

Surrendering Self

It was our final night of the Francis Chan Surrender series and we talked about surrendering ourselves to Christ. We started with this great DVD short you just watched about dying to ourselves for the sake of ministering to others. Very powerful message for all of us. Francis reminded us of just how short our lives on earth are in comparison to eternity and how no one is too young to serve and make a difference. We were all challenged to become "traders", trade our own hearts' desires and self-seeking ways for the desires of Christ and His heart for us to give ourselves away for His glory.

Surrender Sin

We kept both groups together for the majority of tonight to talk about this topic of surrendering sin. We started with a simple game/activity where the kids broke up into teams and each team was given a 6" strip of packaging tape. They then had exactly one minute to get as much dust, lint, and dirt as possible on that tape, using only their clothing! We were the judges then to determine which team's tape was the dirtiest. The point of the game was to teach the kids that one thing they would be learning tonight was how sin is kind of "sticky". It tends to pick up other sins along the way. We might think we're containing it, controlling it...but it often affects us in ways we don't anticipate. We talked a little about how one "small" sin can tend to lead to another and another until it's completely out of control.

Next, we did a little experiment. We lit a candle and told the kids it represented sin. We also had a bag of balloons and told the kids they represented us and our relationship with God before we were believers. If the balloon breaks, our relationship with God is damaged. We told the kids then to begin naming sins. For each sin, we held a balloon to the candle and watched as it popped. Then we passed the popped balloons out to the kids and asked them to "fix" them. The kids quickly learned that they couldn't fix the balloons anymore than they could "fix" their relationships with Christ all on their own. We talked about how in Romans 3:23, it says that ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and that, if it weren't for the blood of Jesus Christ shed for our sins on the cross, none of us would stand a chance at a repaired relationship with our Savior. And sin not only destroys our relationship with God. It destroys us.

Next, we pulled out a balloon that was filled with water and represented a person who had put their trust in Christ as their Savior and was now full of the Holy Spirit, the living water. Like nonbelievers, Christians still sin. Just because they have a relationship with Jesus, doesn't mean that they stop sinning or can't do things that can hurt their relationship with Christ. But we showed the kids what happens when Christians sin. We held the water balloon over the open flame and guess what? It NEVER popped!! Because of the Holy Spirit in us, the open flame of sin can no longer destroy us. Not to say that sin cannot hurt our relationship with Christ...and we demonstrated that by showing how black the bottom of the balloon turned from the flame. But Christians, if repentant (turning a full 180 degrees from their sins), are forgiven and their relationship with their Savior restored. Using a wet washcloth, we completely wiped the black soot from the bottom of the water balloon to show the balloon (Christian) completely restored.

Then we had our DVD object lesson time. We had two DVD's to watch this time. First, we watched the opening 6 minutes of Megamind. We asked the kids to pay attention to all the differences between Megamind and Metroman as they watched: their upbringing, their experiences, their thoughts, their abilities, their decisions.

Megamind begins on a fireign planet that's doomed to destruction. He claims to be from a "broken home" and was only 8-days-old when he was separated from his parents. As his survival pod rockets across space, he bumps into another baby (Metroman). Both babies land on earth. Metroman lands in the lap of luxury and Megamind in a prison. In prison, Megamind is taught lies by the crooks behind bars. Even when he does go to school, he doesn't fit in. He's always picked last and often picked on. Throughtout his life, Megamind constantly compares himself to Metroman and discovers that "being bad is the one thing I'm good at". He concludes that he might as well work at being the "baddest boy of them all". Now he begins to terrorize the school kids and teacher.

We discussed with the kids then the differences in the upbringings of Megamind and Metroman and asked them if they thought that's why each turned to the good or evil they turned to. We talked then about how, no matter what our circumstances are as kids and the homes we're raised in, God is still in control, still sovereign. He uses ALL things in our lives to mold and shape us into who we are, and ultimately, He created us in His likeness and to be reflectors of His glory. We are the ones who choose to either learn from those circumstances we're raised in and seek God to escape them or become "victim's" of them and blame all of our faults and bad choices on those circumstances.

Next came The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King. Mr. Elliot took over here because we have not seen any of those movies...yet! The clip they saw took place at the end of the movie. Frodo and Sam have made it to the edge of Mt. Doom and Froda has the opportunity to throw the ring into the fires below...something that has been a curse to him for a long time. Sam urges Frodo to destroy the ring, but Frodo hesitates. The scene ends with Frodo putting the ring on, making him invisible. Knowing the location of the ring, the Nazguls stop in midair and begin flying back toward Frodo.

The application? Sometimes we allow things to creep into our lives that don’t belong there—-temptations, habits or desires we knew to be dangerous, something that maybe we even swore we would never let affect us. But before we know it, we are enticed by it. We want it, just like Frodo wants the Ring. His “accountability buddy” Sam urges him to destroy it. But Frodo doesn’t want to get rid of it; he has grown to like it too much, and now he wants to keep it, much like habits or temptations that we tell ourselves we can handle or get rid of, but we’re too weak to battle by ourselves.

Overall, tonight was packed full of valuable lessons about sin...and only a few! Oh if only we learned every one of the lessons God wants us to learn about sin before we fall into its snare!

PJ Night

Tonight was also PJ night and so the kids came extra comfy in their most stylin' PJ's!!

Surrender Status

Tonight we talked about surrendering status, as Francis Chan helped the kids see that what people think of them is not more important than what God thinks of them. And that elevating the status of God is more important than elevating their own status. It's such a broad range of kids when we have homeschoolers mixed with public school kids. The homeschool kids can care less about status or being popular because they are not in an environment where it matters. But the honesty of the public school kids about their status, whether or not they care about their popularity and try to change their status, and how their status makes them feel....it was very powerful and made for some rich conversation.

Mr. Wes got Mr. Elliot, Mrs. Tara, and Mr. John to act out a situation as well that helped the kids see how very different people in a similar situation can be and act.

Here's the DVD short the kids saw tonight before watching Francis Chan.

Surrender Stuff

I've been working on uploading the video short the kids saw as a prelude to Francis Chan's Surrender Stuff DVD last week and finally figured it out! This is a comical short on surrendering our obsession with stuff. It's a parody on the Fox hit TV show from several years ago called 24. Jack Bauer is a counter terrorist unit agent who risks his life and the lives of those he loves as a sacrifice to protect his country from terrorists. In this parody, Jack's job skills are lagging as he has become addicted to the "stuff" of technology. Very funny!