What Is God
To You?
Lesson 5
Lesson Intro For Leaders
Throughout our week, we have been asking questions about God. Where is God? When has God shown up? Who is God? Why does God love us? Keep these questions in mind while we wrap-up our week by focusing on the characteristics of God. What parts of God’s character do we hold to as a Church?
Gathering Questions
As you gather for the last time spend some time talking about one another and sharing some of your favorite parts of this week together. What are some things you will miss about not meeting together as a group and what have you come to learn about the people in your group.
Opening Prayer
Supplies: Candle (optional)
As a family/group- have one person read the “leader” parts, and the rest of the family/small group respond in the following call & response prayer below adapted from Psalm 136:1-9. Instruct the person leading the prayer to read the leader part and have the rest of group respond with the response “For God’s love forever!”
Leader: O give thanks to the Lord, for God is good
All: For God’s love lasts forever!
Leader: O give thanks to the God of gods, O give thanks to the Lord of lords
All: For God’s love lasts forever!
Leader: Who alone does great wonders and by understanding made the heavens
All: For God’s love lasts forever!
Leader: Who spread out the earth on the waters and made the great lights
All: For God’s love lasts forever!
Leader: Who made the sun to rule over the day and the moon and stars to rule over the night
All: For God’s love lasts forever!
Leader: O give thanks to the God of heaven
All: For God’s love lasts forever!
Alternate Opening Prayer
Gracious God, we know that you are good and that you love endures forever! We give thanks, for we know that you are the Lord of lords, the one who does great wonders throughout heaven and earth. You are the creator of all things and for your creation, we give thanks!
Bless this time together that we might be reminded of your love for us, a love that lasts forever! Amen!
Final Lesson Setup
Instructions for the students: To assist us in our exploration of ‘what God is to us,’ we are going to rapid-fire explore 7 characteristics of God: God creates, cares, sees, pursues, listens, transforms and loves.
#1 God Creates
God is good. God is creative. This means that we worship a God who creates what is good. In the midst of nothingness, God creates. In the midst of chaos, God brings order through creation. God made every star in the sky, God brought forth every animal with an instinctive understanding of their place in the universe, God made each individual blade of grass. Yet, God's greatest creation is you. God made us in God's image.
In the Gospel of Luke (12:7a), we are reminded that God puts so much detail into all creation, and yet we mean so much more than the rest of creation to God.
God pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail—even numbering the hairs on your head!
Questions/Activities
Give each student one minute to look out of a window.
Describe one magnificent God created things that you saw.
Describe something you like about each other (make sure everyone is acknowledged)
#2 God Cares
Take a moment and think about what causes you to worry.
School? [allow 30-90 seconds of silence]
Friends? [allow 30-90 seconds of silence]
Home? [allow 30-90 seconds of silence]
Do you worry about what will happen tomorrow or about things you can’t control?
Listen to this word from Jesus in Matthew 6:25.
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is life not more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
Questions/Activities
What worries do you need to turn over to God?
Speak your worries into your hands. Then pretend to blow your worries into the camera.
#3 God Sees
God told the prophet Samuel to go to Jesse in Bethlehem and anoint his son as king of Israel. But Jesse had eight sons; which one was Samuel supposed to anoint?
God guided Samuel and told him the answer in 1 Samuel 16:7.
The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.
Questions/Activities
Look at your hands. Do you have a good story about your hands?
Do you think God has a good story about your heart?
#4 God Pursues
Sometimes it is hard to pay close attention to the details around you, but that’s never a problem for God! In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells three parables we call the “lost stories.”
There was a lost sheep, a lost coin, and lost sons. Listen to these first two stories from Luke 15: 3-10.
3Jesus told them this parable: 4“Suppose someone among you had one hundred sheep and lost one of them. Wouldn’t he leave the other ninety-nine in the pasture and search for the lost one until he finds it? 5And when he finds it, he is thrilled and places it on his shoulders. 6When he arrives home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Celebrate with me because I’ve found my lost sheep.’ 7In the same way, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who changes both heart and life than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need to change their hearts and lives.
8“Or what woman, if she owns ten silver coins and loses one of them, won’t light a lamp and sweep the house, searching her home carefully until she finds it? 9When she finds it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Celebrate with me because I’ve found my lost coin.’ 10In the same way, I tell you, joy breaks out in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who changes both heart and life.”
Questions
Have you ever been lost?
What do these stories tell us about the love God has for each one of us?
#5 God Listens
Prayer can take many forms. You can pray aloud or in the quiet. You can pray while walking or riding your bike. Prayer can be silent, written or drawn, or even colored. Prayer is our way to talk with God. God desires to be in relationship with us and by praying we enter that relationship and strengthen our bond with God.
We are reminded of how God hears us when we pray in Jeremiah 29:12-13.
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Questions
What are your favorite ways to pray?
How do you know when you seek and have found God?
#6 God Transforms
God is in the business of making the ordinary into something extraordinary! God through Christ makes us all new as we are reminded in 2 Corinthians 5:17.
So then, if anyone is in Christ, that person is part of the new creation. The old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived!
We especially talk about God transforming through water. We know that water is needed to clean us and sustain us as people. Water is also a powerful force that can destroy and shape. When we are baptized, we remember that God changes our hearts and loves us. In fact, God loves us before we even know or remember God loving us! Many of you could have been baptized when you were little. You might or might not remember, but even then, God’s love is with you. God is waiting to change and transform us.
Questions/Activities
Run to the sink and splash your face with water
Do you remember your baptism?
God’s love comes to us and changes us in Galatians 3:26-27.
You are all God’s children through faith in Christ Jesus. All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
God transforms us through Christ to be extraordinary! Receive this blessing.
The Holy Spirit is at work in you, that being born through water and the Spirit, you may be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. AMEN!
#7 God Loves
Hopefully throughout this week and through our experiences today you have heard that God is love.
Psalm 8:4 reminds us that God loves us despite it not always making sense.
What are human beings that you, God are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
God is mindful of humans. God is considerate towards us. We can see throughout the Bible that God is not going to let anything separate us from God. God is always drawing us toward God’s self, so that we can become one – in perfect fellowship with God.
Activities
Make the sign of the cross on your body (head, tummy, left shoulder, right shoulder). In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.
Reflecting on Camp
For this activity we would like you to answer the questions below about your experience this week.
What is the one thing you enjoyed most this week?
Which bible story from this week was your favorite and why?
If you had to describe this week of camp with one word, which word would you use?
Closing Discussion
Spend some time discussing and reflecting on this lesson and then close with a prayer below.
Of the attributes of God that we discussed which one is the hardest for you?
If someone asked you what you learned at Bridgeport Virtual Camp, what would you tell them?
What to Remember:
God creates, cares, sees, pursues, listens, transforms and loves.
Getting Ready for Prayer
(Optional)
If God creates, cares, sees, pursues, listens, transforms and loves – what is God to you?
Closing Prayer
Invite the students to pray with you as you read the prayer below.
Receive this blessing:
The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace