Children’s Church: I AM the Alpha and Omega

 

Activity: Spread out on the tables the letters of the alphabet including some characters from the Greek alphabet and ask the kids to put the letters in the correct order. (If you want to be mean you could print out the whole of the Greek alphabet and watch them scratch their heads).

After a few short puzzled moments explain that today we’re looking at what God means when he says that he is the Alpha and Omega.

Gather everyone together and explain that the Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, which is the language that the New Testament was originally written in. And what is being said here is that God is the beginning and the end, the first and the last. We could say he is the A and the Z.

Story: First few verses of Genesis ‘In the beginning God created…’ (We used The Lion Storytellers Bible)

Revelation 1. 7-8 ‘I am the alpha and omega’ (My First Message Bible has a good kids version of heaven from revelation)

Craft: Each of the kids are going to make their own timelines, making out when they where born, went to school, made friends, joined a group, fell over, went on holiday, got a pet etc. Give them each a piece of paper and get them to draw a line, at one end should be the day they were born, at the other today and in-between important events.

Before the end of the session, ask them to re-cap what you’ve been talking about, (God being beginning and end), ask the kids how many of them put God into their timelines?? God is the beginning and end, even of their own lives.

They could write it in or you could have stickers prepared.

Children’s Church: I AM the light of the world

Activity: Blindfold a volunteer (sensible one). Give then face paints, or girls make up. Sit someone opposite who will have their face made up by the blindfolded child.

Give a min or two for creativity to take place, at the end of the time, give the victim (child with make up on face) a mirror and let the blindfolded child take the blindfold off.

They should both be horrified at the sight!

Give out baby wipes so that they can clean their faces.

Activity: Give all the children a piece of paper and a pen, get them to close their eyes (no cheating) and get them to draw something familiar (a house). See how well they’re able to do it without being able to see.

Talk: Explain that that when we are in the dark it’s not easy to see and most activities become really hard. Ask if any of them have ever gone out wearing something that looks bad because they got dressed in the dark and couldn’t see what they were doing? – But in the light we can see everything that looks wrong!

Story: Find a story from a children’s bible, maybe one of the healing stories of the blind man or using John 8.12

Activity: Divide the children into small groups and give each a piece of lining paper or they could do individual sheets. Ask them to draw a line across their paper to make 2 sides. On one side they should write “light” and on the other, “Dark”. Ask them to make 2 pictures – one about light and one about dark! They could put the things people do in the light and the dark as well as what things actually look like.