Sunday 15th November 2020 - Citizens of God's Kingdom
Living as Citizens of God’s Kingdom
Worship:
Have a good old boogie and worship along to ‘Build Your Kingdom Here’ by Rend Collective with the following video, or learn the actions with Jude and Naomi in the WellKids Video.
Word:
Opening question - What examples can you give from the Bible of Jesus helping others?
Hopefully, you can think of lots of different ways - from healing the sick, providing food for the hungry, the story of the Good Samaritan (who helped the injured man, even paying for his food and bed for the night), caring for the outcasts (the people who were seen as unsafe or unclean - lepers, widows, homeless etc), even turning water into wine for the thirsty at a wedding celebration!
Read Matthew 25 verses 31 - 40 (with older children you may want to read on to the end of the chapter) and talk about what it means with your family. A helpful little video to help you understand the Parable of the goats and sheep can be found here:
Some questions to think about together:
- Have you ever needed help and didn’t get any? How did that feel?
- Have you ever helped a friend or even someone that you didn’t know?
- How can we as a church help people we know and people we don’t know?
- How can you as a family help people we know and people we don’t know? (Talk about keeping safe here.)
- What do you think Jesus means in verse 40 when He says “I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!”?
Jesus lives in us when we choose to follow Him. Jesus loves us all, He is with us always and each one of us reflects Jesus to the world with every word, smile and action. Jesus says that helping others is the same as helping Him! God’s Kingdom is one of justice and fairness and wholeness - for EVERYONE, so let’s all try to play our part to make sure that EVERYONE knows God loves them! We can choose to partner with God, with the help of Holy Spirit to help those in need and by doing so, help Jesus. This is how we live as citizens of God’s Kingdom.
Activity Suggestions:
Under 5’s
Print out the sheep outline (available in the separate PDF), or draw your own. Talk with your child(ren) about what it means to ‘help’ people. Write inside the sheep ways that you as a family might help each other and others in need.
Decorate / colour your sheep!
5 to 11’s
Create a ‘passport’ to help you reflect on how to live as a citizen of God’s Kingdom.
1) Print out the ‘Passport PDF’. Fold in half lengthways, then in half the other way to create a little booklet.
2) Come up with an image to draw in the circle on the front of the passport to represent God’s Kingdom.
3) On page 2, write/draw places/people where you see need.
4) On page 3, write/draw ways that you might be able to help, pray or support people in need with the help of your family of others from The Well.
5) On page 4, write/draw a prayer for those in need - remember that praying is one of the most helpful things we can do! Praying will help those we don’t know how to help practically.
Reflection:
Prayer walking
How about trying out prayer walking as a family? As part of your daily exercise, go for a walk and as you walk pray about things you see, people who come to mind, needs you are aware of, the community in which you live, for more of Jesus’ Kingdom to come here on earth etc.