​Christmas is so special it takes four weeks to prepare for it; the four Sundays of Advent.  On our first Sunday of Advent we remember our prophets that pointed the way to the birth of the Christ child.   Those prophets came so close to God and God came so close to them that they knew how important it was to show us the way.
 
There were many prophets in the Old Testament.  The people of God followed the sage wisdom of these prophets who fully expected and prepared for the coming of the Christ child.  They helped us prepare and told us what to expect.  They were generally an inspirational teacher. Some of us have had these types of people in our life on earth.  Wise people who taught how to live like Jesus did.  It might have been our grandparents, parents, friends, neighbors or maybe just walking into a Sunday School classroom to learn about Jesus’ life.
 
As we begin to prepare for Christmas let us give thanks for the prophets that came before us!  If that special wise person is still with you on earth, consider sending them a card of thanks.  If that person has joined Jesus in heaven, offer up a prayer of thanksgiving.  These people that came before us inspired us to live a life of faith, hope and love.  We should be forever grateful that they supported us on our faith journey.
 
This week our Sunday School lesson offers crafts to honor the people we have met on our faith journey that brought us closer to God.  We have poems to share, painting to recreate, ornaments to place on a Christmas tree and new prayers to say before we go to bed.

King David wanted to build a beautiful temple for God. But God said, “No David. I want your son to build my temple. Not you!” So when David was approaching the end of his life, his son--- King Solomon promised his father that he would be a temple for God in the Promised Land. After all, it didn’t seem fair that he had a beautiful place to live, but God’s house was just a tent!
 
So King Solomon sent a message to a king in another land to sell him beautiful cedar trees. That king sent workers into the forest to cut some beautiful trees for God’s temple.  King Solomon had workers create stone walls that were four stories tall and the lengths of the walls were 90 feet.  It was a huge beautiful temple for God. 
 
Then King Solomon added all of the elements from the tent that Moses and his people carried on their journey to the Promised Land.  They added the alter of incense, a laver to cleanse before you enter the temple, ten lamp stands and the table of Shewbread.  The last room in the temple was called the holy of holies and only the priest could enter.  That room housed the Ark of the Covenant and within that ark was God’s ten best ways to live (the stone tablet with the Ten Commandments).
 
King David and King Solomon did a lot to honor God.  They gave Christianity a permanent building to celebrate God’s words.  It’s ironic how life ebbs and flows.  Two thousand years later we are still using God’s ten best ways yet we are not in the church building.  We are still celebrating His work and sharing His stories of compassion and love but we’re doing it online.  These rich bible stories remind us that WE are the church and WE can share the good news wherever WE are.  We don’t have to be in the building.
 
Our Sunday School lesson includes many ways to recreate the temple, cedar wood crafts and videos about King Solomon and the temple.  We encourage you to share God’s compassion and grace this week with all you meet regardless if you are in the building, online or outside!  The world needs to feel the hope, joy, peace and love that we experience because of our faith! 

Many of us know about shepherds from seeing Christmas pictures and hearing about how shepherds in the fields helped to tell the story of Jesus’ birth. Shepherds still care for flocks of sheep in many parts of the world today.

One of the most well-known parts of the Bible is Psalms 23. This is David’s song to God. David was a shepherd when he was young and he starts his song by saying, the Lord “is my shepherd…” (23:1).

A shepherd cares for his sheep. He leads them to a place where they will find grass to eat and clean water to drink.

A shepherd uses a staff to guide the sheep. If one of the sheep gets caught in the brambles or falls into a place where it can’t get out, the shepherd uses the curved part of his staff to lift and rescue the sheep.

Sometimes sheep are bothered by flies and other insects that gather around their faces and make them uncomfortable. The shepherd rubs oil over their heads. That causes the insects to go away. Then the sheep feel peaceful so they can lie down and rest.

David compares how a shepherd cares for his sheep to the love that God has for each one of us. When you read the Psalm that David sings to God and you can imagine and feel how much God cares for and loves us.

“The Lord is my shepherd: I shall lack nothing” (23:1). “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters” (23:2). The Lord’s “rod and… staff, they comfort me” (23:4). The Lord “anoints my head with oil” (23:5).

When we think about how a shepherd cares for his sheep, we may have a better understanding of how much God cares for us. God provides what we need to feel His grace and peace.
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Our Sunday School lesson celebrates the grace so freely given to all of us!  We are offering sheep cake pop recipes, DIY headbands, seek & find worksheets, posters and pom-pom crafts!

We have now been in quarantine for over eight, long, tediously exhausting months!  Everyone’s life looks and feels different!

Did you know that Joseph ended up in prison because of his brothers at age 17? He wasn’t released from prison until he was 30 years old.  That is 13 years in quarantine.  Joseph made the best of the situation.  He still helped people during his isolation and he didn’t turn his back on this brothers.

God is very happy when people help each other, and that’s one good thing that can come out of bad situations.  Check out this list of COVID CELEBRATIONS:

-Healthcare professionals are discovering better treatment for COVID19
-Drive-in Movies are making a comeback
-People are not compulsive consumers
-Families are eating dinner together at home
-Drive-by Celebrations for birthdays and graduations are now a thing
-People began new hobbies (gardening, sewing, crocheting, cooking and napping)
-A squirrel mastered a Ninja Warrior course (social media)
-FREE Online concerts, movies and Disney family Singalongs
-Many foster pets have been adopted
-Crayola launched a box of crayons with diverse skin colors
-Arizonans rediscovered many local hiking trails and state parks

Joseph was a man who found himself in a bad situation. His own brothers got jealous of him and sold him into slavery. Joseph went from being a slave, to a prisoner, then to second-of-charge of the country of Egypt. But he wouldn’t have been in Egypt to save the people and become the second-in-charge, if all of those bad things didn’t happen to him in the first place.

​Our Sunday School lesson will give your student dozens of way to celebrate Joseph’s coat of many colors.  They can recreate the coat through; paint, crayons, candy, construction paper, puzzles, paper bags and finger knitting.  Lord, you are the all-powerful God who is always working for our good. You can bring good things out of bad situations. We pray that You will help us to trust You when bad things happen because we know that You are with us on this journey. 

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.!