Ordinary 17

30 July 2023

Bible readings for today

Genesis 29:15-28
Psalm 105:1-11,45
Psalm 128:1-6
Romans 8:26-39
Matthew 13:31-33,44-52

Collect

God of new joy,
nothing can compare to the kingdom of heaven.
Help us to pursue your reign
with all of our strength,
that our happiness will one day be made complete; through Jesus Christ our Lord
and in the presence of the Holy Spirit,
who live and reign, one God, now and forever.
Amen.

Stories about the Kingdom of heaven (Matthew 13:31-33,44-52)

Intro paragraph

Questions

Doodle through the Bible

In Matthew 13 Jesus talks about what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.He uses many different images and there does not seem to be a clear answer.

Which image resonates with you the most and why?
What does it mean to you, when you hear or say "Your Kingdom come"?
What would you do if you found a hidden treasure?
Where is the Kingdom of Heaven?
What do you treasure in your life right now?
What is God’s greatest treasure?

A colourful doodle of today's Bible passage, from Doodle through the Bible.

You an download a full colour and Colouring Page

Prayer tree

Draw or paint a picture of a large tree with lots of branches.

Every person draw and cut out either a picture of a bird or a picture of a leaf.

Write prayers on the birds or leaves and glue to the tree as a collective prayer offering.

Prayer, inspired by Matthew 13:31-33

Dear Lord God
we thank you for mustard seed
and for the wonders of yeast
and for how these things teach us about your love.

Lord, plant your seed into our lives,
help us work your yeast into our hearts
that wonderful things may happen.
We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

~ written by Rev. Richard J. Fairchild, and posted on Kir-shalom. http://www.rockies.net/~spirit/sermons/a-or17cs.php

Treasure games

You will need:

A treasure box. You can use a decorated cardboard box, or a large tub/bin. You can decorate to make it look like a treasure box! (even if it just has a sign!)
Treasure, including:
- Pearls: large white balls. These could be made from paper, plastic or recycled polystyrene (we prefer recyclable materials!)
- Seeds: Large colourful balls, like the ones you find in a ball pit, or larger plastic balls.
- Yeast: small bread rolls, or pieces of bread. (old unused bread is fine!)
- Fish: You can use tins of tuna if you have some in the cupboard, or cardboard cut outs of fish
- Treasure: some pirate gold treasure, like the medallions and party things you can get at the $2 shop

How many props you need will depend on how many children you have attending your group. You might like multiple relay teams, and fill the treasure boxes with a few of each so that children get multiple opportunities to run to fetch one.

What you do:There are a few different ideas on how to play games using the treasure props

Line up the children in teams at one end of the room, and get them to run to the treasure box and bring back an item of treasure. You may like to explain what each one is, or you can use them as props in the story you tell -- getting the children to guess which prop is which bit of treasure.
Instead of doing a relay race, you could also hide these props around a hall and get the children to find them. You might like to remember where you leave any edible items!

Treasure battleships

You can either print out the hand out attached for each child, and play individually, in groups, or set up 2 large battleship grids on the floor of your room! Depending on the age of your children, you might like to discern the best way to play this game. You could always have individual sheets printed out as a take home activity too, giving children 2 copies each.

The idea in battleships is to find the opponents ships and sink them. Each team gets to decide where their ships go.
We have replaced the ships in this game with treasure to find! Each treasure is a slightly different size, so the hardest treasure to find will be the mustard seed.

How to play treasure battleships

Place each treasure on on the grid. They can go any direction and can go anywhere, but must not overlap.
Do not show the other team where you have placed your treasure.
Each team takes turns calling out a coordinate -- a letter followed by a number (eg. A1, D4). If you have younger children, you might like to explain how this works, and pair them up with older children. If you have a treasure on this coordinate, the whole treasure is 'found' and is out of the game. If you hit an opponents treasure, mark it on your own board so you know which coordinates you have called already.
The winner at the end is the person who finds all the opponents treasure. You could put a time limit on the game, if it goes on for a long time!