The Wise Man/Foolish Man

For Jr. Church Sunday I planned on teaching about the wise man and the foolish man.  Sunday morning I awoke to a fresh layer of snow covering everything.  Of couse, although I had my lesson planned out, I had not gotten my rock or sand for my illustration.  So in my Sunday shoes I went out and trudged around the church playground to get sand and then went looking to find a big rock.  I looked everywhere and could not find one rock that was bigger than a pebble!  Finally as I went back in the house I saw one sitting under the tree only few steps from the front door of the parsonage.  I was thrilled to find a rock but aggravated I hadn't seen it before.  I used simple paper cups for houses and told the kids the story as I poured water on the houses.  Of course the house built on the solid foundation stood while the house without the foundation fell.

We then talked about how God is the strong foundation that we needed to build our lives (houses) upon.  I took a plate and wrote God on it and then took pretzels and frosting and started building a pretzel house.  As I laid each piece of the house in place, we talked about how reading our Bibles, obeying, trusting, praying, attending church, ect. all help us to build our strong lives centered on God.  I then let each of the kids build their own pretzel houses.

It was so much fun to watch their serious little faces as they concentrated so hard on building their houses.  I heard several comments later from parents that their kids came home and retold the story and told how they need to build their lives on God.  Amen!  So nice to know that the kids are listening!