Sunday School - Proverbs (9) wisdom wind-chimes

You may remember that our Sunday School series on Proverbs started with an ambitious plan to make wisdom wind-chimes out of clay. The first step was a conceptual diagram:

We used cookie cutters to cut the shapes out of clay, and my art-teacher friend fired them in her kiln:

The children decorated the top sections with the word "wisdom", using textas, which worked surprisingly well (except the lighter colours, which disappeared under the varnish!):

Here's my son Ben decorating his:

And here's my daughter Elizabeth working on hers:

We found there wasn't time during most of our lessons to decorate the other pieces. Instead, we devoted the final week of term to decorating and varnishing the rest of the wind-chime shapes. This was a fantastic opportunity to revise our lessons. I asked the kids if they could remember what we've discussed (parents, friends money, words, work & gluttony, wisdom & folly), and they drew a picture or wrote a word representing each topic on one of the shapes. Here's my kids working on them:


I tied the shapes together using fine fishing line (quite a job!). Here's some of the finished wind-chimes:



They look great, don't they? What a wonderful reminder of what we've learned together about God's wisdom in Proverbs!

Sunday School - Proverbs (8) hard work

"Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!" (Prov 6:6)

Proverbs has a lot to say about hard work. But for me, this Sunday School lesson was a day of rest.

A group of students from my husband's uni group were running their annual mission at our church, and one of their responsibilities was to lead Sunday School. So I sat and did jigsaws with my 2 year old in creche, and watched as Shell and 2 other students taught the class with great energy and enthusiasm. Here they are leading our little group:


They started with a drama, with Shell the mum giving her 2 boys their jobs for the day, then Shell the teacher handing out homework tasks. Of course, one of the boys did their jobs well, and the other was lazy and negligent, and they suffered the necessary consequences (I didn't quite overhear these).

Then it was on to the lesson, and Shell came up with a brilliant variation on the charts we've been making each week. She drew an ant hill on a large sheet of white paper (being an artist helps!) and they played a game she invented called "up the hill". The kids were given a pile of Proverbs verses about work and gluttony (we attempted 2 interrelated topics this week) and a number of small pictures of ants.

Up one side of the hill went the verses about hard work with an up-going ant (6:6-8, 27:18). Down the other side of the hill went the verses about slothfulness with a down-going ant (20:4; 22:13; 24:30-34). On the middle of the hill were pasted those many 2-way verses in Proverbs, contrasting the results of hard work and laziness, with an up- and down-going ant (10:4-5; 14:23; 23:19-21). Here's Ben and Lizzy with the poster they made:


For the craft, Shell printed out a picture of an ant in the middle of an A4 sheet of paper. She asked the kids to write or draw tasks they wanted to work hard at around the ant. Here's a finished drawing (it looks like Shell might have drawn this one!):

I was very amused to see that Ben came up with 3 tasks of vital importance: finish a catapult he's making with friends for a school project, get something called a "skin" on some computer game he's playing, and become a Pokemon master on his Pokemon Diamond game. I'm not sure that's exactly what Shell meant, but it's a very endearing indication of his ongoing preoccupations!

Sunday School - Proverbs (7) words

Words. Sometimes they leave your mouth, and you'd love to grab them and stuff them back in again, but it's too late. You clap your hands over your mouth, but they're gone, vibrating through the air and into the ear, carrying their invisible sting of thoughtlessness, folly, hurt, deceit, or gossip. They reverberate through the days, their effect spreading, waves in ruffled waters.

If only you'd stopped to think, or listen, before you spoke.

Words. Jewels without price, fruit dripping with sweetness, a precious remedy, you offer them as gifts to another. They add them to the treasure-chest of the mind, holding them close, storing them up, passing them on. Words heal wounds, comfort hurts, mend conflicts, cure weariness, bring joy, and grow wisdom.

A wise man once said these words about words: "The tongue has the power of life and death" (Proverbs 18:21a).

The bad mouth is boastful, foolish and hurtful, makes hasty vows which can't be kept, answers before listening, makes fun of others, flatters, lies, tells secrets, speaks without thinking, talks a lot, and is quick to argue and fight (10:19; 12:18, 22; 15:2, 18; 17:14; 18:13; 19:29; 20:19; 25; 27:2; 29:5, 20).

The good mouth speaks the right words at the right time, soothes anxiety with kindness, avoids anger and argument, is pleasant, patient and gentle, keeps secrets, refuses slander, gives knowledge, and is careful, truthful, and wise (11:13; 12:19, 25; 14:29; 15:1, 7, 23; 16:24; 20:3, 15; 21:23; 25:11; 26:20).

Has anyone got any ideas for a helpful way to demonstrate the power of words to children? Here's some quick ideas I wish I'd thought of on the day:

• words on slips of paper inside 2 balloons - bad words in one ("gossip", "nasty", "mocking") and good words in another ("kind", "gentle", "wise") - then pop the balloons and watch them spread
• one of those (safe!) science experiments where something explodes, demonstrating the power of words
• kind words on slips of paper inside an envelope for each child
• something sweet and bitter in a dish for the children to taste (Prov. 16:24)
• drop a stone into a tray of water and watch the ripples spread, showing the effect of words
• a short drama

Making a chart with the kids has proved to be a wonderful way to teach an unruly book like Proverbs. I found an image of a mouth with MOUTH POWER across the middle - very appropriate, although I'm not sure the artist had Proverbs in mind! - enlarged it to A3 size, traced it, and printed it out twice.

Across the middle, we pasted some words from Proverbs: "Your tongue has the power of life" and "Your tongue has the power of ... death" (18:21). The kids chose which to work on (as usual, the boys chose the "bad" mouth and the girls the "good" one - what's going on there?!). They coloured the mouth, and around the edges stuck verses from Proverbs in speech balloons, wrote an appropriate word on each ("gossip", "flatter", "kind") and decorated each verse with an appropriate picture.

And on the principle of "less is more" (10:19), that's enough from this mouth - or pen - or keyboard - today.

Sunday School - Proverbs (6) friendship

How do you choose your friends? Someone I feel comfortable with. Someone who talks about themselves, but not all the time. Someone with a similar background to me. Attractive. Interesting. Good listener. Fun. We just click. We enjoy each other's company. We're alike. We're different. There can be all kinds of reasons for choosing friends.

Perhaps you don't think much about how to choose your friends. Perhaps your friends chose you. Perhaps life chose your friends for you. The only person who really took the time to get to know you at church. People in a similar stage of life to yours. The members of the small group you got put into.

Maybe you don't have many friends. Maybe you're not sure to go about making friends, let alone how to choose them. I can feel myself getting into a much bigger topic than this Sunday School lesson was meant to address!


The truth is, I've never thought about friendship as a topic the Bible talks much about. I've seen friends as one of those incidental blessings, like food or sunshine. I've chosen my friends with care, but mainly because I warm to them. Because they're keen Christians, yes, but also because I like them.

So it surprised me to see how much God has to say about friends in Proverbs. At the same time, I've been writing on Pilgrim's Progress, and there it is again: Christian chooses his fellow-travellers with such care! Some encourage him and keep him on the path to heaven. Others subtly try to lead him astray. Friends matter.

A righteous man is cautious in friendship, but the way of the wicked leads them astray. (Prov. 12:26)

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. (Prov. 18:24)

So what kinds of friends does God think we should avoid? Friends who are evil, who hate, who hurt others, who are violent, who make trouble, who lead us into sin. Foolish people. Fair weather friends, here today and gone when we're in trouble. Friends who make fun of others, who say hurtful things, who hide their dislike with flattery, who get angry, who tell others when we've mistreated them, who lie, who boast of gifts they don't give, who gossip. Friends who talk too much. (Proverbs 10:12; 11:12; 13:20; 15:4; 16:29; 17:9; 20:19; 22:24-25; 24:1-2; 25:14, 19; 27:5-6)

And what kinds of friends does God encourage us to choose? Wise friends who make us wiser. Friends with a kind word when we're sad, who weep when we weep, whose words bring healing. Friends who control their tongues, who can keep a secret. Friends who give honest advice, who rebuke us when we need it. Friends who are faithful when trouble comes. Friends who forgive. (Proverbs 10:12; 11:12; 13:20; 15:4; 17:17; 27:5-6, 9, 20)

Can I encourage you to have a good look at your friendships? Take time to think about your friends, whether they make you wiser, whether they are trustworthy and kind, whether they are willing to give you wise advice and loving rebuke, whether they support you in trouble, whether they weep with you and bring you joy, whether they help you to love and obey God.

And if you don't have any good or godly friends, how do you go about making them? A huge topic, of course, far too big for a blog post which is supposed to be about Sunday School! Just let me suggest one thing: while it's hard to ask "Will you be my friend?" when you're over 6 years old, you can still be deliberate as you go about developing friendships.

Have a look around your church or community, for people your gender and around your age who don't already have lots of friends, who would be the kind of good friend God describes in Proverbs. Sit near them and start a conversation; ask them over; go out for coffee. Or ask them to be your prayer partner: it's amazing how many good friendships grow this way. Be a friend like the Proverbs good friend. And while you're at it, don't forget to pray for the great blessing of a good and godly friend.


I guess I'd better shut up and tell you about Sunday School. I didn't think of it at the time, but I was reflecting yesterday on how helpful an introductory activity would have been. Perhaps one of those trust exercises, where you pair up the kids, and blindfold one in each pair, while the other child leads the blindfolded child around, then you swap blindfolds. An excellent lead in to a discussion about how friends lead us into and out of trouble, and how important trustworthiness is in friends.

I printed out the verses listed above in an easy-to-use translation and a large print, and the children stuck them on two A3 sized cut-outs of people, one "good friend" and one "bad friend". They decided where to paste the verses, then decorated their people to look mean and kind. If you ask me, they both look a bit scary:


This would be a great study to do with teenagers, wouldn't it? At a time of life when friends become so important and influential, but when peers can be so mean and nasty, how helpful it would be to have guidance about how to choose friends with wisdom and confidence!

Sunday School - Proverbs (5) using money wisely

I've been struggling a bit teaching Proverbs. The group are a bit young, I discovered, to do a traditional Bible study, where you look up Bible verses and write them down: and believe me, there are a lot of verses in Proverbs!

So I was glad to hand our lesson on money over to my friend Liz - and even gladder to see that she came up with a great way to teach Proverbs, which we'll be using in weeks to come!

I gave poor Liz a long list of verses on how to use money wisely. As I looked up verse after verse, I was struck again by how incredibly practical Proverbs is. It includes all the everyday advice about money you would give to a child or adult: don't be lazy, save your money, don't spend it all at once, don't be greedy, avoid debt, be honest and generous.

But Proverbs also puts money in the big picture of God's creation and salvation: money is a great blessing, but far less valuable than wisdom or love. Better to have enough, but not too much, and serve God faithfully with what you have.

Liz had the great idea of making a chart, which the kids helped to complete, and which they proudly stuck up on the noticeboard for everyone at church to see. She printed out the verses I gave her in a large font. She used an A4 sheet as the radius of a circle, and cut out a quarter circle from 4 colourful A3 sheets:


Each quarter was given a title, and the children decided where to stick each of the verses:
1. Money is a blessing. The blessing of the LORD brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it. (Proverbs 10:22)
2. Better than money. Wisdom (16:16), justice (16:8), a good reputation (22:1), peace (17:1), love (15:17).
3. What to do and what not to do. Don't get into debt (22:26-27), don't be a workaholic (23:4), don't be lazy (10:4), be honest in your work (11:1), save slowly(13:11), don't be greedy (28:20), don't trust in your money (11:28), be generous to the poor (11:24-25), give to God's work (3:9-10).
4. In conclusion. "...give me neither poverty nor riches..." (30:7-9)

The children drew pictures, cut them out, and stuck them on the chart to decorate it. Voila! One chart on God's teaching about money in Proverbs.

When my children and I had our own little Sunday School class on this topic, which was much less successful than Liz's (we were away that weekend), we started it with a game of Giant's Treasure (the adult stands with their back a good distance from the children, with a "treasure" behind them, and the children have to sneak up and grab the treasure, while the adult turns around unexpectedly and sends those who are moving back to the start). In the chest, if I'd been organised enough, I would have put some money cut out of shiny gold and silver card with "wisdom", "love", "peace", and the other "better than money" blessings on the back, and a few lollies to make it fun! A good icebreaker.

To sum it all up, here's one of my favourite Bible passages of all time, and a great one to learn and to pray:

Two things I ask of you, O LORD;
do not refuse me before I die:
Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, 'Who is the LORD ?'
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonour the name of my God.
Proverbs 30:7-9

Amen.

Sunday School - Proverbs (4) parents and children

How do you get wise? Listen to your parents. That's a pretty good summary of much of Proverbs. So it was an obvious place to start, as the children and I got into the nitty-gritty of the practice of wisdom.

Proverbs has an enormous amount to say about parents and children. The book starts as a conversation between a father and his son: "Listen, my son, to your father's instruction, and do not neglect your mother's teaching" (Prov. 1:8). In weeks to come, we'll be looking at one topic a week - money, friendship, words, laziness - but parents had to come first, since this is the main relationship and source of wisdom in a child's life.

As I prepared the lesson, and looked up the verses about parents and children, I found myself being challenged to keep up the tough work of teaching, training and disciplining my kids. It's not easy to teach a 5-year old to obey 20 times in one day, or to find the energy to read the Bible with a 10-year old night after night, and it's helpful to be reminded that to neglect these things is to hate your child.

But what about our lesson? We started with a quick game of "Simon Says" - you know, the one where commands starting "Simon says" have to be obeyed, and commands not starting "Simon says" have to be ignored - to remind the kids that obedience is all about listening and doing what you're told.

Then we did a Bible study, with a printed sheet for the kids to fill in, as we looked up verses from Proverbs on parenting. The boxes along the top show the main responsibilities of parents - teach, train, discipline, example (Prov. 4:1-4; 22:6; 13:24; 20:7) - and the boxes at the bottom show children what to do / what not to do, with the results of each underneath (we looked at Proverbs 10:17; 13:13; 15:31; 17:1; 19:16; 19:26; 20:20; 23:22):

This would work well with older children, but I discovered not every member of my group (which ranges in ages from 6 to 11, so it's not an easy group to run!) could write confidently enough to make this work. If I was to do this lesson again, I would choose less verses, print them out rather than look them up, and get the kids to circle or underline relevant words.

I'd probably also grab a big sheet of paper, draw a picture (of a family?), get the kids to shout out the answers (whoops - I mean, put their hands up and answer politely), and write them up on the sheet, with the help of the more confident writers. And I wish I'd allowed more time for discussing how to practise what we learnt in our own families.

We couldn't start painting our wisdom wind-chimes, since the clay was still hardening and being fired. Instead, we created a mind-map of what we've learned from Proverbs so far, showing what wisdom is, how you get it, what the results of wisdom and folly are, and what wisdom looks like in practice. We ran out of time to make this as big and beautiful as I wanted, but it was still a useful exercise, and one the kids enjoyed. Here it is, with contributions from everyone:

Sunday School - Proverbs (1) wisdom, Solomon and the fear of God

How do you explain the fear of God to a child? Last weekend, I took our Sunday School class back to the start of Proverbs, and there it was: "The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom" (Prov. 1:7).

So far, we've looked at the value and beauty of wisdom (Prov. 3:13-18) and the ruin brought by folly (Prov. 9), but we haven't talked much about Solomon, who he is, why he wrote Proverbs, and the nature of wisdom. In other words, if you're teaching Proverbs to a Sunday School class, this is the place to start!

When I was a child, my Sunday School teacher asked me, "If you could have any one thing, what would it be?" My answer, which I once saw as a sign of piety but now see as the sign of a proud perfectionism, was "To obey God perfectly" (I remember clearly that I felt very superior to a boy who wished for a red toy truck - in these more complicated days, surely it would be a Nintendo DS!).

So last Sunday I asked, "If I could grant you one wish, what would it be?". One boy answered, "A money-making machine" (at which point some smart-alec pointed out that it's illegal to make money); another, predictably enough, asked for "Infinity more wishes"; and a rowdy boy in a particularly pious mood said "To go to heaven". My daughter, rather poignantly, given that she has 3 brothers, asked for "A twin sister, and that she's Emma" (a Christian friend).

Which was the perfect lead-in to the story of Solomon. We all know the story of how God offered to grant Solomon one request, and how he asked for wisdom to govern and judge wisely between his people (1 Kings 3). And so Proverbs was born: the collected wisdom of the wisest man who ever lived.

We opened our Bibles, read Proverbs 1:1-7 together, drew a picture of Solomon, and wrote a list of all the words for wisdom we could find. I asked them where wisdom starts - with the "fear of God" (Proverbs 1:7, this term's memory verse); and we talked about how to get wisdom - by trusting God's understanding rather than our own, and by living the way he wants (Proverbs 3:5-6, last term's memory verse). Here's the page we made:

But what exactly is the fear of God? I'd been thinking about this all week, and it seemed to me that it's just what it says: fear. We tend to try and get around it with words like "reverence" and "awe", which don't explain anything much, but Jesus is pretty clear: "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body ... Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell." (Luke 12:4-5). Of course, for us in Christ this is no longer a slavish fear, for we have found a safe refuge from the storm of God's anger.*

Here's how I explained the fear of God to the children: "Are you scared of your Daddy?" Some children: "Yes." "Does your Daddy love you?" All children: "Yes." "When are you scared of your Daddy?" "When I do the wrong thing." "Why?" "Because he might punish me." "Yes, that's right, and it's the same with God. He can punish us by sending us to hell, but we don't need to be scared if we believe in Jesus and live for him. So what's the fear of God?" One child: "It means being scared of what God can do." Pretty spot on, it seems to me!

We spent the second 1/2 hour (it was a long class!) getting started on our major craft for the term: wisdom wind-chimes. Liz, my fellow Sunday School teacher, is an art teacher in another life, so she gave us a big lump of clay, some hessian squares to roll and cut it on, and access to a kiln (you could substitute air-dry clay). Here's my diagram of how I hope the wind-chimes will look:

And here's how the children made the shapes:

Exhausting, but fun! Once the shapes are fired, we'll paint them. The children will decorate each shape with a picture representing each lesson they learn from Proverbs, like using words wisely, not being lazy, and choosing friends well. I'll keep you posted!

* If you want to further explore this concept of the fear of God, see John Piper's The Pleasures of God pp.204-6, where he has a wonderful illustration about a cave, a glacier and a storm.

Sunday School - Proverbs (3) wisdom and folly

Our little Sunday School class is mostly made up of boys.

I didn't think that primary school aged boys would be particularly attracted by the picture of Wisdom as a strong and beautiful woman pointing the way to the path of peace (Prov. 3:13-18). More motivating, I suspected, would be the image of Folly as the grisly guardian of death, whose guests descend to the depths of the grave.So I dressed one child in skeleton pyjamas and one in a white dress for a mini-drama, and they read the parts of Wisdom and Folly in Proverbs 9.

Our craft was simple but fun: a black A4 sheet with a picture of a skeleton and a princess (don't you love those free online colouring pages?) inviting guests to feast on the food they'd provided. The children drew their favourite foods in the wisdom box, and revolting foods in the skeleton box.

My daughter Lizzy's favourite foods included chocolate and icecream (she's got a sweet tooth) and her disgusting foods included witchety grub muffins and a bowl of eyeballs:
The children painted the skeleton, and highlighted the princess, with glow-in-the-dark fabric paint:
So now they can scare themselves silly every night, and be reminded of the doom awaiting those who live foolishly, and the long life rewarding those who walk in the ways of wisdom.

I'm finding this very motivating myself!

And we're learning a new memory verse together: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline" (Proverbs 1:7). Sums it up pretty well, I think.

Sunday School - Proverbs (2) wisdom

Proverbs is a wonderful book to read with children. It hands on the wisdom of the older to the younger generation.

Proverbs includes a father's advice to his son (chs. 1-29) and a mother's wise words handed down through two generations (ch. 31). It encourages children to fear God, heed correction, accept discipline, choose friends wisely, use words carefully, enjoy pleasure, money and food with moderation, and live wisely throughout their lives.

Yet when I searched the internet, I found no Sunday School material on Proverbs (if you know of some, please tell me!). So my friend Liz and I are writing our own. Since you'll probably have the same problem if you want to teach Proverbs to children, I thought you might be interested to hear about our lessons. No doubt someone will end at this blog after doing the same search I did! If that's the case, welcome. We got our lessons a bit mixed up: you'll find lesson 1 here, and all the lessons here.

Liz taught the children this memory verse: "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight" (Proverbs 3:4-6). A great choice, because it shows wisdom comes not from our own cleverness, but from God, through humbly trusting and obeying him.

Here's the brilliant craft Liz and the children made during their first weeks on Proverbs. They read Proverbs 3:13-18, and chose 4 verses about wisdom. The children illustrated the 4 verses, and made a cleverly designed hanging book, a wonderful reminder of the beauty and value of wisdom:


All you need to make a book like this is a sheet of white A3 paper, some coloured pencils, and some glue. Cut the A3 paper in half lengthways. You'll have 2 rectangles of paper.

Cut one of the pieces 36 cm long, and fold it into 8, into a concertina or fan shape. On each 1/4 section, draw a picture. Here are my son Ben's illustrations of the 4 Proverbs verses they chose:


Cut the other rectangle 28 cm long, fold 1 cm over at each end, then fold the 26 cm central section into 8, again in a concertina or fan shape. Hold the paper folded, and cut half an arch into the side with four folds and no ends (you'll get it when you see it). Open out the paper, and decorate the arches.

Here's Ben's decorated rectangle, with the 4 verses printed out and stuck on each section:

Put the short rectangle with the arches over the long rectangle (you'll see the 4 pictures through the arches), fold the 1 cm strips at the ends of the shorter rectangle over the ends of the longer rectangle, and glue the ends and upwards folded edges together, so that it looks like this:

Bring the two end together, and glue them. It will turn into a four-sided book, which you can hang from a string through the centre. From the top, it should look something like this:

Here's the 4 verses with my daughter Elizabeth's illustrations.

"Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace" (Proverbs 3:17).

"She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her" (Proverbs 3:15).

"Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honour" (Proverbs 3:16).

"She is a tree of life to those who embrace her; those who lay hold of her will be blessed" (Proverbs 3:18).

Beautiful!

The book design is from a book about making books belonging to my friend - I'll get the details and add them here.