God In Our Hearts
Let’s start the New Year with God in our hearts! By inviting our Heavenly Parent to live inside of our hearts we can make positive decisions and choices centered on God. Children will learn about 3 things they can do to invite God into their hearts: Talking to God, Learning about God & Experiencing God. (In the optional extension, children will learn about physical & spiritual eyes and that we want to open the eyes of our heart to the light of God and True Parents.) A fun filled lesson with lots of heart activities.
“God in Our Hearts” Unit: Child of God
LESSON PURPOSE: Carrying God in our hearts through opening the eyes of my heart!
MATERIALS: heart cut outs, googly eyes or eye stickers
BOOKS: “God’s Love In My Heart” / “Come In to My Heart Lord Jesus” / “Every Which Way to Pray”
SONG IDEAS: Open the Eyes of My Heart / God Loves Me / I’ve Got the Joy Joy Joy / God’s Love is so Wonderful / See Through Children’s Eyes
AS CHILDREN ARRIVE: Choose 1 Sensory Activity:
Winter Sensory bin: cotton balls, white & blue pom poms, rice, snowflakes...
Find the Heart Sensory bin: Hide small hearts in a bin of rice.
Playdough hearts: Have children use cookie cutter hearts and playdough.
SCRIPTURE: Display the weekly scripture reading, have an older child read it or use it in the lesson as you like.
“...God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” -1 John 4:16
“We must open our eyes again and look at God in whom we believe…”- True Father
INTRODUCE the Lesson:
WELCOME: SONG, PRAYER, TP Greeting
SONG IDEAS: Open the Eyes of My Heart / God Loves Me / I’ve Got the Joy Joy Joy / God’s Love is so Wonderful / See Through Children’s Eyes
For older kids: Give Me Your Eyes
REVIEW & TRANSITION:
Last week we learned that we are perfect together! God made us each unique and when we work together we can create something very beautiful that brings joy to God & others! Does anyone know what holiday is coming up soon? Valentine’s Day! That’s right. :) Before we learn all about Valentine’s day and love- we want to talk about how to have God’s love in our hearts first!
ATTENTION GRABBER: choose 1:
Have children put eyes on hearts! (drawing eyes on hearts on a board, googly eyes on heart cut outs, eye stickers on their own heart, pin the tail on the donkey type game...etc) What do eyes do? They help see! (Optional: Sing “I Use My Eyes To See” from previous lesson) We want the eyes of our heart & soul to see God and see good things.
INTRO:
Let’s slide in to the New Year with God in our hearts! But how? Through “Opening the Eyes of our Hearts”. (Can show children a heart with googly eyes on it!)
CHOOSE 1 OR 2: READ A STORY, SING A SONG OR POEM, WATCH A VIDEO:
VIDEOS: click on the link for educational, sing along or dance videos
“Open The Eyes of My heart” worship dance song
“Love the Lord” worship dance song
READ ALOUD STORY:
SONG OR POEM:
“Hold my hand, God, lead the way. Help me be good every day. Let me know what’s wrong and right. Keep me safe all through the night. Let me know what you have planned. Lead the way God, hold my hand.”
*TEACH the Lesson:
TEACHING POINT 1: Open the Eyes of my heart
God wants to live inside our hearts- He wants to be a part of our life, love us and help us make good choices. In order to open our hearts for God our Heavenly Parent, to dwell and live in us. We can do 3 things! Discuss the following. (Can write or draw pictures on a board as you talk. Use the bullet points below or create your own together).
TALK to God: You can talk to God about anything! He listens.
Prayer- Prayer is the language of the heart! We can pray in the morning, before meals, at bedtime. We can even talk to God all day long and invite Him in to all we do!
Song- Worship God through singing or dance! Listen for his voice in the song lyrics.
LEARN about God:
Church- going to Sunday School to learn about how to live a godly life!
Scriptures- reading God’s Words (hdh, Bible, DP, TPs words…) helps you learn how to guard and protect your heart- to let in goodness and keep out the bad.
EXPERIENCE God:
Loving Others- share with your family & friends, serve and help others! Live like Jesus and True Parents do and our hearts can grow. Listening to and respecting your parents. They love you like God does!
Nature- experience God’s love through all of his Creation. Spend time outside admiring all the different nature & animals!
TEACHING POINT 2: Spiritual Eyes *OPTIONAL EXTENSION for older children
Inviting God to live in our hearts helps us to be a good son or daughter of God. It helps us make positive choices! We have our physical eyes that see the physical beautiful world. The eyes of our heart are our spiritual eyes. We make important decisions with our heart. Our heart has eyes that can be open or closed. We want to open the eyes of our heart to the light of God- so that we can make good choices and live the way God and TP want us to live!
DISCUSSION:
What are the eyes of your heart called? “Spiritual Eyes”
What can help us make good choices? Opening up the eyes of our heart to God, inviting God to live in our hearts and be a part of our decision making. (vertical alignment)
How can we help open the eyes of our hearts? Through talking to God, learning about God and experiencing God!
CONCLUSION:
We want to open our hearts and invite God, our Heavenly Parent, to live inside us! We can open the eyes of our heart by Talking to God, Learning about God and Experiencing God. Let’s invite God to live in our hearts and center ourselves on God and True Parents. When our heart is centered- we can live a godly life and become beautiful children of God our Heavenly Parent.
TITHING & PRAYER:
Ephesians 1:18- “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened…” Dear Heavenly Parent, please open the eyes of our hearts so that we may see you! We invite you to live inside our hearts and dwell within us. Thank you for your love. Amen. Aju.
APPLY the Lesson:
GROUP ACTIVITIES: choose 1 Team Building Activity:
Heart Hunt: Hide construction paper hearts around the room beforehand. Have children use their eyes to find all the hearts!
Pin the Heart: Play pin the heart on a large snowman cut out.
CRAFTS: choose 1
Open the Eyes of My Heart- Have children make construction paper hearts with googly eyes & decorate with glitter, sequins, stickers etc!
Who Rules Your Heart- Cut a heart in half the horizontal way. Glue each part of the heart on to a clothespin. When the clothespin is closed- it’s like a normal heart. When you open it- the heart opens and inside is a little heart that says “God”.
Snowman heart- Have children make snowmen out of paper doilies, cotton balls or paper & add a heart as we “slide into the new year with God in our hearts!”
Penguin heart- Have children make penguins out of construction paper & add a heart on the penguin as we “slide into the new year with God in our hearts!”
Heart Mobile- Write 1 John 4:16 on a cloud. Have children write their names or decorate little hearts to hang as a mobile with string from the giant cloud or heart.
Heart Hands- trace & cut out hand prints or use paint to make hand prints. Touch thumbs & pointer fingers together to make a heart shape in the middle. God lives in our hearts!
SNACK IDEAS:
Heart shaped snacks!
Enjoy the lesson! Feel free to submit photos to lgavin@unification.org Love seeing lessons come to life and each community
