Dear Parents,

We want to help you make the most of this increased time together as a family. Below you will find ways to keep reinforcing this week’s teachings with your kid(s). My challenge to you is to spend at least 10-15 minutes each day this week intentionally reinforcing this week’s Bible lessons through family worship (OR continuing your regular daily family worship rhythms if you’ve already got a plan that works for your family!).

And please don’t worry if you miss a couple days. This isn’t meant to be an extra burden for your family. It’s simply an invitation to enjoy one another’s company as you intentionally spend time helping your kids see and marvel at the God of the universe.

*Note: You can access this week's Bible lessons at the bottom of this page.

BIBLE LESSON AT-A-GLANCE: PreK-5th Grade

• Session Title: Judah Was Taken into Captivity
• Bible Passage: 2 Chronicles 36:1-21
• Big Picture Question & Answer: What is God like? God is holy, good, and loving.
• Main Point: God sent Judah into captivity because of their sin.
• Christ Connection: God was right to punish His people for their sin, but He kept His promise to provide a king through David’s family. Ultimately, God punished our sin through His Son, Jesus, and made Him our King forever.

BIBLE LESSON AT-A-GLANCE: Toddlers

• Session Title: Bible Adventure: A Happy Sunday
• Bible Passage: Matthew 28:1-16; John 19:40-20:10
• Big Picture Question: How can I be friends with God?
• Main Point: Jesus makes me God’s friend because I believe He lives again.

WORSHIP TOGETHER AS A FAMILY THROUGHOUT THE WEEK:

• Sing: Have a dance party and sing along to your kids’ favorite worship song(s). Or sing the memory verse songs. Or both! Do whatever works for your family!

• Read: Each day, (or as often as you are able--even if just a couple days a week!) spend a few minutes reading the Bible passage together. You can simply read a few verses each day. Do whatever works best for your family, with the goal of being able to tell the story as a family without opening your Bible by the end of the week!
  
  • Tip: Read from your Bible or favorite children’s Bible. It’s okay if your kids don’t understand every word. Even the youngest kids can often pick up more than we realize. As you read, do your best to explain terms, phrases, and concepts at a level your kid(s) can understand. 

• Play: Choose one activity from the list below to complete as a family each day. Or if you’re feeling creative, come up with your own!

• Pray: Talk to God together as a family. It’s important for your kids to hear you open your heart to your heavenly Father. Let them take turns being open and vulnerable with Him, too! 

***This does not need to take more than 10-15 minutes per day! If it does and the kids are loving it, great! The goal isn’t quantity of time, but quality. Even a few minutes of family worship each day, where you-- the primary disciplers of your kids, are planting and watering seeds of faith can be used by God to make an eternal difference for your kids.

ACTIVITIES:

***NOTE: An asterisk (*) has been placed next to activities that can also be used to reinforce the toddler lesson. The portion of the "connect to the lesson" sections that can also be used for the toddler lesson is italicized.

Hard and Soft Experiment

• Cover a table with a plastic tablecloth for easy cleanup. Invite kids to help you mix 1 1⁄2 cups cornstarch and 1 cup water in a large bowl. Mix the ingredients using a spoon or your hands (or allow a kid to volunteer to mix). Demonstrate how, when handled gently, the mixture is soft and flows like a liquid. If you push against the surface with force (hit with a spoon), it seems hard like a solid. Allow kids who touched the mixture to wash their hands with soap and water.
• Connect to the lesson: This mixture—sometimes called oobleck—acts hard like a solid and soft like a liquid. Did you know that the Bible describes our hearts as being soft or hard? Our hearts can be soft and open to God or hard and against Him. In today’s Bible story, we heard what happened when the people of Judah had hard hearts. God sent them into captivity for their sin, but promised to gather back together one day.Like the people of Judah, we deserve to be punished for our sin. The Bible says that the fair punishment for sin is death. That is bad news for us. But God loved us so much that He sent His Son, Jesus, to take the punishment we deserve. Jesus never sinned, but He died on the cross in our place. On the third day, Jesus rose from the dead, and He is still alive today! When we trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior, God forgives our sin. He frees us from sin and gives us eternal life—not because of anything we have done but because of what Jesus has done for us. That is the best news ever!

Plane Crash!

• Form two teams. Instruct the teams to move to opposite sides of the room. Explain that they have just survived a plane crash and landed on a desert island. The only things they have to survive are the objects on their side of the room. Use a tape line to divide the room, if necessary. Provide paper and a pencil to each team. Challenge them to identify and list on their paper 10 things from their side of the room that would be beneficial to their survival. Prompt them to rank the items based on necessity. After several minutes, allow each team to share its list. *If there aren’t enough people in your family to form teams, create a list all together.
• Connect to the lesson: Surviving on a desert island would be hard! You all had good ideas for making the best of the resources you had. Imagine being in a new land, far from home. Would you survive? In our Bible story today, God’s people from Judah ended up so far from home. God sent the people of Judah away from their land because of their sin, but He promised to gather them back together one day and give them new hearts and power to obey Him.

King Craft*

• Invite the kids to create a crown using craft supplies from around the house.
• Questions to discuss during the craft:
  • Why did God allow the Babylonians to capture Judah? Did God give up on His people?
    Remind kids that God promised to bring a Messiah into the world through His people, and God always keeps His promises. Explain that the prophet Isaiah spoke about a remnant of God’s people that would return to God, and like a small plant growing out of a tree stump, a righteous King would rise up and rule over God’s people. (Option: Choose someone to read Isa. 10:33–11:1.)
  • How are we like the people of Judah?
    Lead kids to discuss that like the people of Judah, we deserve to be punished for our sin. But God loved us and sent His Son to take the punishment we deserve. Jesus never sinned. He died on the cross in our place, and He is alive! (Option: Choose someone to read Rom. 3:21-24.)
  • Can anyone’s sin be too much for God to forgive?
    Point out that for generations, God’s people had rebelled against Him. They broke His laws and worshiped false gods. But when Jesus died on the cross, He died for all our sins—past, present, and future. No sin is beyond Jesus’ forgiveness for everyone who trusts in Him. (Option: Choose someone to read Rom. 5:8-11.)
• Connect to the lesson: The kings in today’s Bible story did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. God sent prophets to warn the people, but Judah ignored God’s prophets and was captured. God sent Judah into captivity because of their sin, but He promised to gather them back together one day and give them new hearts and power to obey Him. [See Ezek. 11:14-21.] Ultimately, God punished our sin through His Son, Jesus, and made Him our King forever. Everyone who trusts in Jesus gets to be God’s friend and a part of God’s family forever!
  

Family Photos

• Go through family photos with your kids. Ask them how they are like other members of their families and how they are different. Sample questions: Do you look like anyone else in your family? What things do you like to do that other people in your family like to do? What things do you like to do that the other people in your family do not? Do you like the same foods as anyone else in your family? What foods do you like that your other family members do not? What is a movie you like? Does the rest of your family like it too?
• Connect to the lesson: Sometimes people are like the other people in their family. Sometimes they are different. In today’s Bible story, King Josiah’s sons and grandson were not like him. King Josiah was a good king, but his sons and grandson were bad kings. They did not lead God’s people to obey God. The kings did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. God sent prophets to warn the people, but the people did not listen. So God sent Judah into captivity because of their sin, but He promised to gather them back together one day and give them new hearts and power to obey Him.Just like the people of Judah, we all sin. Sin broke our relationship with God. How did God plan to fix what sin broke? Before He created the world, God planned to send the Messiah to save sinners. Ultimately, God punished our sin through His Son, Jesus, and made Him our King forever.

Capture the Flag

• Organize a game of capture-the-flag with your family (or some version of the game that works for your family!). Afterward, share the Bible story of Judah’s captivity and explain how Jesus took the punishment for our sin.
• Connect to the lesson: Help your kids understand that God did not abandon His people. The prophet Jeremiah told what would happen next: “The days are certainly coming ... when I will restore the fortunes of My people Israel and Judah” (Jer. 30:3). God was going to save His people from captivity and raise up a new King—a forever King—from the line of David. (Jer. 30:9)
  

Grab the King*

• Have every sit in a circle. Have one person hold a deck of cards face down. The person with the cards should quickly place the cards face up in the middle of the circle, one card at a time. When a king is placed in the middle of the circle, everyone should try to grab it. The first person to grab the card wins. 10 points. Once all 52 cards have been placed in the middle on the circle, shuffle the cards and begin again. Continue playing until someone reaches 30 points (or whatever value you choose).
• Connect to the lesson: We heard in today’s story that Judah ignored God’s prophets and was captured. God was right to punish His people because they sinned. The Bible says that God corrects His people and disciplines them because He loves them. God kept His promise to provide a king through David’s family. Ultimately, God punished our sin through His Son, Jesus, and made Him our King forever. Say it with me: "Jesus is our King!" God sent Jesus to rescue people from sin by dying on the cross and coming back to life. Everyone who trusts in Jesus is rescued from their sin and gets to be friends with God!
  

“Jesus Is Alive!” Actions* (TODDLER LESSON ONLY)

• Choose one person to be the leader. The leader says, “Jesus is alive!” Everyone else says, “Jesus is alive for real!” while doing something from the action list below. Repeat so everyone gets a turn to be the leader.
  • Action list: clap hands, whisper voice, stomp feet, mouse voice wave arms, spin around
• Connect to the lesson: Praise God for His mighty miracle of bringing Jesus back to life! Jesus is alive! Ask the kids: How can we be friends with God? (Jesus makes me God’s friend because I believe He lives again.)
  

Heart Matching* (TODDLER LESSON ONLY)

• Cut out hearts of various sizes. Cut the hearts in half and scatter the pieces around the table. Have your child(ren) match the correct heart halves by size.
• Connect to the lesson: Great job matching all of those hearts! Hearts make me think about how much Jesus loves us! That reminds me of our Bible story for today. Our Bible video question for today is “How can I be God’s friend?” Do you remember the answer? [Allow responses.] Right! Jesus makes me God’s friend because I believe He lives again! Jesus loves us so much that He died for our sins and came back to life so that we can be friends with God!
  

MEMORY VERSE SONGS:

Help your kids memorize the verse by listening to a song together through the week! 

• Toddlers: Click here to listen to the Toddler memory verse from the Bible Adventure video. Or go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFB0d04oyNE&list=PL9Iu55tS3zIxQQLVZbU8DWPGK47hjZE9k&index=5&t=0s 
  • "...believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead..." -Romans 10:9
• PreK-2nd grade: Click here to listen to the PreK-2nd grade memory verse song.  
  • “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” -James 4:8a
• 3rd-5th grade: Click here to listen to the 3rd-5th grade memory verse song.
  • “For 'whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'" -Romans 10:13

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Need the lessons from Sunday? Click below.

THIS SUNDAY'S LESSONS AND ACTIVITY PAGES: (3/22)

• PreK-5th Grade Lesson 
• Toddler Lesson 
• PreK Coloring Page 
• PreK Activity Page 
• Elementary Activity Page