Materials
Slips of paper with the following words written on them, one word/phrase per piece of paper.
Lamb
Bread
Shelter
Fortress
Crown
Water
Rock
Banner
Shield
Vine
Light
Hiding Place
Alpha
Omega
Life
Cornerstone
Way
Foundation
Gate
Truth
Door
Stone
Word

Activities
Choose one of the following activities

1. Play a game of “What Am I?”
Give each child a word. They must describe characteristics of the word without saying the word. The rest of the students must guess the word.

2. Play a game of charades or pictionary
In charades they must act out the word without speaking until someone guesses it. In pictionary they must draw a representation of the word without talking. Award points to the participants or teams who correctly guess the word first.

3. Name the Objects
Some of these are easily illustrated with objects. Place the objects on a tray and show them to the children. Then quickly cover the objects. have children name as many of the objects as possible from memory. Reward their answers.

4. “What am I?”
Tape one to the back of each student so that they cannot see what is written. They must wonder about the room and ask questions of each other to discover the identity of the word on their back. All questions must be answered by a simple “yes” or “no”.

Application
Explain that all these objects were used as descriptions of Jesus. Ask or explain how each object reveals some aspect of Jesus and ultimately of God. Just as the objects reveal aspects of Jesus, the Bible tells us that Jesus was an exact representation of God.

200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.

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Materials
Large sheets of Mah Jong Paper or butcher paper or white wrapping paper, dictionary, thesaurus, Bible Dictionary

Activity
We should all have special qualities as Christians. Some of the qualities are found in Colossians 3:12 Read it aloud. Discuss with the group what it means to “put on” or “clothe yourselves with” these qualities. How could a person do that? Stress that to “clothe yourself” with these things means that you practice them and do activities that promote the qualities of compassion, kindness, humility, etc.

1. Ask the students to make a list of the qualities from the Scripture. Then have pupils look up synonyms or definitions for these qualities. What are other words that mean the same thing?

2. Each student must pick a quality, such as “the coat of compassion” or “the shirt of patience” to illustrate. Pupils should write other words on the clothing, such as synonyms or definitions of the qualities they have chosen.

3. Make sure each quality listed in the Scripture is illustrated by someone. There will probably be some silliness involved, especially if someone wants to do “the socks of kindness”!

4. Ask, “Why did you choose that particular article of clothing to illustrate that charaecteristic?”

Application
The Purpose of this activity is to get the participants thinking about what these qualities really mean, and about how important these qualities are in their own lives.

200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.

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Materials
Supply of crumpled up newspaper sheets for each team

Activity
Have kids form two teams, and have teams move to opposite sides of the room. Designate one team as the Cartoon Team and the other team as the Giants Team. Give each team a supply of papers.

The goal is for the teams to get their opponents “out” by hitting them with paper wads. Each team must stay on their side of the room. When someone is out, they must lie still on the floor.

Further explain that kids on the Cartoons Team are out when they’re each hit once by a marshmallow, but kids on the Giants Team aren’t out until they’re each hit five times.

Let kids play until one team is out. Ask:
· Was this a fair fight? Why or why not?
· Is there really a winner when fighting or violence occurs? Why or why not?

Have everyone stand on one side of the room. Then stand by yourself on the other side of the room. Say: We’re going to play the game again, but this time you’ll be one team, and I’ll be the other team by myself. It’ll take ten paper wads to get me out, but only one to get any of you out.

On “go,” simply stand in place without throwing any paper wads. When you’ve been hit ten times, fall to the ground, and pause for a minute.
· How did you feel when I didn’t fight back?
· What does this passage say about returning violence for violence?

Application
Lead kids into a brainstorming session and discussion on practical responses to violence and retaliation. In John 8:1-11 Jesus refused to use violence as punishment for her sin, even though she derserved to die for her sin. Instead he chose to forgive her.

200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.

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Materials
Divide groups into teams and provide each team with 4 sheets of paper, scissors, several straws, some string, a couple rubber bands, 4 ice-cream sticks, 2 paper plates, a pencil, 4 styrofoam or paper cups, and some tape.

Activity
The group is given the task of creating a platform to hold a stack of books. The platform must use ALL materials and be at least 10cm tall. The group which builds the platform which can take the pressure of the greatest number of books wins. In case of a tie, the platform that is tallest will win.

Debrief
These platforms are like our lives. We all start with the same things, but the spiritual foundations we build will determine how much pressure our Christianity can take before we fall into temptation or spiritually collapse.

Added Illustration
No one saw it coming. Nobody could have ever predicted it. But during construction of the Quebec Bridge in 1907, something horrible happened. At five-thirty in the afternoon on August 29, a steelworker perched high above the water on the bridge heard a loud noise that sounded like the blast of a cannon exploding. At that very moment the largest section of the massive structure suddenly collapsed, sending 19,000 tons of steel crashing into the St. Lawrence River. Of the 86 men who were working on the bridge at the time, 75 were killed instantly.

Later, after an extensive investigation, it was learned that the fateful bridge was destined to collapse from the start. Investigators found serious flaws in the original design. As a result, it was built improperly, causing a terrible tragedy.

As awful as something like that is, even worse is the way some people’s lives collapse under the stress and strain of everyday life. Lives are destroyed today because they are built from faulty designs. There are fatal flaws in their lives which lead to devastating consequences.

200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.

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Activity
Designate one child as the shepherd. Blindfold him/her. The rest of the children are assigned the roll of lost sheep. They go hide somewhere in the room. Once they have selected a spot they cannot move. The blindfolded shepherd calls, “Lost sheep”. All the lost sheep have to answer, “baa”. When a shepherd finds one of the lost sheep the shepherd responds with “Jesus loves you and wants to find you.” The sheep stays with him as he goes looking for the rest of the sheep. He cannot help the shepherd find the other sheep. When the shepherd has collected all the missing sheep he removes his blindfold and leads them all back to “the fold” which can be their chairs.

Application
Make sure and discuss how people can be like lost sheep. They can say or do or feel things that separate them from God. God always plans ways to keep us close to Him. Even by placing himself in our place.

200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.

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Materials
A large crayon and plain white sheet of paper for each person. (thick crayons work best)

Activity
Give each youth a sheet of paper and a crayon. They have 10 minutes to collect 10 “impressions” of the meeting area. Impressions are made by placing the paper over an object such as the carpet, a dor hinge, a keyhole, or even the sole of a shoe and rubbing the crayon over the object to pick up its patterns. Youth should list each item on the other side of the paper. At the end of the 10 minutes, take turns guessing the IDENTITY of the impressions and where everyone got the “Impressions” on their paper.

Application
Sometimes we are like this paper allowing people and things to leave an impression on us. Pressure was used to leave an impression. Even though the crayon left an impression on the paper, the paper left no impression on the objects. The objects were solid and firm, but the crayon was yielding. If we are secure and solid in the knowledge of who we are we will also be unyielding under pressure. We will be able to influence others rather than have them influence us.

Which are you more like?
What pressures leave an impression on you?
What happened to the crayon as a result?
How is that like us?
How can we make a positive impression on others while avoiding letting them make a negative impression on us?

200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.

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Materials
Clothespins – These are the spring loaded clips used to attach clothes to a pole so that they do not fall. As a substitute you can use colored stickers or the paper clips that are spring loaded.

Activity
Give every person two clothespins as they enter. When everyone has their clothespins, tell them you’re giving them two minutes to get rid of their clothespins. The only way to get rid of them is to pin them to someone else. Chaos results as everyone tries to get rid of their clothespins!!

Application
While we don’t carry clothespins with us through life, we do carry our sins. Sometimes they pinch us in uncomfortable places. Sometimes we don’t even realize they are there. But the sins carries with them pain and suffering.

Jesus suffered the ultimate pain and suffering on the cross as he bore the penalty for our sin. Ultimately that penalty is death. He chose to bear the consequences for us. He did not run away from sin, but said place all your sins on me and I will carry them for you. (Let everyone take their clothespins off and stick them to a cardboard cross.) While pain and suffering still accompany sin in our lives, the penalty of death has been removed for those who will trust in Christ.

200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.

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Materials
paper and pencil for each person

Activity
Asked each child/ youth to draw a picture of ‘The tree outside my window’.

Debrief
Though the same instruction is given to everyone, the pictures they drew will be different – some will draw a view from a window, others will draw mountains or birds or animals along with the tree, etc.

Application
This activity demonstrates how each one of us has a different point of view about any given thing. We have different backgrounds. We all have different levels of comprehension and different ways of looking at the same thing. We must be sensitive to the fact that God made each of us unique and we are different from the others in our own way. But in the body of Christ, we all come together in unity. As we work together out differences become strengths. As we combine our various perspectives we can see all of life and God’s work in our lives more clearly (1 Corinthians 12)

A 200-page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.

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Materials
Bring in kaliedescopes, magic viewers where you look through a keyhole to see a picture, a keyhole viewer from a door, water globes that have a scene inside the water and glitter which you shake up and view, sunglasses, and anything else you look at or through.

Activity
Pass around the various objects and then ask kids to determine what all the objects have in common… of course the common characteristic is that they are all things that we “look through”

Variation
Add a microscope and various things to place under the lense. Let children try to identify the various things you put under the microscope by looking through it.

Variation
Get some holograms, or stereographic pictures. Have children identify the various objects.

Variation
Create a word find or look for a “where’s waldo” type children’s book where you have to find hidden objects or people in pictures. Ask children to find the various objects. Reward the first child to find each object.

Variation
Play a game of “I spy.” or other visually oriented game.

Variation
There are books that have pictures of a small segment of a larger object. By looking at the small segment, you must identify the object. Use these with the children.

Application
After doing one or more of the above, talk about how important our eyes are. But also say that what we focus our eyes on is also very important. The best thing for a Christian to keep his eyes on is Jesus. If we look at Jesus and follow him, we will never get lost.
Ephesians 4:11-16

200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.

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Objective
Draw a grid representing floor tiles on a piece of paper. You may choose to have a 15 by 15 square grid or larger. Mark a path through the grid of squares with each successive step touching the one before it either adjacent or diagonally. Count the number of squares for the correct path and make a piece of paper with a Bible scripture written on it for each square. For the rest, rewrite some of the scriptures so that they are not correct. Use scriptures that are well known and provide wisdom in making decisions. Proverbs has a lot of good choices.

Activity
When in the classroom, lay out the peices of paper on floor tiles according to your grid. Divide the class into teams. The object is for each team to get its members through the mind-field without losing people. The group to get the largest number of students through the mind-field wins. Kids decide whether a square is a mine by reading the scripture verses and deciding if it is correct or not. If it is correct it is a safe square to step on. If it is not correct it is a mine. If they step on a mine, they lose one member and another kid can try. The first team to get across with least casualties wins.

Application
Scripture is our guide through life’s minefield. Wrong choices injure us. Correct choices lead us closer to God!

200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.

Learn More…