The Lord's Prayer Sandwich

Transcription

1 The Lord's Prayer Sandwich Preparation Read through the lesson and become familiar with both versions of the Lord s Prayer - "Our Father in heaven" and "Our Father and Mother in Heaven". Resources Two slices of bread and 5 cards, each with one of the following words written in large letters on it: PRAISE, HOPE, DEPEND, FORGIVE, GOODNESS. Precut pieces of foam craft sheets For each student cut one set that includes: 2 tan pieces cut like slices of bread, 1 green piece cut like lettuce, 1 red piece cut like a slice of tomato, 1 yellow piece cut like cheese. Preprinted sheets with words of Lord s Prayer 1/child (see below) Scissors Hole punch Yarn, cut into 8 lengths Glue sticks Teaching Ask the children to put up their hands if they've ever said a prayer. Ask them to put up their hands if sometimes they are not sure how to pray. Tell them that even Jesus' disciples were a bit puzzled about that, which is why He taught them the prayer that we call The Lord's Prayer. We call it The Lord's Prayer because Jesus gave it to us. He used it to teach us how to pray. We often say this prayer word-for-word, but Jesus gave it to us also as a recipe for making up our own prayers. Ask for a volunteer to tell you how the Lord's Prayer starts (stop them at the right point if necessary): 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,' or Our Father and Mother in Heaven. Produce your first slice of bread and say that you are going to make a prayer sandwich, with all of the ingredients that Jesus put into His prayer recipe. Show the children the card that says PRAISE: the first prayer ingredient is praising God - recognizing God as holy [hallowed] and loving [our Father or our Father and Mother]. Put the PRAISE card on to the slice of bread. Ask someone to tell you what comes next: 'Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth, as in heaven.' Or Your commonwealth come. Your will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven. Explain that the word commonwealth is like the word community. The word kingdom is an old word that is like commonwealth. Both words remind us that we hope for a life with God in a loving protected place.

2 Show the children the card that says HOPE: the second prayer ingredient is believing that God will act to change lives, and acting in a loving way so that God can use us to help make God s will be done. We hope for life here on earth to be like heaven, with God as our loving protector. Put the HOPE card into the sandwich. Ask someone to tell you what comes next: 'Give us today our daily bread.' Show the children the card that says DEPEND: the third prayer ingredient is learning to trust God to provide everything we need, instead of worrying. Put the DEPEND card into the sandwich. Ask someone to tell you what comes next: 'Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.' Show the children the card that says FORGIVE: the next prayer ingredient is forgiveness. God wants us to forgive other people when they hurt us, just as God forgives us when we hurt other people or God. Put the FORGIVE card into the sandwich. Ask someone to tell you how the prayer ends: ' but deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.' Or, For yours is the wisdom and the power and the glory forever. Show the children the GOODNESS card: the final prayer ingredient is to ask God to help us to be good and do what's right. When we say these words, we are recognizing God as our wise and powerful Creator, and promising to do our best to obey God. Put the GOODNESS card into the sandwich, and finish it off with the second slice of bread. Hold it up for the children to see, and remind them of the ingredients: Jesus taught us that prayer should include praise, hope, dependency, forgiveness and goodness. Now let's say together the prayer that Jesus taught us with both versions: Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name Your Kingdom come, your will be done. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us But deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power and power and the glory are yours, now and forever. Our Father and Mother in Heaven, hallowed be your name Your commonwealth come, your will be done. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. For yours is the wisdom and the the glory forever.

3 Activity (See photo at end of lesson) Give each child a set of foam pieces and one sheet of the preprinted Lord s Prayer. Either pre-cut, or help the child cut the prayer sections apart. Punch a hole in the corner of each piece foam. Attach, with glue stick, a prayer section to each piece of foam. Be sure to attach these in order, according to the numbers on each prayer section. Place the sandwich layers in a stack, aligning punched holes. Use the precut length of yarn to thread through the holes and tie loosely all layers together, ensuring that the layers can be easily manipulated for viewing. Acknowledgements This assembly is based on an idea from

4 PRAISE 1) Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name Our Father and Mother in Heaven, hallowed be your name HOPE 2) Your Kingdom come, your will be done. Your commonwealth come, your will be done. DEPEND 3) FORGIVE 4) Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. GOODNESS 5) For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever. For yours is the wisdom and the Power and the glory forever.

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