Today we want children to be reminded of Power Up from last year - that we have power through the Holy Spirit when we believe that Jesus died for our sins.

I picked two large group games to illustrate:

Shipwreck - Jesus is the authority, our Captain.

Zip, Zap, Zoom - We can pray for others because God has chosen us and given us power through Jesus.

For Small Groups (if we can manage):

We will sit in a circle staying as close to 6 ft apart as possible and review the kids' responses to the bulletin.

The basics:

Today’s Bible Story: Ephesians 1: 1-12
Today’s Bottom Line: God chooses us. He has good plans for us.

The Goal:

Give kids an opportunity to socialize with each other and their small group leaders while allowing them to be physically active and reinforce the scripture message from service as much as possible.

Ideas:

Red Light/Green Light

Duck Duck Goose

Any game of tag, relay race ect.

When you choose teams for the relay race, you could number them off 1,2,1,2 etc. and afterwards talk about how it would have felt if you'd chosen teams. Relate it back to the sermon and how God always chooses us and He chose us first.

Here is the kid's bulletin. If you are able to divide into small groups, go over the questions with your kids.

Today’s Bible Story: With a Little Help from My Friends (Four Friends Who Helped)  Mark 2:1-12
Today’s Bottom Line: God created you to work with others.
Monthly Memory Verse: LORD, you are great. You are really worthy of praise. No one can completely understand how great you are. Psalm 145:3 (NIrV)

It's difficult to plan when I don't know for certain who will be there. If my SGLs are there I will split you into your small groups.

I'm bringing the parachute, so that could be our large group time. For a quick lesson/activity related to today's story/bottom line. We will have one kid try and catapult the ball off the parachute. When that fails, we will have them all try and then say:

“When you combined your efforts and worked together, you were able to catapult the ball. [Bottom Line] God created you to work with others, and when we combine our resources and our creativity, we can do more TOGETHER than we could alone. What if you got hurt on the playground? It would be great to have a group of your friends work together to help you. One friend could stay with you while another friend got the teacher. What about cleaning up the classroom after a big art project? If you had to do it by yourself, it would take a long time. If the whole class worked together, you could get the job done so much quicker.”

As small groups, I encourage you to spread out to shaded areas. If there are two of you in a group, you can go anywhere. If it's only one adult, try to stay near another group, but again, take your chairs and go sit in the shade somewhere! There are a lot of picnic tables around the park in shade.

What You Do:

Bring your Bible and read Mark 2:1-12
• Sit in a circle.
• Challenge kids to go around the circle and name the people who made it possible for them to have breakfast that day, without repeating any of the previous people mentioned.
o Their answers might include such people as their mom, dad, relative, a dairy farmer, grocery store checkout person, doughnut shop baker, and so on.
• Continue until someone is unable to come up with a unique answer within five seconds.
• Repeat with other areas of life in which we rely on others.
• Kids can make suggestions or use ideas from the list below:
o Who made it possible for you to . . .
watch a YouTube demonstration of how to decorate a cake
wear the shoes you have on
turn on a light
text a friend
eat a pizza

What You Say:
“It’s crazy how many people are involved in making it possible for us to do something as simple as eating breakfast. Imagine what it would be like if any one of those people you mentioned decided they weren’t going to do their job or work together. We’d all be sitting here very hungry! Imagine if the paralyzed man in the story today didn't have his friends to help him?"