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- Materials: A greenhouse grown rose, and a rose grown out doors (wild)
Activity:Compare the smell of the roses, as you tell the following. Roses that are grown in a hot-house are very beautiful but they don't have much of that inticing rose fragrance. Why is that? Hot houses roses don't have to develop a heavy scent to attract bees in order to flourish. They are fed, watered, and watched over by the gardener, all in perfect conditions. Roses outside face harsher conditions with the wind, rain, cold, heat, and bugs. Outside, roses must develop the strong rose scent in order to attract the bees. They are both beautiful to see and to smell. If we lived under perfect conditions, we might look beatiful, but it is those who are tempered in the heat of the Lord's oven of adversity who become beatiful spiritually.
- Materials: a can of the cheese that squeezes out. Or you could use any other object that squeezes out of the top like toothpaste or whipped cream or something like that.
Activity:Demonstrate how easy it is to squeeze out the contents from the can, then pick a volunteer and ask them to try to put the cheese back into the can. Of course it is impossible. The moral to the story is that angry or sarcastic words or derogatory names can so easily escape our mouth and then the damage is done and we have sinned. It is much more difficult and maybe impossible to fix the damage or repent for the idle or angry words.
- Materials: none needed.
Activity: (This is similar to the common "Gossip
Game") Whisper to one student a long saying and have that student whisper it to the
next student and so on until the last student hears it. Then have the last student repeat
to the class what he heard and compare it to what was originally said. You can liken this
to what happened to the scriptures threw out the apostasy and that the gospel needed to be
restored to it's entirety.
- Materials:A staircase (if none is avaliable you could do this usind a walkway crawn on the floor, of possibly a hallway)
Activity:Have your class stand at the bottom of a staircase and you are at the top. Challenge any one of them to find a way to get to the top of the stairs without touching the stairs or the rails or the walls. Tell them there is a solution. If no one figures it out, then go to the bottom and have someone piggy back on you and carry them up the stairs. The lesson in this could be several different things. Teamwork, service, doing for others what they can't do for themselves, our missions in life are to help and lift others. The other message is the mission of Jesus, how he is the one to carry us up the stairs, we can't do it ourselves. What the atonement is.
- Materials: Several
heave objects (books, bricks, etc.) label each object with a sin that may be pertinent to
the lives of your students (optional)
Activity:Ask one student to volunteer. One by one
stack the heavy objects in the volunteers arms as you tell everyone about the sin
represented by each object. Have that student hold all of your heavy objects while you
explain to the rest of the class that when we do things that we know are wrong they build
up inside us to become a very heavy burden (use your own words to explain this concept at
a level your students will understand.) As the volunteer begins to demonstrate the strain
he is experiencing from holding all the "sins", explain that while God knew we
would all sin at some time in our lives. He has provided a way that we can get rid of the
burden those sins cause. Explain that through the sacrifices Christ made in the garden of
gesthemane we can in a sense give the burden of our sins to him and lighten our load.
Explain that this is done through repentance. As you talk about repentance take the heavy
objects one by one away from your volunteer. When you have removed all of the
"sins", ask that person to tell what it feels like to be free of his heavy load.
- Materials: Several
onions (the more the better)
One lemon
Activity:Ask one student to volunteer who will be
somewhat daring without telling them what they will be doing (or you might not get a
volunteer). Hold up one onion, and explain that over our lifetime we all sin.
Every sin we make will eventually have to be paid for, because God is a just God. And with
each of his laws is a consequence. Tell the class that the onion represents the payment
that must be made for the sins we may make in our lives. Ask the volunteer to eat the
onion. Wait until he/she takes a bite of the onion. Try to encourage a disgusted reaction,
if you don't just naturally get one. Then pull out the rest of the onions for display.
Explain that even though just one sin tasted bad, most of us over our lifetime will aquire
many sins and will have to eat many onions. Tell your volunteer that because most of us
make many sins over a lifetime he/she will need to continue to eat all of the onions. Ask
your volunteer how he/she feels about doing that. Ask him/her if he would prefer that you
ate all the onions for him, so that he would not have to. Your volunteer should agree that
it would be better if you finished eating the onions.
Agree that you will not make him/her finish the onions, if he will eat just one lemon
instead. Your volunteer should agree to those terms. Explain that the lemon represents
repentance. And that like the lemon repenting can seem to taste sour (have your volunteer
eat the lemon) but it tastes much better than the alternative of eating all the onions
ourselves. Explain that just as you agreed to take the onions yourself so that your
volunteer would not have to eat them, Christ has agreed to pay for our sins so that we do
not have to do it ourselves. And just as you asked your volunteer to eat a lemon in
return, Christ also asks us to repent as a part of the deal. Although repenting may seem
sour, it is better than the alternative. Repenting cleanses our soul, and the lemon will
cleanse the mouth of your volunteer, so he/she wont continue to smell like onions or have
that bad onion taste in his mouth.
- Materials: A card
listing a sin for all but one of your students.
Activity:Give a "sin card" to all but one of
your students. Have them sit in a circle with the student who does not have a card in the
center. Explain that for the purpose of our activity the person in the center represents
Christ.
Start with one student having them read the sin on their card. Then ask him/her if they
would like to pay for that sin themselves, or if they would like the student representing
Christ pay for that sin. To pay for a sin the students do several push up's. The students
will most likely want to get out of doing push up's so they will want to have the student
representing Christ pay for the sin for them. After a few students have read there card
and the student in the center of the circle has done several dozen push up's try and get
one student to take pity on the student in the center and pay for there sin themselves.
When this happens let the student with the card do some push up's and then instruct the
student representing Christ to do some more push up's too. Then explain to the students
that the sins of the world have already been suffered for by Christ and that if you don't
repent and let the atoning sacrifice work for them then you not only suffer for your sins
but Christ also suffers still.
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