Matthew 18

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Book of Matthew: Chapter 18

Lost Sheep (Matthew 18:10-14)

The parable of the lost sheep can also be found in Luke 15:1-7

Activities

Sensory Play (Flame Creative Kids)
Storytelling Idea (Faith Sprouts)
Sheep Mask (Danya Banya)
Minute to Win it Cotton Ball Game (Holly's Home)
Sheep Snack (Who's the Farris)
Balloon Herding (Joyful Mama's Place)
Pompom Sheep (One Little Project)

Quick Questions

Why did Jesus tell the story of the lost sheep?
Who do you think the lost sheep is meant to be?
Who is the shepherd meant to be?
What are some ways that you can be Jesus to people who don’t know him?
What makes it difficult to talk about Jesus to your friends?

Some of the images from this video can be downloaded here (in the 'additional files' menu under the video)

Building bridges (Matthew 18:15-20)

In our Gospel reading Jesus teaches about how to deal with conflict and disagreements

Bible Story

Joining the lectionary dots

A story about living in harmony which can be found on Sermons 4 Kids.

Children's talk - a talk from Storybox

Has a friend ever hurt you by something that they did? What was that like? (pause for discussion) It isn’t very nice when people hurt us by what they say or do, particularly if they are our friends. It can leave you feeling hurt or angry, and unsure of your friendship towards that person. It’s even worse if it doesn’t get sorted out. We can lose good friends that way.

In today’s story, Jesus gives us some good advice for how to sort out our conflicts with other people. Right at the start Jesus tells us to go and talk to the person about it. do you sort out your problems with friends? (pause)

We need to treasure our friendships and work at keeping them healthy by reminding people that we care about how much they mean to us so that when we do have problems we feel more able to sort them out.

Game - getting in order

Preparation: nothing

What you need: a circle of chairs

What to do: get the children to stand on the chairs. Explain that you will give the children a topic eg birth date. You will then nominate which seat is the starting chair and the children have to then get in order without talking and without touching the ground. When they think they have done it, check. If they talk or stand on the ground, they have to start again!
Topics you could use: birth date, street number, height, last name, pet’s name.

Game - rob the nest game

Topic: This game could help you introduce the topic of what it feels like to work with or against others.

Equipment: A hula-hoop per team and one for the center, 10-20 small objects/balls/bean-bags

Instructions:

Put one hula-hoop in the middle as the central nest, fill this with all the balls
Place the other hula-hoops/"nests" at equal distance away from the centre-hoop
Split group into teams of 3-5 people and have them stand around their "nest"
Explain to the children that their job is to be the team at the end with the most balls/"eggs" in their nest
On the count of 3 children are able (one at a time from their team) to raid the central nest and fill their team nest
Once the central-nest is emptied their job is to raid other groups and take their balls/"eggs" back to their home nest
Let the game "play" for a few minutes before blowing the whistle at which point all team members must return to their nests. Count up the balls and see which team has managed to rob the most.

Rob the Nest Reverse: As an alternative, start the game as normal with teams raiding the central nest but then have the children give the eggs to the other teams...still the team with the most eggs in their nest will be the winners at the end...the aim is to out-give others.

Possible debrief questions: How did it feel to have items taken from your team nest? How did you feel doing the robbing? Which version of the game did you enjoy the most? To the winning team...how did it feel to win even though you didn't you didn't fill your nest for yourself?

Linking today's Matthew passage on conflict to the one on Romans on love, shows how beautifully the lectionary can work together.

We are connected prayer

Equipment: Pre-cut out strips of paper chain people (found in most $ stores) or handmade strips of 3-4 paper-chain people, Pens

Have children take a strip of paper-chain people and hold it in their hands.

Get them to choose one of the people to be themselves and to think about who are the 2-3 other people from our church that they are holding hands with.

Encourage them that it could be that they are thinking of holding hands with their best friends or maybe they choose someone they've seen at church but don't know very well.

They can draw faces and clothing on the paper-chain people to represent those they are thinking of.

Explain that in today's passage we are called "brother's and sisters" with the people in our church even if they're not our real brother or sister: together we are the "family" of God.

Ask: Do you find it easy to be friends with your brothers and sisters? Do you always get along? (Listen as the children share stories)

Somebody once said that it's impossible to have an argument with someone when you are holding hands. Ask: Do you think that's true? You could even call two children up to demonstrate being angry with each other but holding both hands with the other person...they will hopefully find it very hard and most probably end up giggling!

God understands that as brothers and sisters we will have days when we get along and days when we find it hard to be friends. This is why He gave us today's instructions about talking to each other when we are not feeling happy with each other.

Take time now to pray in your heads about your paper chain people.

Children can take these home to continue to pray about or you could draw a Church or heart outline on a large piece of paper and get children to stick their paper-chain people within the church/heart outline.

Craft - friendship certificate

The activity today is a friendship certificate that you can give or post to one of your friends to remind them how much their friendship means to you. You may even like to send it to someone that you haven’t been getting on with

What you need:
A copy of the template, cardboard, glue, felts and crayons to decorate. Envelopes and stamps are an optional extra.

What to do:
Glue the template to the cardboard. Fill in the three qualities that you most appreciate about that person. Decorate!
If you are posting them, seal in an envelope with a stamp and address it.

How to use:
This activity is a good way of helping children gain good skills for maintaining healthy relationships. With older children, you may like to do some role playing of conflict resolution stuff.

friendship_certificate.pdf
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File Type:	pdf

Download File

The Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18:21-35)

Jesus talks about forgiveness, and what it means to forgive someone.

Over and over again Bible story

A story about God's forgiveness and forgiving others which can be found on the Sermons 4 Kids website.

Quick questions

Have you ever been really angry with someone? What happened?
Has anyone ever apologised to you? Have you ever apologised to someone else?
If you were the King in today’s story, would you have forgiven the first official at the beginning? Why/why not?
Do you find it easy to apologise? Why/why not?
Why do you think God wants us to forgive people? What would happen if we didn’t?
If you have forgiven someone, should you forget what they did?

What does it mean to forgive someone?

When someone says sorry to us, God calls us to forgive them. If we are able to do this when the apology occurs, we can use words like ‘I forgive you’, ‘that’s ok’ etc

Sometimes we are not ready to do this. Time is needed, both for the offender to be ready to apologise and for the victim to recieve the apology well. Sometimes the victm needs to be able to express the depth of their hurt - perhaps this needs to occur before an apology from the offender is given, so that both understand the extent of what has happened.

Deep hurts are not always easily forgotten and when they come to mind, we have a choice about how we choose to think & act. When we choose to forgive, we give the hurt to God & determine not to let it make us bitter/think badly of the offender. Sometimes, though we have chosen to forgive, our memories of the event come back to us. This does not mean we have not had an attitude of forgiveness, but rather that we need to choose to forgive again, as we see the situation through older eyes.

Primary age
Have you ever hurt someone else - with your words or what you did? Sometimes we upset someone by accident, eg when we break something that doesn’t belong to us. What’s it like to say sorry? Have you ever said sorry when you didn’t mean it? Who needs some time to calm down before they can apologise? (I do) How can you show you are sorry? How can you show you forgive someone who hurt you? When is it hard to forgive?

Teens
Who do you know that shows/has shown forgiveness?

Adults
Are you holding on to something you need to give to God? Something you are sorry about, or someone you need to forgive? Can you bring it to God this morning?

Forgiveness prayers

Prayer Spaces have two great forgiveness prayers for you to try -- Fizzy Forgiveness and Forgiveness Stones. You can find more information about them here

The unmerciful servant

Forgiveness memory verse

Although from a slightly earlier passage in Matthew, a good 'forgiveness' memory verse for this week could be:
"For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you" -- Matthew 6:14

Unforgiveness can feel like carrying around a backpack of rocks, and when we give our worries and grudges to God, he can lighten our load. This memory verse could be written out on rocks or pebbles, and rearranged as a puzzle. Once the kids are more confident with the memory verse, you can always remove different rocks and have the kids fill in the gaps.

Here is a fun retelling of the Unmerciful Servant, as told by some young kids and acted out by adults.

Forgiveness Jenga

A teaching aid for forgiveness from Mina Munns, at Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

Game - I'm sorry!

What you need: circle of chairs facing inwards

What to do: Have the children sit on the chairs and have one person in the middle. The person in the middle chooses someone in the circle. They start by going up to the person and saying ‘I need to talk to you about something.’ The person sitting down replies ‘What about?’

The person in the middle then makes up a situation involving that person that needs an apology, eg. ‘The other day when you didn’t tell me about the banana skin on the floor and then I slipped on it and everyone laughed, well I was embarrassed.’

The person sitting must then reply with as much sincerity as they can, “I’m sorry”

Now the trick is for the person in the middle to make the person sitting laugh or seem insincere by making the situation as silly and funny as they can. If the sitting person laughs or seems insincere, they swap places with the person in the middle. If they manage to say ‘I’m sorry’ sincerely, then the person in the middle must choose someone else and start with a different story.

Game - would you say "I'm sorry?"

What you need: a list of situations where you may or may not want to say ‘I’m sorry’ (see the list below for ideas)

What to do: Get all the children to stand in the middle of the room. Choose one end of the room to be ‘I’m sorry’; and the opposite end of the room to be ‘I’m not sorry’
Explain to the children that you will read out an “I” statement. The children then have ten seconds to decide whether they would be sorry or not if it had been them. Keep going as long as you wish.

Eg ‘I gave my mother a bunch of flowers’
“I kicked my best friend”
‘I helped my dad with the gardening’
‘I didn’t eat my vegetables’
‘I drew on the wallpaper with felt pen’

Craft - forgiveness crown

Craft - the forgiving king / queen

What you need: balloons, 2 large feet drawn onto an A4 sheet (joined together), bits and pieces of paper that may be useful for decorating your King/Queen, scissors, glue, tape etc

What to do:

Cut out the feet.
Blow up the balloon and tie it off. (You may need to help the younger ones with this)
Slot the feet on around the tied off end.
Attach the features and the crown. Decorate and go wild!!!!

Note: you may want to talk to the children about how the King in the story represents God. And that they can use their ‘Forgiving King/Queen’ to talk to about when they have done something wrong that they want to say sorry for. You might like to even finish off the lesson with time of prayer.