God is Good all the Time

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Welcome the children.

God is rapt in us. Now have fun being wrapped up.

Have fun playing ‘Rapt in Us’…

Lesson Content

Talk to the children about God’s love.

Questions for the children…

• Who can think of a time when Mum or Dad or Grandma or Grandpa sang to you when you were little? Maybe silly, made up songs?
• Or played fun games with you that made you feel really specially loved?

There is a section in the Bible that tells us that God loves you so much that He feels like singing over you. This part of the Bible has messages from God. He told these messages to people He picked out, messengers He gave amazing messages to. The name the Bible gives to these messengers is ‘Prophets’. God told them what He is like and what His plans are. Get one of the children to read Zephaniah 3: 17.

If God feels like singing over us, He must feel in such a goodness mood just being with us.

For children to find…

• the ‘Messages and Messengers’ section in the Bible chart

Believing God is good, good, good always and forever is the building foundation block for everything Jesus came to tell us about God. That’s why it’s the starting point  for us.

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Talk to the children about how God loves spending time with them. Relate it to their worlds… Mums and Dads often plan fun times together with their children to show their goodness towards them, to let them know they love being with them, like picnics.

Questions for children…

• Can you think of some fun times you have had with your family? What were they?

Picnic time: have fun on a picnic with delicious food. Get used to feeling God’s goodness shining on you. He loves to see you having fun and enjoying the good things He planned for you.

Lesson Content

Talk to the children about God’s goodness.

Questions for the children…

For some people, they might think of goodness to just mean there is no badness there.  Does God’s goodness only mean there is no badness?

Or does God’s goodness mean it is overflowing with everything good?

Talk to the children about what it means to be filled with God’s loving goodness, that God loves you soooo much. He doesn’t let anything get in the way of His love for you. Nothing can stop Him being soooo proud of you. God wants you to experience His goodness. He wants to give you His love.

When we know how much He loves us, when we feel His goodness in us, we become more like God. His goodness in us means loving others and caring about them so much. His goodness in us means we can experience His goodness and peacefulness and feel His joy, even when things aren’t going the way we had hoped.

The Bible describes it this way. Someone reads Psalm 16: 11. This is in the ‘Songs’  section of the Bible.

For children to find…

• the ‘Songs’ section in the Bible chart

Get the children to see if they notice fullness of joy when they are in God’s presence. The more they notice Him being with them, the more they will begin to notice fullness of joy that He brings with Him.

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God loves to see you having fun and enjoying the fun things He planned for you, so have fun playing this game ‘Picnic Basket Relay’…

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Often when you have a picnic there are fun games to play.

Play Paper Hockey…

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Tell the children to find their own comfy chair or bean bag or cushion.  And to snuggle in and relax. We’re going to get to know God a little more.

Believing God is good, good, good always and forever is the building foundation block for everything Jesus came to tell us about God. That’s why it’s the starting point  for us.

God’s goodness never comes to an end. It goes on and on and on. He just gives us more when we give it away.

God wants you to experience what He’s like for yourselves.

Talk to the children about how you talk to God, about how they can talk to Him, too, and get to know Him for themselves. Talk about how much He loves them, how much He wants them to experience His goodness for themselves.

Explain to the children that we can talk to God in our mind, because He hears our thoughts as well. Sometimes it takes practice to think thoughts and talk with God. Sometimes it takes practice to wait and feel God’s goodness floating in.

Picnic baskets hold good things. God is full of goodness,  good always and forever.  Encourage the children to think of a picnic basket in their imagination, and imagine the most delicious food ever in their picnic basket. Maybe they can even imagine how delicious it smells.

Then get them to imagine God placing something wonderful in the picnic basket, to show them what His goodness is like. In their imaginations, get them to move the delicious food to the side and to look and see what God has placed there, maybe they see a picture or a word in the basket to let them know what His goodness is like.

Give the children some time to see what God shows them. Encourage them to tell God how it feels talking and spending time with Him. After a little while, if any of the children have seen and / or experienced a picture or word or feeling from God about His goodness, let them share with the others. You, as leader, could share as well what God shows you.  If anyone has felt their heart feel the joy that God’s presence brings with it, get them to share about that as well. 

Assure the children that God wants them to experience a friendship with Him. So as they continue to talk to Him they will hear and see more and more what He is like.

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Talk to the children about God’s never ending goodness about how it never comes to an end. It goes on and on and on. He just gives us more when we give it away.

Its so easy to share God’s goodness mood around, e.g. a smile to someone, giving someone a blessing from Him by saying “God bless you”, or maybe praying for someone who is sick for God to make them better. Another way might be to tell someone a funny (kind) joke to cheer them up and make them laugh. Maybe asking someone to play a game with us, etc.

He just gives us more when we give it away.

Encourage the children to ask God during the week to keep showing them what His goodness is like. Assure them that He will show them more and more. And if they get a chance to share His goodness with someone else, He will just give them more when they give it away.

His picnic basket never gets emptied.

Lesson Content

Tell the children something wonderful about themselves and give them a certificate saying how wonderful they are.

• How does it feel to receive a certificate?
• To be told how wonderful you are?

The way you feel is full of joy. God is full of joy always. Do some ‘joy-filling’, e.g.

• Have fun blowing bubbles and chasing them.
• Play their own easier version of ‘Monkey Tail M01L1R1’. Give them a string with a crayon tied at one end. Drape the string over the back of a chair. Place an empty container under where the string hangs down. The children have to try to get the string into the container.
• Or blowing pinwheels. For every smile, take a pretend photo to capture and celebrate their joyfulness.
• They can play the ‘Do you have Good Taste M01L1R2’ game with less options to taste. But have some yummy food that they can enjoy eating afterwards. Tasting yummy things but not eating is not likely to lead to joyfulness.

Let them know that God is rapt in us; being rapt in us means He thinks we’re wonderful. He loves us. But here’s another funny way to be rapt, actually ‘wrapped’ that is… They can play the ‘Rapt in Us M01L1R3’ game, without competing, just having fun wrapping themselves up in toilet paper.

Tell them that God loves to see them having fun. Let them play a game they love, like…

• ‘Statues’ or ‘Follow the Leader’, whatever is a game they enjoy.
• Let them have a turn at ‘Lucky Dip’ and join in the picnic.

Have some quieter craft activities, ready for when the older children are involved in deeper discussions or encounters. Some ideas include…

• decorating the certificate with stickers or drawings
• or a sheet with the outline of a huge picnic basket on it, for children to paste in cut-out pictures from magazines of good things

Introduce the children to talking to God. Have them tell Him that He is good. And lead them in asking God to show them what His goodness is like.