Lesson 8: Living with God
Aims
* to know that God loves us
* to learn the importance of being grateful to God
Materials
* “Living with God” – Hoon Dok for Children, Book 1
* pictures of creation that show God’s love
* counters, pencils, heart stickers
* worksheets
Lesson Outline
1. Review the previous lesson
2. Read the story
3. Discussion about God’s love and gratitude
4. Activities – gratitude game, worksheet
5. Conclusion
6. Prayer
1) Review previous lesson
In the previous lesson the children began the story of a Korean boy called Hansol. Part of his homework was to write the names of his grandparents. Later he asked his teacher who the very first
grandfather was. She told him Adam was. Hansol then asked who Adam’s father was. The teacher said God is Adam’s father. This started a big discussion about God.
The teacher explained that….
* God is very old
* He never dies
* He is like our father and mother joined into one
* He is the parent of everyone
* He made everything
* We cannot see Him. He doesn’t have a face or body,
* He lives in everything and He lives in our heart.
The story ended with the teacher giving the children homework to draw a picture of God.
The children in Sunday school wrote words to describe God and drew their own picture of God.
Look together at what they did last week.
2) Tell the Story
Today’s lesson continues the story of Hansol.
Hansol’s Dream
Hansol doesn’t know what to draw. One night he has a dream. In the dream he tries to find God. He asks a flower, the river, birds, the wind and a church minister. The minister explains that God made everything, lives in everything and knows everything. He even knows our thoughts and can punish us if we are bad. Then Hansol woke up.
A God of Love
When all the children hand in their homework these pictures of God are drawn:
a) Hansol’s picture of flowers, trees and a river,
b) a bright sun on top of clouds,
c) a frightening God who is driving out Satan,
d) a kind grandfather.
The teacher drew a picture of a heart to show that God is most of all a God of love and he loves each one of us. He only seems to be a frightening God if we are bad. Even if we are bad God still
loves us.
God made the World
God made all the things of creation for us. He made our moms and dads, our friends and all the animals and plants just so that we could be happy. When we are thankful we make God happy and
we feel God’s love even more. God likes the heart of those people who are always thankful, so we must try to be that way each day.
3) Discussion
* Discuss the pictures of God in the story. Which one is closest to how God really is?
* Look at the pictures of creation, which God made for us. They show how much God loves us.
* Talk about God’s love. God loves is the same as parents’ love. How do your parents show they love you? Parents never stop loving their children, even if they do wrong. God is the same. But
we can feel God’s love more when we do good things and have beautiful minds.
* Being grateful is an important way to show we love God. Every time you say thank you and mean it God is happy. Then we can feel God’s love even more. Ask children all the things they are
grateful for. In America people celebrate “Thanksgiving Day” at this time of the year to thank God for all the blessings they receive. What blessings do you have that you feel grateful for?
4) Activities
* Play the gratitude game – Everyone sits in a circle. Each person says one thing they are grateful for. “Thank you God for …“ Each time they say something they receive a counter, pencil or a
heart sticker. Something cannot be said more than once. How many times can they go round the circle with something new? Who said the most? How many did the group say?
* An alternative is for each person to add one more to the total and repeat what was said before.
Example: “Thank you God for my parents, my teacher, food, my home …and a warm bed.”
* Complete the worksheet – Children write down 10 things they are most grateful for and draw a picture of one of them. Use heart stickers to decorate.
5) Conclusion
Ask each child what they could learn from today’s lesson. Refer to the lesson aims:
– to know that God loves us
– to learn the importance of being grateful to God
6) End with a prayer
