CBC Lesson from the 23rd to 29th December

                                 

The Wise Men

During the time when Jesus was born there was a very mean king who ruled the land, his name was King Herod. Remember his name, because we will talk about him later.

Soon after Jesus was born, wise men were traveling on their camels; one night they noticed a very strange star in the sky.  They knew that this star meant that the King of the Jews, the One who would save the world had been born.

When the mean King... ( what was his name again?) Herod heard this he got very worried.

He called a meeting with all the other important people in the area and asked them where this special baby had been born.  The people replied, "In Bethlehem, because they heard that one day a special person would come from there and take care of all the people."

Then King Herod called the wise men to a secret meeting and found out from them exactly where they saw the star.  He then told them, "Go and find this child.  As soon as you find him, tell me, so that I can go and worship him."

After they had spoken to the King, the wise men left to find the baby.  They didn't know exactly where the baby was, but at night they followed the star in the east.  They followed the star until it hung right over the very place where Jesus was.

When they finally had arrived they were very excited and happy.  They found Jesus laying in Mary's arms, and they bowed down and worshipped him.

After that they opened the gifts they had brought Jesus.  They were gold, frankincense and myrrh.  These were very expensive gifts, gifts that you would give to a King, not to a baby.  Mary thanked them for bringing the gifts for Jesus, and the wise men went to find a place to sleep for the night.

As the wise men were sleeping, they each had the same dream.  They were not to go back and tell King Herod where they found Jesus.  King Herod didn't want to find Jesus to worship him, he wanted to kill him because he was jealous that this baby would someday be better than him.

So the wise men went home another way so that Herod would not know where they had come from.  They also decided that they would not tell King Herod anything about what they had seen.

When the wise men had left, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream.  "Get up," the angel said, "take Jesus and Mary and run away to Egypt.  Stay there until I come to you again, because Herod is going to search for Jesus to kill him."

Joseph immediately got up and woke up Mary, and she gently picked up Jesus so he wouldn't wake from his sleep.  They left in the middle of the night for Egypt, so no one would see them.

They were safe in Egypt, and after King Herod died an angel appeared to Joseph and told him could go to a place called Nazareth.  And that's where Jesus grew up.

Ask them who they think was the real King of the Jews, King Herod, or the baby that the wise men found?  Why didn't anyone else in Israel know that the star meant that Jesus was born?  Because no one was looking and listening for God's signs.  What if God is speaking to you but you're not listening?  Then let's pray for God to help you hear His voice and see the signs He gives you so you can see the miracles you need.

Enjoy the activities and have a great week!

Let's prepare some craft of the wise man, colouring, cut and glue

CBC Lesson from the 16th to 22th December

Hi dear Biblical Educators,
 
In this two weeks we been learning a lot about the story of Gideon, why the people of Israel were hidden in caves and how Gideon overcame the Midianites. We could see his revolt, his faith, his sacrifice and the results of all of that, so this week we'll revise all of what we have been talking in CBC, we can make questions about the previous lessons and we will make a model illustrating this inspiring and true story. See bellow the examples of the models, be creative and share with all of us your work of art, all CBC's are invited to send your pictures and we'll show here in the blog.

        CBC Requests are also going to ISRAEL

BEs  don't forget to collect all the children's request,  organize it and place them inside the envelope that we prepared, you just have to print and write the name of your CBC on the front of this envelope and give it to your Pastor with all the requests inside, just to clarify each branch will print only one or two envelopes for all the requests, this isn't to give to the children.

Are you ready for your blessing?

I'm sure it's on the way.

Have a blessed week.

CBC Lesson from the 9th to 15th December

 

Have Gideon blow his trumpet (kazoo) and call all the men of Israel to prepare for battle.  Have all the kids come forward, and have Gideon say these lines:

God is calling us to fight our enemies the Midianites and to take back the land of Israel for ourselves.  These are our farms and our homes – let’s fight for our freedom!

Have all the soldiers shout “hooray!!”

Now have the angel come up next to Gideon and speak to him saying:

“God says your army is too big, you have 32,000 soldiers.”

“Too big?” says Gideon, “We’re too small!  The Midianites have 135,000!  They’ll wipe us out if we get any smaller than this!”

The angel says, “God says you have too many, Gideon.  God says to tell the soldiers that if anyone is scared to fight, they can go home.  Only the brave ones can stay.”

“Okay, soldiers,” Gideon tells the people, “Who here is scared and doesn’t want to fight?  If you don’t, you are free to go home.”

Now have more than half of the kids go back to their seats and sit down. (Later they will become the Midianite enemies in the skit.)

“God, look, I only have 10,000 soldiers left, this battle is going to be impossible to win!”

The angel answers, “God says, you STILL have too many soldiers!”

 The angel tells him, “God says, take your men down to the stream to drink, and then I’ll show you who is a good soldier and who should go home.”


The angel now says, “Look at the soldiers with their faces in the water.  Tell them to go home.  But the ones who are scooping up the water are the soldiers that God wants.”

So Gideon tells each one to go home, or to stand at attention.  He gathers all the leftover soldiers together and says,

“Men, we are just 300 soldiers, and our enemy is 134,000.  This is impossible, but we serve God.  God promised us a victory, but we’re not the ones who are going to win – it’s God’s power who is going to win.  I obey whatever God says.  Are you ready to obey God too?”

Have all the 300 shout back and salute, “YES !!”



Then have Gideon tell his soldiers to wait as he will sneak down to the enemy camp and spy on them one last time before they attack.  Have Gideon and a servant sneak into the camp of the sleeping Midianiites.


And the soldiers pretend to be afraid and hug each other (this part will be funny!:)


“When I give the signal, break your clay jars and let your torches shine bright, blow your trumpets and then shout our battle cry!” says Gideon

Have the soldiers crouch down as they stand on the chairs, and wait for Gideon’s signal.  Make sure the whole room is quiet and the Midianites have their eyes closed.
Then have Gideon stand up and pull off his paper bag, hold up his torch and blow his kazoo very loud.  Have all the 300 do the same thing, and then have them all shout, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!”

Now have the Midianites jump up afraid, and shout in fear, “It’s an attack!  It’s an attack!”  Then have the Midianites start to fight each other with their swords.  Have Gideon’s 300 rush down the mountain and chase the Midianites away to a far away country which will be the other side of the classroom they won’t get bored of it if you do it right!

Now have everybody sit down, put their torches in their pockets or in a special place so they won’t play with them again.  Promise that they can take them home with them after church is over.  Have them calm down and ask them what part of the story did they like the best.

Of course they will say, the attack! 

Don’t you think it’s crazy for only 300 men to fight 135,000?

Don’t you think it’s crazy to fight with trumpets and torches and not swords?

Why do you think the Midianites started to fight each other instead of fighting the Israelites?  Because God caused the enemy to become confused.

Are there times in your life when the problems are attacking you?  Yes, with problems in your family or in your school.
 

Can God confuse our enemies and make him run away from you?  Yes!

What did Gideon do to become so powerful?  He just obeyed.

If you want to be powerful with God’s spirit, what do you have to do?  Just obey!!

Now ask the children who want to be warriors like Gideon to stand up and come forward for a prayer.  Remind them that they can be strong like Gideon, but God can’t do anything for them if they don’t obey Him first.  They need to promise to obey God, and then the power of God will come to them.

Lead them in a prayer to become a warrior and to make a promise to God to obey Him for the rest of their lives.  When the prayer is finished, have them clap their hands in praise to God.  Now ask if anyone else would like to make a prayer request for the Israel Campaign, a difficult problem they are going through.  Remind them that Gideon wasn’t afraid to obey, so they need to have the faith and courage of Gideon to see a miracle too.  

ACTIVITIES
Coloring (Get printed sheets from your pastor wife)
The Bible Quiz (7 to 10 yrs)

How to do my torch?
Follow the steps:

CBC Lesson from the 2nd to 8th December

Hi dear Biblical Educators,

As you know we are living the faith of the campaign of Israel and CBC is in the same faith, so the lesson of this week will teach us a story of faith and courage so let us learn from it and pass it to the children,so before the lesson we'll read and understand this story and then in the class you'll tell it to the children(please don't read it to them but tell them the story). So let's start!

There was a time in the land of Israel when the people of God kept turning away from Him.  Do you know what happened to them then?  They would lose His protection and His blessings.  Do you remember a lesson where you stood inside a circle and were protected by God?  What happened when you were outside the circle?  You were attacked!! 

*BE’s make a circle with the children and add some children inside, explaining when you are inside of the circle, means you’ve been protected.
 
Well the people of Israel kept forgetting that very important lesson.  They would stay close to God for a while, obey His commandments and love Him, and they would be safe and blessed and happy.  But then some of them would look at the other gods of the other countries around them and like what they saw.  Those other people could worship false gods and still get some answers to their prayers, and they didn’t have to live a good life, they could live just any old way they wanted to and became slaves of their enemies.    
 
So when the people of God began to worship false gods, they pushed the true God away from them, and little by little all of God’s protection was gone from their lives.  Their enemies began to take over their land, their farms and animals began to die, their army became weak and no one had faith anymore to fight and defend the land of Israel that God had given them.  They became a great big shame.  But was that God’s fault?  Did He just make them suffer because He didn’t love them?  NO!! It was their own fault because they pushed God away and DIDN’T OBEY HIM anymore!!
 
That’s why obeying God is so, so, very important.  We bless ourselves when we obey.  We protect ourselves and our families and even our future when we obey God. Who would be crazy enough of disobeying? Many people all around us are doing that right now, because they don’t want to obey God.
 
One day during one of those times that Israel had pushed God away from them and worshiped false gods, there was a man named Gideon who was angry that the enemies of Israel had destroyed their land and chased them all away from their farms to live in caves in the mountains.  They were supposed to be the mighty people of God, but here they were, scared like little animals, hiding in caves.  Meanwhile their enemies, the Midianites, could just come into all of their farms and eat whatever they wanted and steal whatever they wanted.  It had been like this for seven years.

     *BE’s can ask a question to the children, If it is right to take people’s things like  toys, shoes or games without asking for it?

But who was trying to fight the Midianites?  No one.  Who was trying to repent and turn back to God and worship only Him?  No one.  No one except for Gideon.  He looked out of his cave across the valley and saw where his old farm had been.  He saw the place where he used to take the wheat to separate the seeds from the stalks.  He saw the old carved hole in the ground where they used to press the grapes to make juice and wine.  He thought to himself, “This is my land.  This is the land that God gave to us.  I’m sick and tired of hiding in a cave!  I’m going back there to see if I can find a little bit of wheat still growing on my farm and I’ll thresh it to get the seeds to grind and make flour for bread.”
 
So he sneaked back to his old farm and gathered some wheat that was still growing there, but he didn’t dare thresh it in the regular place up on the hill.    He was taking a big risk to go back there.
 
“Gideon!”  He heard a deep voice.  He looked up and saw a bright light – it was an angel of God sitting right there, talking to him!  “Gideon, the Lord is with you mighty warrior!”  said the angel.
 
Gideon was so surprised that God would send an angel to him, but he was also so angry that God’s people were suffering so much, he answered back and was a little rude: “If the Lord is with us, where are all the wonderful miracles that He used to do?”
 
Do you think God was angry because Gideon answered back?  No, not at all, God was happy that Gideon wanted God’s people to be set free so much that he even answered God in a rude way.  The angel of God was happy with what Gideon said, and then told him, “Gideon, this is your strength, go and lead God’s people to defeat the Midianites and God with be with you!”
 
“What?? Me??” said Gideon.  “But my tribe is the smallest tribe in Israel, and my family is the smallest family, and I’m the weakest man!” he said.
 
But the angel told him not to be afraid, because God had chosen him to destroy all of their enemies.  Gideon was amazed and knew he had to obey.  He felt afraid, but one thing that he knew he had to do was to OBEY. 
 
Gideon went back home amazed that he had seen an angel face to face.  That night God spoke to Gideon directly.  He said, “Gideon, this is what  I need from you.  Go to your father’s house, chop down all those statues of false gods that he has, and then offer me the strongest bull in your father’s herd, not the oldest one, but the second bull.  Burn up the bull on the wood from the chopped up idols.”
 
That was a very scary thing to do because everyone in Israel had been worshiping these false idols, even his father.  Everyone would be furious!
 
But one thing Gideon knew: he had to OBEY!!
 
So in the middle of the night, when everyone was asleep, and did exactly what God commanded.  They were showing God that He came first.  No more idols, only the One True God.
 
In the morning when all the people woke up, sure enough, they were furious!  All of a sudden God gave him favor in everyone’s eyes.  God caused the people to really respect him and want to follow him as their leader.  At that moment, Gideon became one of the great judges of Israel and led them to a great victory. 

      To be continued…

      Don't forget to ask the children to prepare their prayer requests and      bring it till the 16th of December to be sent to Israel.

      ACTIVITY  

       Every warrior need a shield so today we are making our own follow the steps:

       For this activity you will need:

      Cardboard paper

      Colorful papers Glue 

      Scissors