What You Do: Give each kid a Trapeze Artist Template, a half straw, about a foot or so length of yarn, and some tape.

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1 4th & Girls, 4th & 5th Boys (Norfolk Campus) Week 1, September 4 Family Unties Bible Story: Family Unties (Joseph Sold by His Brothers) Genesis 37, 39:1-2 Bottom Line: When you think you re alone, you can trust God is with you. Memory Verse: Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Proverbs 3:5, NIV Life App: Trust putting your confidence in someone you can depend on. Basic Truth: I can trust God no matter what. Social time: (9:00) (10:45) Welcome kids and spend time engaging in conversation and catching up. Get ready to experience today s story. 1. Early Arriver Idea What You Need: An offering container; foam ball or balloon Greet kids as they arrive and encourage them to place their offerings in the container. Play a game of Monkey in the Middle with the ball or balloon: o Select one player to be the monkey in the middle of a circle o The other kids toss the ball/balloon through the center. o Their goal is to keep the ball away from the monkey in the middle, and the monkey s goal is to get the balloon. o Randomly change the person in the center so no one feels left alone too long. Adaptation: If you don t have enough space for each group to play their own game of Monkey in the Middle, get as many games going as your space allows and then rotate kids in and out as kids arrive. After the game, circle up and talk about what it s like to feel alone in the middle of a crowd. Has it ever happened to them? Where, and why? It s hard when it feels like there s no one around you can trust to understand or help you. 2. Trust Fall What You Need: No supplies needed Demonstrate a trust fall with a volunteer: the volunteer stands a couple feet in front of you, crosses her arms at the chest, and then falls backward into your waiting arms. Pair kids up according to size and gender and let them try. (This is where you might want some soft floor coverings!) You had to trust that your partner had your back! [Transition] Let s go hear about who we can trust to always have our backs no matter what! Lead your group to the Large Group area. Story and Worship: (9:25) (11:10) After large group, gather children in their small groups. Lead them in prayer focusing on The Bottom Line. Group time: (9:55) (11:40) Create a safe place to connect and learn how the Bible story applies to real life experiences, through interactive activities and discussion questions. 1. Trapeze Artist (application activity / review the Bible story) What You Need: Trapeze Artist Template Activity Pages; 1 template for each kid, drinking straws (cut in half), yarn/string, scissors, tape, markers or crayons Give each kid a Trapeze Artist Template, a half straw, about a foot or so length of yarn, and some tape. 1

2 Instruct kids to thread the yarn through the straw and tie the ends together. This makes the trapeze (you may need to tape the end of the yarn to make it easier to thread through the straw). Let kids decorate their trapeze artist with markers, drawing a face and costume, and decide how they want their acrobat to sit/hang from the trapeze. Instruct them to tape the acrobat to the straw as the trapeze base. Kids can tape the hands so it looks like the acrobat is swinging from the trapeze, or they might tape the feet/knees so it looks like they re hanging from it, or they could tape the waist so it looks like they re balancing. Tell kids to hold the trapezes from the knot in the yarn. If you have extra yarn/string and tape, you can make a long line attached to two walls and hang all your trapezes on it. When you re on a trapeze, the moment when you let go is really lonely; you re on your own in the middle of the air! Joseph had a lot of times when he felt like that in our story. When do you think that was? (Answers may include: when his family made fun of him, when his brothers tossed him in the well and stole his beautiful coat, and when they sold him as a slave in a faraway country.) There are times when we feel like that too: when other kids make fun of us, when adults misunderstand us, or when our friends or classmates leave us out of a conversation or activity. But the great thing about the trapeze is that trapeze artists work in teams. There s a flier, like our guy here, and a catcher. That catcher will grab the flier when he lets go; that s his first priority. A flier has to trust the catcher and trust that when the flier is all alone in the middle of nothing, the catcher won t forget him or let him go. That s just like how God was with Joseph. God never left Joseph alone, even if Joseph FELT alone. God was with Joseph when he talked with his family, when he was in that well, and even when he was walking away from his home as a slave. Joseph knew that he could trust that God was with him, and so can you! [Bottom Line] When you think you re alone, you can trust God is with you. * 2. Up My Sleeve (memory verse activity) What You Need: Bibles; paper towels strips; markers Gather the kids and look up the verse, using the guidelines below if needed. Read it aloud a few times. Then, let kids write each word or phrase of the verse on a paper towel strip. See if they can hide the paper towel up their sleeve and pull them out in order. Finding verses with 4 th -5 th graders: Our verse is from Proverbs. Ask kids to tell you whether that s in the Old Testament or the New Testament. (Old) Proverbs is in the middle of the Bible, right after Psalms. When they find Proverbs, explain that the big numbers on the page are the chapter numbers. Tell them to find chapter 3. Explain that the small numbers are verse numbers. Tell them to them find verse 5 in chapter 3. When a clown at the circus does this trick, he hides a whole string of handkerchiefs up his sleeve and pulls them out one at a time. When you re little, you think it s magic; you never can be sure that what he s doing is really what it seems. Your eyes trick you into thinking the handkerchiefs just appeared. And it s not just magic that s like that. We re all human, with human understanding. But God is GOD! That s why it s important to not only trust our own eyes, but to trust in God like our verse says. Sometimes it feels and looks like no one is with you. That s when you need to remember that [Bottom Line] when you think you re alone, you can trust God is with you. 2

3 4th & Girls, 4th & 5th Boys (Norfolk Campus) Week 2, September 11 Unhappy Days Bible Story: Unhappy Days (Joseph in Jail) Genesis 40 (Supporting: Genesis 39) Bottom Line: When life doesn t make sense, you can trust God is with you. Memory Verse: Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Proverbs 3:5, NIV Life App: Trust putting your confidence in someone you can depend on. Basic Truth: I can trust God no matter what. Social time: (9:00) (10:45) Welcome kids and spend time engaging in conversation and catching up. Get ready to experience today s story. 1. Early Arriver Idea What You Need: Offering container Greet kids as they arrive and encourage them to place their offerings in the container. Ask kids to give you an example of cause and effect. Tell them that when something happens, it s usually because something happened before it. Most things that happen then cause something else to happen. Play a quick game of Because : o Say something like, My shirt is wet because, and then the next kid continues, because water came shooting out of the water fountain, and the next player says, because the plumbers were working on the line, and the game continues, getting more and more ridiculous. Change up the story if kids start running out of ideas or get too crazy. Encourage kids to share about some crazy things that have happened to them. (Be sensitive, as these stories could run the gamut from silly to distressing.) 2. Who s the Tallest What You Need: Paper plates, tape Use the tape to mark a start and finish line about 5 feet apart. Encourage the kids to line up behind the starting line. Let each child take a turn walking from the start to the finish with one plate on his/her head. If they make it, they go on the next round, eliminating kids who lose their plates, until someone is declared the Tallest Man/Woman! That was a super silly circus game. I love our theme this month![transition] Let s head to Large Group to see what other crazy shenanigans they have planned for us! Lead your group to the Large Group area. Story and Worship: (9:25) (11:10) After large group, gather children in their small groups. Lead them in prayer focusing on The Bottom Line. Group time: (9:55) (11:40) Create a safe place to connect and learn how the Bible story applies to real life experiences, through interactive activities and discussion questions. 1. Zigzag Upside Down (application activity) What You Need: Painter s tape If you have not already done so, have the kids help you make a zigzag tapeline on the floor. Line kids up at one end of the tapeline and say that they re going to need to walk the tight rope tapeline very carefully. Add one more detail: They need to walk it using their hands, upside down. 3

4 Let them try (and fail). Ask if anyone can think of a way that the player can complete this non-sense challenge. Guide them to the answer: if others help! Let kids help their friends walk the tapeline on their hands, by holding their feet, wheelbarrow style. Make sure kids all get a chance to walk and help. This felt like a crazy assignment! It would be really hard to walk this tightrope on your hands, even if you were a trained acrobat, which none of us are! But you all came up with a great solution the best one there is! God didn t intend us to walk through this crazy upside down life alone. He is with us every step of the way. When you were walking the tightrope you couldn t really see your friends who were helping you. When we re in the midst of life s ups and downs, we don t see God walking with us, but we can know He s there. When your parents let you down, when your friends forget to invite you to something, when you have to work harder than others at school, when you re punished for someone else s mistake, when the good you do goes unnoticed, [Bottom Line] when life doesn t make sense, you can trust God is with you. He s got you just as sure as we all did in this game. 2. Secret Decoder (memory verse activity) What You Need: Secret Decoder Activity Pages; 1 for each kid, pencils or pens, Bibles Let kids use the Activity Page to find out how to decode the nonsense words. Look up the verse together and let kids check their answers. These words didn t make any sense at first! Then you were able to use the decoder to find out what they meant. A lot of times, life works that way. Things that don t make sense eventually become understandable when you see how God is working. God uses all kinds of things in His plan even the parts that we don t really get. Waiting to see how God will use crazy situations is a great way to remember that [Bottom Line] when life doesn t make sense, you can trust God is with you. If you lead mostly older kids, consider asking these discussion questions: Look up Romans 8:28 together. Ask, Does this mean that God will use everything that happens to make us happy? Or does it mean that God wants bad things to happen to us? Can you think of a time when God worked something good out of a difficult situation? [Make It Personal] (Share a story about a time when you were in a situation that seemed hopeless and you felt like you couldn t trust God. How did you eventually see God s presence in that situation and did you see God s goodness through the difficult times?) When is it easiest to feel God is with you? When is it the hardest? Sometimes our feelings can be confusing. What should we do when we don t FEEL like we can trust God? Can you think of a couple people you can turn to when you feel that way? 4

5 4th & Girls, 4th & 5th Boys (Norfolk Campus) Week 3, September 18 Joseph in Charge Bible Story: Joseph in Charge (Joseph Interprets Pharaoh s Dreams) Genesis 41 Bottom Line: When the pressure is on, you can trust God is with you. Memory Verse: Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Proverbs 3:5, NIV Life App: Trust putting your confidence in someone you can depend on. Basic Truth: I can trust God no matter what. Social time: (9:00) (10:45) Welcome kids and spend time engaging in conversation and catching up. Get ready to experience today s story. 1. Early Arriver Idea What You Need: Offering container Greet kids as they arrive and encourage them to place their offerings in the container. Play a quick trivia game. Encourage kids to answer questions about the month s verse, Life App, or Bible stories. Discuss how hard it can be to come up with the right answer right away. 2. AMAZING You What You Need: Paper, plastic cups Give kids seconds to AMAZE the group. Introduce them one by one as The Amazing [name]. Using the props, the kids could do things like balance a plastic cup on their head while standing on one foot, spin a quarter on the floor, fold paper into an origami shape, or make a ball and toss it impressively far. If you don t have props, they could pat their heads and rub their stomachs at the same time, say the alphabet backwards, snap their fingers in rhythm, etc. Any stupid human trick works great. If kids hesitate or are unsure, encourage them to try. (That feeling of being under pressure is actually the whole point of the game.) Excellent job! You were all fantastic! It was hard to do something amazing right on the spot like that. [Transition] Let s go hear about someone else who had a lot of pressure in his life. Lead your group to the Large Group area. Story and Worship: (9:25) (11:10) After large group, gather children in their small groups. Lead them in prayer focusing on The Bottom Line. Group time: (9:55) (11:40) Create a safe place to connect and learn how the Bible story applies to real life experiences, through interactive activities and discussion questions. * 1. Pressure Rings (application activity) What You Need: Paper plates; 3 for each kid, scissors, markers/crayons Give each kid three paper plates and some scissors. Have kids carefully cut out the centers of the plates, leaving just the outer ring. Direct kids to write ways or times they feel under pressure on the rings. See if kids can juggle the rings in the air. (If your plates are too thin and lightweight to toss, let kids cut out and tape an extra ring to each of their pressure rings to give them more weight.) Practice as long as time allows. Kids will probably be able to toss one ring at a time and catch it in a simplified juggling move. 5

6 Fancy juggling there! Juggling is a sport where you can really feel the pressure: that ring is coming back down, whether you re ready or not! The situations you wrote on your rings show pressure too. (Read some aloud, with kids permission, of course.) These are all times when we feel pressure to do the right thing, impress someone, or at least not let ourselves down. Pressure happens to all of us. [Make It Personal] (Share an age-appropriate story about when you felt under pressure either from others expectations or your own. Maybe there were big consequences on the line like a promotion or scholarship, or maybe it was just your self-respect like finally acing a test or sinking a free throw at a big moment in the game.) People in the Bible were under pressure, I was under pressure, and sometimes you ll be under pressure too! Pressure can make us cranky and worried and anxious; we can feel all alone and panicked. But Joseph did what he had to do because he knew God would help him. You can keep calm and do what you have to do because you can trust God too. That s why it s important to remember [Bottom Line] when the pressure is on, you can trust God is with you. If you lead mostly older kids, consider asking these discussion questions: What kind of pressure do you feel the most from yourself, your parents, your teachers, or your friends? What do you feel during those times? How do you deal with those feelings? What does it mean that God is with you at those times? Do you feel more confident about being loved even if you mess up, and do you feel more confident making the wise choice? How does this change how willing you are to try your best, to give something your best shot, even when it is hard, or there is pressure? Read Luke 22: How do you think Jesus felt just before He died on the cross? You ve never been faced with dying on a cross, but have you felt the same things Jesus probably felt? Jesus felt pressure, too. He knew that going to the cross would be painful and scary, and when He felt like that, Jesus prayed. Even Jesus needed to know [Bottom Line] when the pressure is on, you can trust God is with you. How do you feel, knowing that Jesus felt pressure like you do? 2. Ring Toss (memory verse activity) What You Need: Rings from the above activity, several unopened water bottles Set the water bottles in a triangle/pyramid formation. Let kids stand a few feet away and line up with their rings. The first player tosses a ring, and if it falls around a bottle, she says the first word of the verse. (Instruct kids to remember the word they end up with so they can all say the whole verse together at the end of the game.) Each kid can play until they run out of rings (they should have three each from the activity) or until they miss a toss. Then play passes to the next in line. Keep playing until the whole verse has been said and then let kids say the entire verse together (each kid says the word he won during the ring toss). Any activity where you have to try something or put in effort can bring pressure to get it right. We ve talked about school and sports and chores. Are there any other times that you feel pressure? (Give kids some time to answer. If the group is talkative, engage them in conversation about these situations. Ask if others feel the same way or find themselves in similar situations.) Sometimes pressure can feel positive: the challenge to beat your time running around the track in gym, the excited feeling of doing your best on a big project, or the pride in showing your manners at a grown-up family dinner. But sometimes it can feel negative, and you feel really worried about being perfect. That s just what our verse is about; we can t be perfect, so we need to trust in the Lord with all our heart that means our troubles and times we feel pressured too. God is with us all the time to help us make good choices and have confidence 6

7 even when we feel pressure. When you read this verse and flip the sentences don t lean on your own understanding; trust in the Lord with all your heart it helps you remember [Bottom Line] when the pressure is on, you can trust God is with you. 7

8 4th & Girls, 4th & 5th Boys (Norfolk Campus) Week 4, September 25 Family Re-Ties Bible Story: Family Re-Ties (Joseph Forgives His Brothers) Genesis Bottom Line: You can trust God no matter what. Memory Verse: Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Proverbs 3:5, NIV Life App: Trust putting your confidence in someone you can depend on. Basic Truth: I can trust God no matter what. Social time: (9:00) (10:45) Welcome kids and spend time engaging in conversation and catching up. Get ready to experience today s story. 1. Early Arriver Idea What You Need: Offering container Greet kids as they arrive and encourage them to place their offerings in the container. Ask them what they ve learned about trust so far this month. If you re feeling brave, repeat the trust fall activity from the first week. 2. The Grand Finale What You Need: The Grand Finale Activity Pages; 1 for each kid, markers Hand out the Activity Pages and markers and encourage kids to be creative about how the circus acts could end. (Try to discourage violent/inappropriate endings.) If you have extra time, let kids come up with new acts to draw on the back of the page. They can draw the first two panels and then trade with a friend to finish the final panel. You never can tell what will happen next in the circus! [Transition] Let s head to Large Group to hear who we can trust no matter what. Lead your group to the Large Group area. Story and Worship: (9:25) (11:10) After large group, gather children in their small groups. Lead them in prayer focusing on The Bottom Line. Group time: (9:55) (11:40) Create a safe place to connect and learn how the Bible story applies to real life experiences, through interactive activities and discussion questions. * 1. Lone Rider (application activity) What You Need: Lone Rider Template Activity Pages; 1 for each kid, scissors, tape, paper clips Give each kid an Activity Page, and have them cut out the little rider and big wheel. Unfold paper clips once, so there is a hook on both ends. Tape the rider at the tab to one end of the paperclip, on the long side opposite a short hook. Thread the hook nearest the rider through the center of the big wheel. Move the wheel until it spins freely. Show kids how to push the paper clip and spin the wheel, moving the rider forward. Let them play with their riders for as long as interest holds. Check out this video for a demonstration of how the unicycle rider works: It looks like this little rider is on the loneliest transportation ever a unicycle! On a unicycle, you re by yourself and you have to hold yourself up and concentrate really hard on balance, and you can get thrown off balance by anything a rock, a bend in the road, wind, an untied shoelace, thinking about pizza, sneezing! But our rider has a secret: we re really the ones pushing him along. He s not actually alone, and he doesn t have to hold his balance all by himself. Life sometimes feels like we re on a unicycle with a lot of twists and turns on a bumpy path in a thunderstorm! There are lots of things we re trying to figure out, like why did my friend say that mean 8

9 thing to me? Or why isn t my mom letting me watch this movie that everyone else can see? Or why did my teacher give the whole class extra homework just because one kid wouldn t stop talking? There is a lot we don t know and some things we just can t figure out! But even when life seems completely mysterious, [Bottom Line] you can trust God no matter what. God is with us even more than we are with this little rider. Just like we d never leave him alone to try and ride this unicycle, God would never leave us to try to figure out life by ourselves. 2. Big Top Scramble (memory verse activity) This is a whole group activity What You Need: Bed sheet or parachute, cards from Verse Words Cards Activity Page Separate kids into two teams on opposite sides of the room and give each team a set of cards. Instruct teams to crumple each card into little balls. Gather the teams in the middle of the room and stagger the kids around the parachute with kids from each team interspersed. Pile all the Verse Cards in the center of the parachute. Explain the rules: o The Big Top (parachute) has to keep moving. o Teams can only touch their color of cards. o The first team to retrieve their cards to their side of the room, smooth them out, and put them in order, is the winner. Start shaking the parachute while kids from each team grab their cards and run them to their sides of the room. If too many kids from one team drop the parachute and/or it stops moving, halt the game and have all kids return the cards to the parachute to start again. Play until one team has their verse in order. Adaptation: Instead of dividing one group into two teams, combine two or four groups together and let them compete against each other as Small Groups. That was tricky! But you kept going and did it. It was hard to figure out who should run with the cards, who should unscramble them, and who should keep the Big Top moving. It was a game with a lot of twists and turns (and even a few stops, if you stopped the game). When you don t quite know what s going on and you re confused about what to do next, it helps to remember [Bottom Line] you can trust God no matter what. 9