Day: February 14, 2021

Hi GrowKids! Our series is focusing on LOVE this month and this week, we are talking about loving our enemies. Sometimes it’s hard to love our enemies. When someone is mean to us, takes a toy from us, or says something mean, it hurts our feelings, but God calls us to LOVE, and that means even loving someone that seems difficult to love.

Bible Story

BIBLE STORY | Matthew 5:40-48

INSTRUCTIONS: Summarize Matthew 5:40-48 in an understandable way. You can say something
like this:
It is easy to show love to someone who is nice to you. It is hard to show love to someone who
is mean to you. But we can choose to show love to someone even when it is hard.
Jesus told us to “love your neighbor.” Jesus wants us to love the people around us. Jesus also
told us to “love our enemies.” That means we are supposed to be kind to and respect people
who are mean to us. We can pray for them, too.
God shows love to people who are nice and to people who are not nice.
We can choose to show love to people who are nice to us — that is easy to do. We can choose
to show love to people who are mean to us — that is hard to do. But we can show love even
when it is hard.

Prayer

INSTRUCTIONS: Hold your hands outstretched to the ceiling.
You can hold your hands up like I do. We can look up to God and pray like this.
God, we are so glad You give us good things to show us Your love. Help us to show God’s love
to people even when they are mean to us. Amen.

Memory Verse

MEMORY VERSE | 1 John 4:11

INSTRUCTIONS: Follow along in the video below.

Big Idea

THE BIG IDEA | I Can Show God’s Love Even When It’s Hard.

A big hug is a great way to show someone God loves them. Let’s stretch out our arms and then
give ourselves a great, big hug as we say, “I can show God’s love even when it’s hard.”

Activities

Activity: HELLO GAME

INSTRUCTIONS: Greet every kid with a smile and a handshake as you say, “Hello.” Put an emoiji
sticker on the child’s hand or shirt. Then give that kid a strip of stickers to share with the other people in your home. Ask the kids to shake hands with everyone else and give them a sticker, too. Keep repeating the game of a hello handshake and a sticker until every kid has a bunch of stickers on their hand
or shirt.
It felt good when someone gave me a handshake and a hello. I have so many stickers to show how many times I got to say hello to someone. Do you have a lot of stickers, too? This reminds me of how much God loves us! We can show God’s love by saying hello (wave hello).

Activity: SORT THE HEARTS

INSTRUCTIONS: Get conversation heart candies and pastel colored papers that match the colors of the candies. Lay out the colored paper and put one conversation heart candy onto each matching color to show the kids how to do the game (If you have really young kids and are concerned about choking hazards, you might want to use stickers instead). Then, give the kids a chance to sort the rest of the conversation hearts into color groups on the papers.
Did you think it was easy or hard to sort the candies?

Activity: RAIN PLAY

INSTRUCTIONS: Prepare a big, shallow basin to put water in. Add some strainers and scoops for the kids to play in the water with (Be sure to watch kids when they play with water to keep them safe). You can pour water through this strainer and make the water go down into this basin. Look!
You’re making it rain! Do you like rain? God gives good things like rain to everyone. God gives rain to people who act
nicely and to people who act in a mean way, too. Because God loves everyone!
How do you feel when somebody does something nice to you like giving you a turn to play?
How do you feel when someone is mean to you or doesn’t let you play?
Does God want us to share good things like a hello? How about snacks? Or toys?
I am glad God gives us good things like the soft, cool rain. It reminds me I can show God’s love,
too!

#TODDLER HACK: Before your group meets, put water, glitter, and blue food coloring
in a two liter bottle. Be sure to seal the top on with hot glue. Roll the bottle for the kids
to watch the glitter swirl around and talk with them about how God shows us love by
giving us rain.

SNACK-tivity

Snack Time: SNACK TO SHARE

INSTRUCTIONS: Make a big bowl of snack mix with a few types of cereal, raisins, and even mini chocolate chips. Provide a zip top bag to each kid and help them scoop some snack mix into the bag. Tell the kids they can take home the zip top bag to share a snack with someone after church. Then, give each kid their own scoop of snack mix to eat during class. I don’t know about you, but it’s hard for me to share good things I have like toys or snacks. But God told us we should show God’s love even when it’s hard!