The Mission of the Church Is to Invite All to Come unto Christ
Week One-
Week Two- Sharing the gospel helps others come unto Christ.
idea #1: Invite the full time missionaries to come do sharing time on this subject! They could share stories and their experiences and testimonies.
idea #2: Invite a couple converts from your ward to come and share their conversion stories and how they were introduced to the gospel.
idea #3: Attention getting story/thought: How many of you guys like to eat dessert? What if I told you there was a really cool place that makes the best desserts! Every kind of ice cream you can think of! The place is really neat too. They have cool squishy chairs to sit in and a music player that you can pick songs to listen to. Would you want to go there? Would you tell your friends to come too? When we share things we know with other people, it may make them want to do something too. Hold up a picture of a missionary and say, "That is what missionaries do. They share what they know about the gospel- the good news of Jesus Christ- with people, so that they will want to come unto Christ." I like the idea from the book, but I think I will start with it here. In a container, place objects that will remind the children of ways they can prepare to serve a mission, such as scriptures, Sunday shoes, a tithing slip, and a paper heart. Have a child choose an object from the container and share how doing what it represents can help them prepare to be missionaries. Do we have to be on a mission to be a missionary? Lets make a list of things that you can do that might help others to want to do good and come unto Christ. (be honest, share, be kind to everyone, stand up for what is right, help others, secret service, tell them how happy you are when you go to church or learn about Jesus and Heavenly Father, share when you have had answers to prayers, how you were blessed from being obedient, etc) Read D&C 133:37 And this agospel shall be bpreached unto cevery nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people. To end, have a sentence written on the board that says: We are all God's _____________. He ________ us and wants all of us to come _____________ and live with Him again. When we do ___________ work, we help more of God's _____________ to find their way __________ to live with Him again. For Senior primary, I will write the words: children, loves, back, missionary, children and home on word strips that can fit into the spots you leave blank. For Junior primary, I will draw pictures to represent the words. Either mix them up and ask children to pick where they think they should go- or hide them around the room and then have them try to put them in the sentence. Remind them that sharing the gospel helps others to want to follow Jesus.
*****So, I am trying to think of how to tie in making a poster board with a girl missionary on one side and boy missionary on the other that line up. I am cutting a face hole so kids can look through it. My thought is while the kids are pulling out the things from a box about missionaries I will have them stand behind it. Other idea is time permitting- sing I hope they call me on a mission with a few kids getting to stand with it while we sing. Any thoughts?
Week 3: We come unto Christ by repenting when we make a mistake.
Display a picture of Jesus Christ on the board. Write the scripture under it: “Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him” (Moroni 10:32). Have the children repeat the scripture. Ask, "do you know what it means to Come unto Christ?" After they answer, say yes, to come unto Christ means to: have faith in Him, to keep His commandments, to make covenants, and to repent when we make mistakes. (place a prepared word strip up for each of those 4 phrases) Explain that because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can repent when we make a mistake. Cut four more word strips that say the parts of repentance: (1) feel sorry, (2) ask forgiveness, (3) right the wrong, and (4) don’t repeat the wrong. Place the word strips on the board on the other side of the picture of Jesus Christ. Show them to the children. Also prepare a rope with knots it.* Divide the children into groups and give each group a case study describing something a child might need to repent of. (*The rope will need to go up to the front to the picture of Christ. Make as many knots as groups you will have. For each knot, just loosely tie 4 times) Then have them share their case study with whole group. Holding the knot on the rope, have them go through each step of repentance- untying one tie of the knot for each step of repentance. When they have answered all 4 parts- the knot will be out. They can lay the rope back down and the next group come up, tell theirs as they untie the next knot. (have the first group start with knot at the end.) When the final group unties their knot and the rope is perfectly straight, hold the rope and explain- the rope is like or path to come unto Christ. Jesus Christ has shown us the way by His example. Sometimes we make a mistake and we get knots in our path. Through the steps of repentance we can untie the knots, be clean again, and have nothing standing in the way on our path to come unto Christ.
Some case study examples,
“Jenny disobeys her parents by kicking a ball in the house, and she breaks something.”
"Bryan took his friend's colorful pencil home from school, and said he did not know where it was when his friend asked if he had seen it."
"Carrie told her mom she would not eat that gross dinner because she did not like that kind of food- and hurt her mom's feelings."
"Josh pushed his little brother down because he found him playing with his new airplane in his room."
"Laura earned $5 in babysitting money, but only paid 5% tithing because she wanted to buy a toy."
Week 4: Temple work helps me and my family come unto Christ.
Remind the children what it means to come unto Christ. You may do this by asking them if the remember. (have faith in Him, to keep His commandments, to make covenants, and to repent when we make mistakes.)
Place picture of Jesus on center of board. Cut many pieces of yarn. you will know how many when you have decided which ideas you want to include:). Tape each piece of yarn under the edge of the picture of Christ, so that strings are fanning out all around Him. On the end of each yarn, have a piece of paper that can be turned over to show a way temple work helps me and my family come unto Christ. Let children come and turn one over -(keep in its place on the board now facing up) -then discuss.- Remember, some words may need simple explanations- like ordinance: our ordinances are special steps, like baptism, that we take to come back to Heavenly Father. I got lots of these from the church website under Temples. Here are some ideas using quotes, sentences, songs, pictures:
*Sing Families Can Be Together Forever
*Picture of Grandparents or pioneers to talk about work for the dead
*the word HELP
*the word peace
*the word answers
*a heart for our love for family and/or Heavenly Father grows
*Picture of steps- our ordinances are our steps back to Heavenly Father
* picture of a gift -We receive gifts and blessings as we are endowed and go to the temple
*“As we go to the holy house, as we remember the covenants we make therein, we will be able to bear every trial and overcome each temptation." Pres. Monson
*The temple provides purpose for our lives. Pres. Monson
*It brings peace to our souls. Pres. Monson
*One ordinance we receive in the temple is the endowment. The word endowment means “gift” or “bestowal.” As part of this ordinance, we are taught about the purpose of life, the mission and Atonement of Jesus Christ, and Heavenly Father’s plan for His children.
*Another temple ordinance is the sealing ordinance, in which husbands and wives are sealed to each other and children are sealed to their parents in eternal families. This means that if we are faithful to our covenants, our family relationships will continue for eternity.
* We can feel the spirit, and receive answers to our prayers.
* We can do the work for our family members who have already died without the chance to go to the temple. So that we can all be sealed together and so that they can receive the Lord's greatest blessings too.
* We receive blessings for being obedient and going to the temple.
* When we learn about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ our love for them grow.
* We are blessed when we keep the promises we make to Heavenly Father in the temple.
* Sing I love to see the Temple.
* We set an example for others when we go to the temple.- parents show their children how important and special the temple is when they go.
Games for review or any subject
Think board games!
Guess Who?- I made a prophet Guess Who game. I printed 2 copies of the prophets from this link: http://christysclipart.com/wwwroot/prophets_art.html . Then I colored, their ties, eyes, hair, suits, etc different colors. (some with blue eyes, some with green...). Then I used a big chalk board on wheels- put one set of pictures on each side. I had the children turn and face them middle of the room and put the board in between them. (The game works by each team secretly picking one prophet picture and then tries to guess the other team's prophet. Using questions like- does your person have blue eyes? If yes, take down all the prophets on your side who do not have blue eyes. If they say no, take down all the blue eyed prophets. You keep going back and forth until you know who the other team's prophet is.) I would ask a review question to one team, if they got it right they got to ask a question to the other team to try to guess which prophet they had picked. If they got their question from me wrong, it passed to the other side. Very fun!
Jeopardy is always fun with columns across they can pick from like maybe- Latter Day Revelation (that might have questions about what the prophets have said) Songs (songs they have to tell you words to about the subject, sing to you, say the next line, think of a song, think of the title of a song you play the tune of...) and any other topics that go with your subject. Then Just make papers with 100, 200, 300, 400 underneath each column. I kept a list of my questions that coordinated with the board so I didn't even need to worry about writing them on the back of the papers on the board. What ever is easier for you!
A chutes and ladders type game with questions.
Marshmallow Shooters. Make as many teams as you would like to make marshmallow shooters for. Even splitting the kids in half works great. Get mini mallows and some 1/2 inch plastic pipe from the hard ware store. Cut the pipe in about 10 to 12 inch lengths. Make a target for your mallows. It could be a ring for it to go through- like a small hoola hoop- or even a paper bullseye it has to hit. Have a teacher represent each team. If the kids answer the question right, win a scripture chase, sing a song well, etc then their teacher representing them gets 3 chances to stick a marshmallow in the pipe and blow it at the target. Giving them a chance to earn 3 points per turn. The team with the most points wins. Very fun!
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