Faith for the Journey - Group Activities

Interactive Group Activities
by Carol Williams

Sermon Title: "Faith for the Journey"

Scripture Reading: Genesis 12:1-4

BLINDFOLD JOURNEY: Blindfold the children and have them all follow the teacher's voice or sounds IN FAITH around a designated area and eventually the children should follow "blindfolded" and end up at the STOPPING area! Discussion about how hard it is to follow blindfolded. Then remove the blindfolds and have children follow the teacher to the ENDING spot again and how easy it was to FOLLOW without the blindfolds. The teacher could have one of the following "projects" for the children to work on at the end of this blindfolded journey......OR the journey path could lead the children to their snack.

JOURNEY "PATHS": Each child will be given a piece of white paper and several markers or crayons. Have children draw a squiggly line around the paper which will be one path. Then draw or trace a squiggly line with another colored marker or crayon and continue with several colored "paths". Children may enjoy trying to "follow a path" of their classmates JOURNEY with their finger, so teacher can have children pass their JOURNEY PATHS to the child to their right! They have to stay on just ONE colored path at a time with their finger! Discussion about our Journey with God and not getting off the path that HE leads us on. On the bottom of their JOURNEY SQUIGGLES, children can write or trace JESUS IS WITH ME ON EVERY JOURNEY, or the Bible verse can be written on the journey "paths" paper.

JOURNEY JAUNT: Teacher can lead children on a JOURNEY around the church or an area that children are not familiar with as much as their usual area. This could be into another section of the church or behind a baptistry, or in another hallway area or around the outside of the church or even through an obstacle course that the teacher has set up. Discussion about Abram and Sarah being willing to just leave everything and to FOLLOW wherever God led them!

TRUST ART: Children can write or trace big round bubble letters for the word TRUST! Then they can begin to frame the letter TRUST with different colors, making an art piece of bright colors. The children can write TRUST GOD FOR EACH JOURNEY on the top of their ART!

FROG POSTER: Let each child color or draw a picture of a FROG and write the words FULLY RELY ON GOD... F.R.O.G.

JUMPING FROGS: Let children draw or color 5 frogs and cut out and glue onto a green lily pad. Frog clip art can be printed off the internet. Each frog can have one of the words from FULLY RELY ON GOD, plus Genesis 12:1 on the 5th frog.

BIBLE VERSE FROGS: Hand each child a FROG picture that has a word from our Bible verse today or a phrase from today's lesson (ie: TRUST JESUS TO LEAD THE WAY; FAITH FOR THE JOURNEY, GOD IS WITH US WHEREVER WE GO, etc). Then children can tape their frog in the correct order on a large green shaped lily pad on a poster board! Display their Frogs on a focal wall and discuss today's lesson and the "Journeys" that the children might have to take this week in "walking with Jesus"!

FEET TO FOLLOW: Children can trace their foot or shoes and cut out. Let children place their cut out traced foot in a path along a designated area. Then children will play follow the leader who will do other things with their hands or heads but as the children follow, they must only step ON the feet pictures on the floor. Let several children be leaders to be followed and encourage children to do many actions with their hands, heads or bodies for the others to imitate without stepping off a "foot".

FAITH FEET FOLLOWING: Do the above activity but have one child blindfolded and trying to step ONLY on the feet pictures while their team mates tell them where to go and how to step carefully and let children see how far each one can go while being blindfolded, but with others giving directions to the right, or to the left, or back a little, etc.

FAITH MOBILE: Give each child supplies to make a mobile, such as a stick or hanger to hang the F-A-I-T-H letters from as children cut out the letters and color and decorate with glitter and stickers, etc.

PIN FAITH ON: Draw a big heart and write FAITH on the heart in bright colored letters. Let children be blindfolded, one at a time, and try to PIN the heart FAITH on a poster board that has an outline of a boy or girl. Keep track of where each child pinned the heart and see who gets the closest to where the heart actually is on the body. Tell children how important it is to always have FAITH in their own hearts each day.

JOURNEY MURAL: Place a long and wide piece of paper on the wall or on the classroom table. Let children gather around the paper and begin to draw pictures of their "journey" in life -- places that life takes them such as store, school, church, friends, family gatherings, sports, etc. Title the Mural, FAITH FOR THE JOURNEY

FAITH BRACELET OR NECKLACE: Children can be given supplies of plastic cord and alphabet letter beads, to spell F-A-I-T-H. String the letters plus other colorful beads and tie into a bracelet or necklace, of child's own choosing

Song: "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus"

Words and Music (pdf)

MP3 Piano accompaniment Track (right click to save to your computer)

Song: "Footsteps of Jesus"

Lyrics (pdf)

MP3 Piano accompaniment Track (right click to save to your computer)

These songs are in the public domain and may be freely downloaded and reproduced for religious or educational use by churches, schools, home schoolers, and other non-profit organizations.

About Carol Williams

Carol and her husband have been in the ministry for 35 years. They have served churches in Illinois, Minnesota, Mississippi, Michigan, and for the last 14 years in Indiana. Carol loves to work with children so you will find her teaching in Junior Church and children's Sunday School. She also has clowning ministry in which she is known as Bubbles tc (the clown).