GAMERS Series: Scripture Twisters

You'll go a little old school and use tongue twisters and the Hasboro game Twister (buy online) as metaphors for how "scripture twisters" (2 Peter 3:17) try to trip us up in our walk with God. We did this as a Wednesday night series, but you could easily add praise and worship music and other elements to create a kid's church sermon. From the crinkled up game mat in the photo, you can tell our church kids had a ton of fun.


(All scripture verses were used from The Message:Remix.)




Lesson Outline:

I. Scripture Twister Word Jumble
Let the kids find and circle the words in tonight's Bible lesson which are concealed and hid within a jumble of other words. After finishing, they get a piece of candy. Let the kids take turns reading aloud the memory verse.

II. Tongue Twisters
Let the kids draw pieces of paper from a hat, bag, or your hand. Each piece of paper will have a silly tongue twister on it. Let the kids have fun trying to say their tongue twisters. Discuss how you intentionally worded the phrases difficult for the kids to say, so they would trip up and have a hard time.

III. Scripture Twisters Lesson
Who in here has ever opened up their Bible, read a little, and had a tough time understanding the verses? Sometimes the Bible can be difficult to understand. I'm a grown up, and I still have a hard time knowing what it means every now and then. You know, the disciple Peter said this very thing about his friend Paul's letters. Paul wrote a lot of letters (open Bible and name a few of his letters or ask the kids if they can name any of Paul's letters for a piece of candy) and boy are there some difficult to understand things in his letters! Paul wrote the truth to the churches and believers, but the things he wrote about could be really hard to understand sometimes. People were twisting his words around and confusing themselves. Most simply didn't understand what Paul meant, but some were intentionally twisting his words around.

There are still people today who twist words in the Bible around. Peter called them lawless and loose-talking teachers... Today we'll be referring to them as scripture twisters. As in Peter and Paul's day, some scripture twisters, twist around scriptures because they themselves are confused. Other scripture twisters try to twist Bible verses and events around to confuse us. Why? Because they don't believe He exists or maybe they do, but they don't love him like we do. They are mean and sneaky. They like to read us or tell us Bible verses but twist the words around to confuse us and trip us up in our walk with God. Like here's a silly example. Sometimes Sunday School teachers will ask this question: "How many animals did Moses take on the ark?" If you're not paying attention to the question you might jump up and say, "TWO!!! HE TOOK TWO!!!" But is that true? No, because Moses didn't take any animals on the ark. It was Noah who built the ark. See how I twisted the words around and caught you off guard? That was just a silly example. 

Well, other people will twist around the wording of scripture in much more serious ways to trick you. If you haven’t been reading your Bible and learning your Bible verses, you might get tripped up and lose your footing. Who has ever played the game Twister? We are actually going to play the game tonight. But first, we are going to get (VOLUNTEER) to do a little demonstration for us.

(Ask volunteer to do what you tell them. This works best if the volunteer is an adult who can intentionally help prove your point and play along. Try to intentionally make it where the person gets all jumbled up and loses their footing and falls)

What happened to (volunteer)? They fell. Why did they fall? Because their feet got all twisted up and they couldn’t stand anymore, could they? That’s what our Bible verse talks about, isn’t it? People try to twist the Bible around so we get confused, stumble, and fall. But how do we keep from getting confused???? WE READ AND KNOW OUR BIBLE! And how do we make sure we don’t stumble and fall???? WE LISTEN CAREFULLY WHEN PEOPLE SPEAK!!!

IV. Play Twister
Let the kids end the night by playing twister. It may not seem like it has much to do with the lesson, but perhaps it will serve as a great conversation starter between the kids and their parents about the Bible lesson.

CROWNED: Race For The Crown

RACE FOR THE CROWN

Say to the kids, “Since Burger King has fired their old king, they’re looking for a new king or queen.  I need two of my helpers to pick a boy and girl volunteer to compete for the crown.”

The contestants are each given the words to the Power Verse cut out on pieces of paper and have to unscramble them into the correct order.

Whoever wins the game is crowned the new Burger King king or queen.  The winner gets a new Burger King crown and candy.  The loser still gets candy.

ANGER DANGER FINALE: DIY AB Ball Toss

During our services, to keep the hype, we have a quick boys vs girls game that goes along with the series or sermon. We made this one from a cardboard panel. My husband traced the end of a plastic cup multiple times and then cut out the holes. We printed off pictures of the green King Pig and taped one on the backside of each hole. We only taped the tops (so when the kids tossed the balls through the holes, they would go through without tearing the paper). My husband wrote how many points each pig was worth beneath it. We then taped Angry Bird faces on plastic balls we purchased from Walmart. The game is very cheap to make. It's not too fancy. Thankfully, the kids loved it anyway. We played the Angry Birds theme song on repeat during the game

ANGER DANGER FINALE: DIY AB Relay

Sometimes the adult service lasts a little bit longer than the children's service, so we try to have fun games to keep the kids occupied. I cut out the shape of the red angry bird on red poster board and the blue bird on blue poster board. Then, I drew and cut out the pieces of each bird's face on white poster board (I looked up the images on google & used a projector to trace the outlines as well as the faces).  We made sure each bird had the same number of pieces. The kids divided up boys vs girls and ran a relay to see who could put their bird together the best. One at a time team members would run across the room, we would hand them a random facial piece, and the kid would tape it where they thought it might go. The only rule was you couldn't move anyone else's piece. The results were amusing! We played the Angry Birds theme song on repeat until the game was finished.

ANGER DANGER FINALE: DIY Cardboard King Pig

Each series we have a boys vs girls offering race. To reward the best giver, we let the kids do something silly to one of the adult leaders. This series, we promised the kids that if the boys won the offering race, I would dress up like the green King Pig and all of the boys could throw marshmellows at me. If the girls won, they could do the same to my husband. My husband free handed the pig on a panel of cardboard and painted it. He cut out a hole for his face. We glued on a crown cut out of yellow construction paper.
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The girls won and were beyond ecstatic to throw marshmallows at the children's  pastor!

ANGER DANGER FINALE: DIY AB Nest with Prize Eggs

Fortunately, our finale was the week after Valentine's Day.  We walked in Dollar Tree to buy a bag of marshmellows for King Pig game and noticed they were stocking their shelves with Easter Eggs and candy.  We purchased a few packs of paisley colored eggs, a small round wicker basket, one fake brown looking bag of  grass (in the floral section).  We filled the eggs with candy left over from Valentine's Day and placed the eggs in the wicker basket.  Later we added the brown faux grass (not shown in photo).
<br><br> After the kids found their Power Verse (memory verse) in their Bible, they were allowed  to get an egg out of the "Angry Birds' nest".  They were so excited!

ANGER DANGER FINALE: DIY AB Masks

For our finale, all of the kids were invited to come dressed as their favorite angry bird. I made these simple felt Angry Birds masks for any kids who forgot to dress up or new kids. All of the kids ended up wanting to wear one. The square pieces of felt are only 23¢ a square at Walmart. I was able to cut out six masks from one red square of felt. I cut out the eye brows from black felt and glued them on with craft glue. We used red yarn as a strap. 

Very Cheap
Very Easy
Quick to assemble