SS-LES-IKING-18
Sunday School ideas for:
Story: Elijah on Mt. Carmel--fire from heaven
Reference: I Kings 18
Main point: God is bigger than any other god (or enemy, or problem)
Verse:
The following ideas are grouped into categories by how they might be used in teaching the lesson. Activities to introduce the lesson would not be the same kinds of activities as those used to apply the lesson. There are several ideas for each category in the hopes that out of 3 or 4 options, one will fit your lesson and your class. So choose one activity from each category--if you try to do them all, the lesson will last for hours!
Activities for Early Birds
Ideas for introduction:
1. Show kids pictures of drought (find in library book, or on line on news sites or Google images.) Discuss what happens if it doesn't rain for 3 years--how crops fail, and thus animals and people die. Show them a cup of water and ask them if that is all the water they had, how would they take a bath with just that much water. If you used drought as an intro. last week to teach about God providing for Elijah through ravens during the 3 year drought, remind them of last week's story, and be sure to include new pictures and information about drought this week.
2. Show kids pictures of super heros and their arch enemies, and ask who is stronger or who will win. Ask them which one they would choose to follow them around and be their own private body guard to solve all their problems. (Superman, Batman, Hulk, Incredibles) (Ultra man, Doraimon, Anpanman, etc.) Tell them that today's story is about an epic battle between the one true God and the prophets of the god, Baal.
3. Get a picture book about weather (with cloud pictures) out of the library and use it to teach the kids about identifying the kinds of clouds and how to use that for weather prediction. Or get cloud pictures off the internet and ask them questions about clouds to see what they already know about weather prediction from their own experience. Ask them if they have ever seen rain coming out of a cloud, and then change angles. Tell t hem that in today's story, a man used a cloud to predict a big change in the weather (maybe you could call him the first weather man!?)
Ideas for telling the Bible story:
1. Study about the gods Baal and Asherah so you can explain what a terrible god Satan is. Also study the awful things King Ahab and his wife Jezebel did so you can better fill in the details of the context in which this story took place. To show the kids how fast Elijah ran to outrun Ahab's horses, it might be helpful to compare Usain Bolt who ran a very short race at 23 miles per hour (37kilometers per hour) to break the world record, where as the fastest race horse, Secretariate ran at 37 miles per hour. From Mt. Carmel to Jezreel is approximately
2. Re-enact the story in miniature: Use a planter bottom or plastic tray and fill it with potting soil. Use a smaller planter bottom or plastic tub cut short (such as what coolwhip or margarine comes in.) Press it into the larger tray and fill it with dirt, too. The smaller tray should not show. Glue rocks together to make a miniature altar and put it on top of the smaller tray of dirt.. Let the kids dig a ditch around the altar (inside the smaller tray), and then use 4 small buckets (paper cups) to pour water over the altar 3 times (for a total of 12 buckets worth of water) you can put small bits of wood on the altar before you douse it with water, and try to light it to show them how impossible it is to light wet wood. Send fire from heaven made of paper or EVA foam. Hold it in front of the altar as you remove the whole small tray so nothing is left but a ditch in the larger tray of dirt., then remove the fire, too. What an amazing God that not only can burn up wet wood and the animal sacrifice, but also burned up the water, rocks, and dirt, too!! No wonder all the people fell down and yelled, "The Lord--he is God!!" It must have been spectacular! If your class is too large to see this, you can take pictures of it and make it into a powerpoint. I have tried to think how to depict the prophets, but there were so many people that I have not figured out a good way to do that. There were 850 priests, and enough people who were convinced they were fakes by the demonstration of God's power, to be able to arrest the priests and kill them. That would be a LOT of wooden clothes pins or toy soldiers!!
view photos
Ideas for reenforcement activities:
1. Play a game to review the story
view game questions for this story
view downloadable game boards
Ideas for application:
1. Write the word "God" as big as you can on as big a piece of paper as you can find. (you can use poster board, or foamcore (sold at Daiso) or tape several peices of paper together.) On the back of the paper, write the word "god" very small. Explain how worry is the opposite of trust. Show them the side with "God" written small, and tell them that when they worry, they are really saying that God is not big enough to solve their problems. Then turn the paper over and show them the big side. Explain that if they realize how powerful God is, and how there is nothing he can't do, they won't worry at all.
2. Ask them about good luck charms, then tell them how they don't need them if they follow God because they are already on the winning team--there is no one who comes even close--even if they made all the bad guys on the bad team against God, their combined strength is not strong enough to conquer God.
3. Get out the pictures of the super heros again and point out how God is way stronger than any of these guys, as a matter of fact, there is no one who can beat God. He is also bigger than any enemy or problem they might encounter. It's like having your own super hero body guard, only better because this one loves you enough to die for you.
4. Give each child a rock to remind them that the God they serve can even make rocks burn up--their little problems are nothing compared to that!
