Jesus Without Language

Psalm 107 is long, but for this lesson we’ve focused on a tiny part of it — what is usually written as the first and fourth paragraph (or pericope for the theology scholars among us). These look at gathering and rescuing God’s people, and these games echo those ideas.

Shouts of Joy

A naming exercise where you take it in turns naming something you are thankful for, assign it a mime or action and then as a group make the action accompanied by a whoop of joy!
Link: verse 22

‘Stuck in the Mud’

A classic game where getting tagged freezes you until another player can rescue you. (Also called freeze tag.)
Link: being rescued.

Psalm Beat

Using a small section of words from the Psalm as lyrics, have the youngsters make up a tune or a beat to sing the words. Add percussion instruments and work in pairs.
Link: Psalms were songs sung, not read.

Faithful Grip

Each child has a piece of ice they must pass between their hands, never stopping. They lose when they drop the ice. The winner is the last one holding their ice.
Link: Even with all life’s moving parts God never lets us go.

 

This is a small moving papercraft based on Psalm 107 verse 22 “Let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices and announce his works with shouts of joy.” This is a little mechanism papercraft that opens to reveal the end of the verse and see the people lift up in their ‘shouts of joy’.

 
…continue reading

 

The Psalm lessons each have two colouring pages in place of the usual Hero Resources.
These will print on either A4 or US letter sized paper as they are made slightly bigger than both.

The images are displayed small here, click on the image you wish to have, then save the image that loads.
(These images are not copyright free, they are for personal/classroom use only.)

 

 

Kids love puppet crafts and nestled in the reading for Psalm 107 is verse 22 is probably my favourite “Let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices and announce his works with shouts of joy.” It just begs a response, not just of Joy but of a shout. That’s where this craft comes from. It’s probably the simplest form of puppet there is.

 
…continue reading

We are going to read a song, a song Jesus may have sung with his friends, a song from the book of songs to be sung – the book called Psalms. Have you ever been rescued? How did you feel afterwards? Did you thank the person who saved you? God’s people were always getting into trouble, and God kept saving them, again and again. This is a song of joy to thank God for being the one who always saves his people.

1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
his faithful love endures forever.
2 Let the redeemed of the Lord proclaim
that he has redeemed them from the power of the foe
3 and has gathered them from the lands—
from the east and the west,
from the north and the south

Pause – Wow!
In those few lines God tells us three things:
God’s love never ever runs out,
there is nothing so big that God can’t save us from it,
and we can never get too far from God to be saved.

19 Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble;
he saved them from their distress.
20 He sent his word and healed them;
he rescued them from their traps.
21 Let them give thanks to the Lord
for his faithful love and his wondrous works for all humanity.
22 Let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices
and announce his works with shouts of joy.

Do you think when they sung that song they shouted the last bit? There is so much to celebrate about God’s faithful love. It never leaves us, it never gives up or fades away; it never stops working. God wanted to save us so much he came down from heaven. Jesus came to save us, to show us a bigger picture of the love of God, to win the war over darkness. How can we join the celebration and thank God today? 

Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.