The year of 2020 kind of feels like the wilderness, everything looks and feels different. Some of us are conducting business virtually and others are commuting to the office/business/classroom.  Some of us are experiencing sickness and others of us are praying for the health of our loved ones and the world.  We are even worshipping in a new way; virtually!  2000 years ago, worshiping in the wilderness looked a lot different.  Moses and the Israelites worshiped by carrying their “church” to the Promised Land literally on their back.
 
The church in Moses’ time was basically a tent (Tabernacle).  Its roof had four layers.  One layer was made from white linen cloth, one from goat’s hair, another from rams skin/dyed red and then the top layer was leather (most likely porpoise or seal skin).  These layers represented new creation, hope, imperfection and protection. 
When the Israelites stopped to make a camp they had to rebuild their church at each location.  The entire church included an entrance with a courtyard.  The courtyard included the bronze laver for cleansing, the offering altar, and court fence.  Next they would recreate the entrance to the Tabernacle with the lampstand, the able of bread and an altar of incense inside. Then there was the veil and the entrance to the Holy of Holies.  Only the priest could enter the Holy of Holies.  The Holy of Holies was furthest point in the tent and it included the ark of the convenient that housed the Ten Commandments, a rod and a clay pot.  It was a bit of effort for the Israelites to do church in the desert but they were committed to worshipping the God of Abraham. 
 
In 2020 worshipping virtually is much simpler for our members while our staff is fully engaged and committed to making the experience just as fulfilling for our congregation.  This 2020 wilderness is a new frontier and a place that needs a lot of compassion.  Thank you to our members for offering your compassion to all!
 
This week’s Sunday School lesson includes recreating the objects that could be found in the Tabernacle.  There are Lego and paper arks that can be built.  Your child can create the Tabernacle from graham crackers, wafers and Pirouette cookies.  They can also make the lampstand from Easter eggs or toilet paper tubes.  The Israelites were creative in the wilderness and we invite our children to be creative as well.

Many families have healthy rules for their children. Does your family have rules about when to eat? How to eat? How long you can be on your tablet? How you should act? No hitting, no unkind words, no yelling? Do you like all of the rules? I remember saying that I did NOT like some of the rules when I was little. There were too many!!

Let's think about rules and play a game called "I wonder." I'm going to ask you a question that starts with "I wonder" and you can use your imagination and answer the question. In our country, we have a lot of rules about food -- how it has to be made before we buy it and eat it. I wonder what would happen if we didn't have any of those rules.  Do you think it would be clean? Taste as good? Would restaurants be as clean? We also have a lot of rules in sports and games. I wonder what would happen if our games didn't have rules?  People may not be honest.  We wouldn't know how to play.  Would it be as fun?  What if there wasn’t a driver’s manual?  There are tons of rules about how to drive or ride our bikes on the road. I wonder what would happen if we didn't have those rules? A person could drive anywhere.  They could stop or turn when they wanted.  That could cause crashes all the time!

We have a lot of rules to live by, and most of them are good, and necessary. If we didn't have them, the world would be crazy!

God also gave us some rules to live by. They are called the 10 Commandments and God gave them to Moses and he shared them with us:

~Put God first.
~Worship only Him.
~No bad words.
~Work 6, rest 1.
~Obey your parents.
~Harm no one.
~Don’t cheat.
~If it’s not yours, don’t take it.
~Tell the truth.
~Don't be jealous of other people’s stuff.
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The Sunday School activities for this week include skits, tower challenges, hopscotch, songs and crafts. The lesson might be about the Ten Commandments but this also God’s top ten list for success!  They offer us the ten best ways to live by!

What is something you’ve complained about in the last week?  Did it help the situation? 

Sometimes when we are complaining, it reflects that our hearts are not grateful for the things that we do have. God wants us to have grateful hearts, and He also wants us to come to Him with our requests rather than grumbling when we don’t get our way. That doesn’t mean that God will always give us exactly what we want, but we can trust that God will give us exactly what we need.

This Sunday School lesson is about the story of the Israelites grumbling in the desert. God had rescued them from the Pharaoh. He sent Moses to lead them through the desert to the Promised Land.  It wasn’t an easy or short trek.

On their journey, God’s people had seen Him do amazing things, yet they still managed to find things to complain about. At one point, they complained about the lack of food.  So you know what God did for those grumblers and complainers?  He sent them manna and quail.  Yes. God was gracious to them and provided for them even though they were ungrateful.
 
Why do you think God showed grace to those grumblers and complainers?  He did it so that they would know that He loved them and that He would take care of them. God hadn't brought them out of Egypt to let them starve in the desert! God was going to see to it that they made it to the land which He had promised them.
 
At some point we all grumble and complain. When we do, let’s remember that every good thing we have comes from above.  Let us pray that we keep our hearts to Him and remember to focus on gratitude for what we already have.
 
This week’s lesson includes directions for how to make quails from paper plate, origami paper and cupcake liners.  It also has recipes for unleavened bread and matzah.  Children are invited to write out their nightly prayers and add a few sentences about what they are grateful for. 

 There was once someone who said such amazing things and did such wonderful things that people followed him. They couldn’t help it. They wanted to know who he was, so they just had to ask him. 

So begins the beloved Parable of the Good Shepherd in the Godly Play repertoire.    As we approach Good Shepherd Sunday, this story    invites the children to    come closer. Children are invited to lean into the circle as the lid comes off the golden parable box, so they can wonder and learn about the parable inside.

A parable is a story that Jesus told to explain a concept.  It may reveal multiple lessons to you over your lifetime.   The different stages of our life help put a spot light on the different outlook that is possible from parables.

In the story of the Good Shepherd, the storyteller explains about the cool clear waters of life that nurture growth, dark moments shadowed by rocks and how the Good Shepherd is with us in both of those times.    Often when the storyteller asks the children about this story, a child will say, “I wonder if I’m the sheep who was lost in the dangerous place. And the good shepherd is God, coming to help me.” 

This week’s Sunday School lesson about the Good Shepherd includes Cheerios and Oreo sheep treats, puppet crafts and dot-to-dot sheep pages.  Good news is that the Good Shepherd includes everyone at the table of the great banquet! No one is left out and all are invited  into His grace! 

The Bible is so big.  There are so many pages and so many different authors. Did you know that it began as a bunch of books and then during the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. the delegates combined the stories into one big book?  Today that is the book we call the Bible.  Our Protestant bible has 66 books. These books share history, poetry, law, prophecy, gospels, parables, letters of the prophets and Revelation.
 
We can separate the Bible into the Old Testament (stories before Jesus and the stories from the Torah) and New Testament (stories about Jesus and his followers). We can also examine the different writing styles and authors. These steps can help enlighten us to the wonderful messages in the Bible.
 
When we are in our Godly Play atriums at NSUMC, we show the relationship to the stories on the shelves and their location in the Bible.  The Godly Play manipulatives offer a great visual representation of the Bible scriptures.  NSUMC was blessed to have so many members create these supplies for our children!
 
As Christians we have a rich history that teaches us how to offer extravagant hospitality, extend grace, and share compassion.  This week’s Sunday School lesson will share many ways that students can learn about the different books of the Bible through game!  We have Jenga, Legos, Duplos, golf balls, hopscotch, clothes pins, bingo cards, Jeopardy, Minute-to-Win-It and cups!  Come play games and learn about the B.I.B.L.E.!

Imagine that you are 70 years old (your grandparents age) and God tells you that you have to move (and carry your house with you), will soon have a new born son and will have to lead a nation to safety.  How many of you think that you could make all of that happen?
 
That’s what God told Abram.  At first Abram showed great faith by leaving his home without knowing where God would lead him, but he was not a perfect person. At times he took matters into his own hands instead of trusting God.
 
This story teaches us that God is willing to work with less than perfect people that come to him in faith.  We have to keep the confidence that God is always faithful and he will keep his promises. We must learn to be patient and wait on God. It was nearly 800 years before Abram’s descendants owned the Promised Land and many more years before it became the great nation of Israel. But the greatest blessing we have from Abram is that eventually one of his descendants was Jesus, who brought the gift of grace and peace to the world (Galatians 3:14).
 
God promised Abram that he would have descendants more than the number of stars. God told Abram this before he ever had a child and God kept his promise. God had a plan!

Sometimes we wonder why we have certain things slow us down on our faith journey or the road takes a different turn that we didn’t expect.  One thing we can always hold onto is that we are not alone and God’s plan is better than we can ever imagine. Start counting the stars in the heavens, that’s how many promises await you!    This week’s Sunday School lesson your children and grandchildren can make your family tree, string art stars, constellation images with flashlights, thaumatropes and veggie stars!

Jonah was a prophet of God; he would listen to God and tell the people what God said. One day, God said to Jonah, "Go to the city of Nineveh and tell the people who live there that they are not showing good manners and that they need to change their ways." Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh. He didn’t like the people in that city, and maybe he was afraid of them. So Jonah decided to run away and hide from God. He caught the first ship out of town and headed in the opposite direction from where God told him to go.

Jonah got on that ship and hid way down deep inside. Then the boat began to be tossed in the waves because of a great storm.  Because Jonah was a prophet, the sailors asked him, "What should we do to stop this terrible storm?"

"Throw me overboard into the sea," Jonah answered, "and the sea will become calm."  The sailors picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea and the storm stopped at once.

Did Jonah drown in the sea? No! God sent a great fish to save him. He prayed to the Lord and decided that it had been wrong to run from the Lord and promised to fulfill his promises to God.

This week our Sunday School lesson includes ocean science experiments, creating an origami ocean animals and ocean snacks.  Just as God had a task for Jonah, he has a plan for you and me. When it comes to doing what God wants us to do, we might run, but we cannot hide!

​Has anyone ever broken a promise they made to you? How did that make you feel? You were probably very disappointed and said something like, "But you promised!" Sometimes we aren't very good at keeping our promises.

Our Sunday School lesson today is about a promise that God made to Noah. Noah built an ark and made sure that there were two of every kind of bird and animal on that ark. He kept all the animals safe on that boat for 40 days.  

As  the flood waters receded Noah sent out a dove to find dry land.  When the dove came back with a leaf Noah knew that they could all leave the ark safely.  God made a promise to Noah that he would never again destroy the whole earth with a flood. Then he did something to remind Noah of that promise. He placed a rainbow in the sky and he said to Noah, "I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be a sign of the promise between me and all life on the earth." God said that every time he saw the rainbow, he would remember the promise that he made.
 
This is our second week learning about Noah and this week we will learn about God’s Rainbow Promise.  Your children and grandchildren can make a walking rainbow and recreate rainbow experiments. They can pretend that they are a chef and make fruit salads, veggie kabobs, waffles, and popcorn, all in rainbow colors!  The next time you see a rainbow; remember God’s promise to us.  We may not be able to see the road ahead but He promises that there’s something better ahead, we just have to trust Him.  No, we are not in control but we are deeply loved by the one who is! 

Do you like to construct things?  Puzzles?  Legos?  Recipes?  What if I gave you a set of instructions and told you I wanted you to build a boat that was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. Do you think you could do it? You would probably say, "No way! That is bigger than a football field! I can't build a boat that big!"

Well, that is exactly what happened to a man named Noah. One day God looked down on the world that he had created and he saw how unkind the people had become. It broke his heart to see the way people were acting.

But God saw that Noah was different. God saw that Noah was a good man, so he decided that he would spare Noah and his family. God told Noah about his plan to send a great flood to destroy everything on the earth. He told Noah to build a big boat called an ark and to fill it with animals -- two of every kind. Noah obeyed God. He built the boat and then he put two of every kind of animal into it.

Soon the rain began to fall. The raindrops made little puddles, then bigger puddles. The big puddles became streams and rivers, then mighty seas. Soon the whole earth was covered with water. The ark tossed up and down on the waves, but Noah, his family and all the animals were safe and dry inside the ark.

It rained for forty days and nights until finally, the rain stopped. It took many days for the flood waters to go down. When it finally did, Noah, his family, and all of the animals left the ark. Noah thanked God for keeping them safe.

God had a plan for Noah's life. Because he was faithful and obeyed God, Noah and his entire family were saved. God has a plan for your life too. God has told us about his plan for us in the Bible. Listen to what he said, "I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
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Sometimes it seems that there are challenges are too big for us. But when we remember to put our trust in God, anything is possible!
 
We will be studying Noah and his Ark for two weeks.  This week’s Sunday School lesson we will focus on the animals.  We can use our COVID toilet paper tubes to create two hedgehogs, foxes, frogs and roosters to add to the ark!