A Promise Fulfilled
Group Activities

Sermon Title: "A Promise Fulfilled"

Scripture Reading: Genesis 29:15-28

TRICK RELAY:

Children will divide into teams and each team will follow what the teacher tells them to do to try and trick the children with movements and motions. If children would like to take the trick leadership, let each one try to trick the other team.

CIRCLE TRICKERY:

Children can join in a large circle. Send one person out of the room and several children can put face veils (bandanas) over their faces and bring the child back into the room to try and be "tricked" with who is behind the veil. Let each child try to guess 3 people and then send another person out of the room and continue to play as time allows. Children can try to trick the one guessing by not speaking or speaking in a different voice, etc.

FIND RACHEL:

This can be played like HIDE AND SEEK, but children can all find Rachel, Leah and Laban -- depending on which name tag card they are holding. Other children will hunt for those 3 people from our story today! If time allows, let other children be Rachel, Leah and Laban to be found.

JACOB AND RACHEL MAZE:

Set up an obstacle course with chairs, blankets, or anything that can be used as obstacles to walk or run around. The first child to run the obstacle race will be Jacob with "Rachel" at the end of the course. When Rachel is reached by Jacob, then they will run to two more children who will then become Jacob and Rachel and continue to play the maze run as time allows.

WORD SCRAMBLING:

Scramble words from today's lesson, such as Laban, Jacob, Leah, Rachel, promises, faithful, trust, etc and let children put the letters in the correct order on a poster that is labeled PROMISES. This scrambling can either be done with letters for each word in an envelope to be glued in the correct order on the poster board, or written on a slip of paper for children to write the letters in the right order.

PROMISES ACROSTIC:

The teacher can write PROMISES down the left side of a piece of paper for each student. Tell children to write a word next to each letter that starts with that letter, for ideas of how to keep promises.

PROMISES, TRUST AND FAITHFUL LETTERS:

Children can hunt for words around the room that the teacher has written on slips of paper. When I child find a word, they must tape the word next to a letter that the word begins with on the PROMISES, TRUST OR FAITHFUL acrostic poster board. Ex: Pray would be placed next to the "P" on the PROMISES acrostic poster board; Tell others would be placed on the TRUST acrostic for the "T", Forbearing could be placed by the "F" on Faithful acrostic, etc. If time doesn't allow all three words from today's lesson to be played, then the teacher can only use one of the three words, or other variations to the learning time.

LOVE PLATES:

Provide each child with a paper plate to color and decorate with hearts, LOVE words and promises written on the plate in colorful markers. Hang the plates by a piece of yarn and let children hang their LOVE plates around the room to remind them of God's LOVE for each of them and that GOD keeps His promises to us.

PROMISE PAINTING:

Children can do some PROMISE finger painting on a piece of paper with finger paints and after blending all the finger paints together, may use their fingers to write the words, GOD KEEPS HIS PROMISES.

ROLE PLAYING:

Give children an opportunity to role play today's story, with different children being Laban, Rachel, Jacob, Leah and the family! As the story is told, children can put on veils, robes (or blankets, etc) and play out today's story. The teacher can add small parts to the story for children to act out, such as working the ground, eating together, etc.

PROMISE PRAYER LIST:

Children can be given a long strip of paper about 3 inches wide. Fold the paper back and forth accordian style and let children write Promise words or draw pics of things that they would like to promise to do this week. Encourage children to write ideas that they really feel they will be able to keep. Take their Promise prayer list home and color or check off each promise through out the week that they were able to keep!

SING A SONG:

(Sung to the tune of B-I-N-G-O), children can sing "There is a name I love to sing and JESUS is His name; J-E-S-U-S, J-E-S-U-S, J-E-S-U-S and JESUS is His name. Sing again but clap in place of the first J and sing E-S-U-S; then sing again and clap 2 times for the first 2 letters and sing S-U-S, etc, until there is 5 times of clapping in place of all 5 letters of JESUS!

SHARE A SNACK:

Let children choose a snack/treat from a basket after PROMISING to do something that they know they can keep as a promise, as they share their idea with the teacher before receiving their snack. The teacher should be very careful to tell EACH child that, "I PROMISE TO PRAY FOR YOU THIS WEEK! Encourage children to keep their promises this week.

Song: "My God Is So Great" - Traditional

Words and music (pdf)

MP3 Piano Accompaniment

Song: "J-E-S-U-S" - Traditional (Sung to the tune of Bingo)

Words and music (pdf)

MP3 Piano Accompaniment

These songs are in the public domain and can be downloaded and reproduced for ministry purposes.