Table of Contents:
This teacher’s copy of the Does Christianity change lives lesson plan is printer-friendly.
RESOURCES:
To perform the ‘Gang Members sketch’, these characters need to be found:
- A boy
- a girl
- gang member 1
- gang member 2
- gang member 3
Print off the ‘Gang Members sketch‘.
STARTER:
Imagine being dropped off at a railway station, walking in the main entrance and thinking; ‘I’ve got to buy some railway tickets.’
- You do not know how to buy tickets.
- You do not know where the ticket machine is.
- You do not know what ticket to buy out of all the possible different ones.
- You do not know what platform the train will come in on.
Q. Would it have been a lot easier if someone had gone in with you and shown you what to do?
Q. Can you think of any other examples of how easier it is if someone has done it before?
When we have to make difficult decisions, it is good if someone can share their experience with you on how they coped with a similar situation.
MAIN TEACHING:
Christians are helped by reading Bible stories because they can see how people in difficult situations coped with the problems.
We will now compare the experiences of people in the Bible, with our own experiences and feelings.
Firstly, we need to act out a sketch, to show a situation that could happen to us:
Print out: The Gang Members sketch (opens in a new tab).
Q. How would you have felt if you had been the girl or boy?
Discuss.
There is a story like that in the Bible
Let’s see where they are similar:
A man called Abram started off on a long journey with his wife Sarai and all his
possessions and he had many servants.
They were walking the 750 miles to a country called Canaan because God had told them:
Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation…”
Genesis 12:2 NIV
They made steady progress and they finally walked into the land of Canaan.
Other people were living there, so Abram didn’t settle in that place, he kept travelling south.
The weather had been extremely hot and there had been no rain for months, so all the crops were dying in the fields and the rivers had dried up.
So they kept walking until they got to Egypt, which had plenty of food and water.
As Abram walked along the street, he noticed that the Egyptian men were giving his beautiful wife, Sarai, the lookover, and he suddenly felt afraid.
He thought that the Egyptians would attack and kill him so that they could steal his wife Sarai.
So he took the coward’s way and told everyone that Sarai was his sister, so that if she was taken, then he wouldn’t get killed!
Soon Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, got to hear about this new, ‘unattached’ beautiful woman from another country.
Abram’s fears seemed to be coming true!
Pharaoh sent his officials to get Sarai and bring her to his palace.
Pharaoh treated Abram well by giving him lots of presents.
But during that evening, everyone at Pharaoh’s palace became very ill.
This made Pharaoh wonder why and he spent time thinking over the situation.
He decided that this illness had come upon his household because he had taken Sarai.
So he asked around and he discovered that Sarai was really Abram’s wife!
Pharaoh was furious and he told his officials to bring Abram to him.
Abram sheepishly approached Pharaoh who sat upon his royal throne.
Pharaoh roared: “What have you done to me?! Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife!”
But before Abram could answer Pharaoh said:
“Here is your wife. Now take her and go! I don’t want to see you ever again! Take all that you own and get out of Egypt now!”
Abram felt guilty that he had deceived Pharaoh.
He was sorry for putting Sarai into a dangerous situation and he felt bad that he hadn’t told the truth, and that he hadn’t trusted God.
But he was thankful that he had got Sarai back and he still had all of his possessions with him.
Q. What was similar about this story and the sketch we did?
Both the boy and Abram were thinking more about themselves than their girlfriend/wife.
Q. What was different in the story to the sketch?
In the sketch, the gang of 3 were seen as being bad, and they turned out to be bad.
But Abram discovered that this Pharaoh was much fairer than he had anticipated.
The boy didn’t say sorry to his girlfriend for leaving her in a difficult situation, whereas Abram did.
Q. Why is it good to look at stories like this?
We will see what happened to Abram next, but first, to set the scene:
Imagine you are at your friend’s birthday party.
Your friend is passing around his / her favourite pudding which has been cut into portions, but unfortunately, there is only one piece left.
Your friend hasn’t had a piece yet, so you stop to think about what you should do.
It’s your friend’s birthday and you know that it is their favourite pudding, but you want it.
So you take the last piece and your friend doesn’t have any.
Q. Was this the right thing to do?
Discuss.
Q. What were the different options?
Back to the Bible story about Abram
Abram travelled away from Egypt and settled in Canaan.
With Abram was his nephew, who was called Lot and he had many possessions, animals and servants.
They settled together by a water supply in a green valley.
But there were so many people and animals that Abram’s servants and Lot’s servants began to quarrel with each other.
So Abram, being the older man and the leader of this whole group said to Lot, his nephew:
Let’s not have any quarrelling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and mine, for we are brothers. Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.”
Genesis 13:9 NIV
He had every right to choose first, but he didn’t.
He was a very humble man.
Q. What is a humble person and does that mean that they are weak?
Discuss.
Abram was very kind and generous, this does not show weakness.
Q. If you had been Lot, how would you have answered Abram at this moment?
Q. How do you think Lot actually answered Abram?
Lot looked around him, he saw the wonderful green plain of the river Jordan to the east.
So he chose the best part of the land!
He gathered all his family, animals and servants, and set off towards the east.
Abram must have felt hurt by Lot’s selfish attitude, but he trusted that God would put things right, and sure enough we can see further on in the story how things got turned around, how Lot suffered for his selfishness and Abram ended up the better for it.
PLENARY:
Some Christians read the Bible every day and they find it helpful for their everyday lives.
Q. Why is it good to look at the sort of stories that we’ve seen today?
Either take a short time to discuss these things, or leave it with them.
Gang members sketch
Also, see the: Does Christianity change lives? RE resources