This video is a visual telling of the gospel.  It’s great, engaging, and clearly communicates the gospel message.  We suggest that you use it toward the end of the study, then wrap it up with some questions like…

How is this video like the story of the son in the story that ran away?

Where did you see God’s love in this video?

Who is someone you could share this video with? (text your students this link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGlx11BxF24 and encourage them to share it with some friends and ask them what they thought)

This is a great message that communicates God’s love to us through scripture. It may be a little slow for some groups so preview it first. But, the message in it may be just what some of our students need to hear.

– Dawn Michal

Description of Idea

The Bible Project always does such a great job of making videos that explain Biblical concepts.

Hand each group a roll of toilet paper with the instruction that each person is to “tear off between 1 and 3 sheets, as much as he/she needs” with no clarification. Once everyone has their tp squares, each person must tell a way God shows His love to them for every square of tp they tore off.

This short video clearly communicates what sin is and why it is a problem for us.

– Mark Michal

This video goes really well with this study. One caveat would be to say that it’s not just “sins” that make us unclean (that is the things we do) but “sin” (our very nature of rebellion against God that we are born with).

submitted by Mark Fairchild

I like to use a game or activity at the start that adds something to the lesson rather than just being their for fun so for this one I used a game where kids had to try to get something into or onto a target- Nerf guns to knock down paper cups or just paper rolled up and all try to throw it into the waste basket at front of the room. The point- missing the mark – that’s sin, when we miss Gods mark of perfection.

Imagine we all went to the beach in California and tried to swim to Hawaii. I’m a terrible swimmer, so I would swim 20 feet and drown. A good swimmer might swim a few miles. An Olympic champ swimmer, like Michael Phelps might swim 50 miles. But no one would make it because it’s over 2,000 miles to Hawaii.

In the same way, the chance that we can be good enough for God is zero.  But God sent a BOAT. It’s Jesus. He invites us to get on the boat and he will get us there. Not by our own strength or wisdom or anything — just putting our trust in Him, knowing He is the only way to get there.

Experience the difficulty of trusting someone with a Trust Fall. Use the video to help explain how to conduct a Trust Fall. Discuss what is was like to fall back. How did it feel to let go and believe someone would catch you?

Supplies: Blindfolds. Do you want to develop some trust within your group? Try this one! 

Create an obstacle course (a playground works GREAT) and get your students or leaders to go through it working in pairs. One person is blindfolded and the other (helper) is not. The helper can only lead their blindfolded partner through the obstacle course by using their voice. No touching is permitted! For safety, have “floaters” placed along the obstacle course helping as needed.