Especially for Younger Students: Create This

Prepare a brown paper lunch bag for each student by opening the bag fully so it will stand on its own and folding down the top. Place the empty bags on a table. On individual index cards, write the following: Use what you’ve been given to create ____________. Complete the statement with one of the following inanimate objects: a bridge, a chair, a tree, a table, a car. You’ll need one card naming one object for every three or four students.

As students arrive, instruct them to pick up one of the bags on the table and then to join with three other students. Distribute an index card on which you’ve written the assignment to create one of the inanimate objects identified above. Say: As a group, use what you’ve been given to create the object written on your index card. Wait as students open their bags. Expect them to express that all the bags are empty and they have nothing to work with.

Repeat your directions exactly: As a group, use what you’ve been given to create the object written on your index card. Allow students another minute or so to struggle with the activity, and then ask: Is the empty bag the only thing you’ve been given? If students don’t recognize that they have been given their lives, point out that, as part of God’s creation, they have been given life directly from God. Encourage students to rethink how they can complete their assignments using themselves. After a minute or so, call for each group to demonstrate its assigned object.

Ask: When you stopped focusing on the empty bag, how did you figure out what to do to create your object? (They worked together; they drew from their knowledge of what the object looked like.) Ask: When God created the world, what did He have to work with? (If students cannot answer the question, use it to transition into the Bible study.) Point out that it is through God’s work in creation that He revealed two parts of His nature to us.