Jesus meets Nicodemus

[John 3:1-21]

Intro: Before we meet today’s guest we need to understand who the pharisees were. When Jesus lived on earth there was a bunch of men who were very religious: they worked hard to keep all of God’s laws and to keep him happy. But they weren’t happy with Jesus. Jesus said that even if you kept all of God’s laws perfectly you wouldn’t be good enough for God and Jesus said that you could keep all the laws perfectly but if you did it without loving God and other people you hadn’t really kept the laws at all. So what happened when one Pharisee snuck out in the middle of the night to see Jesus?

Games: To help everyone connect to the idea of a secret meeting

1. Telephone - Sit your children in a circle and have them whisper something to the person next to them. The children must listen carefully and then pass on exactly what they hear. Tell them at the beginning that they will have only one chance to listen. The last person in the circle must say it out loud and see if the message has changed. For younger children have a leader think of and start the whisper. If the last child is too shy to say it out loud they can whisper it to a leader who will repeat it.

2. Guardian of the Keys - Sit in a circle with one chair in the middle. Under the chair place a set of keys or something equally noisy (a rattle or a set of bells from a music box for instance). Blindfold one child and spin them around a bit before sitting them on the chair. They are the guardian and they have to stop the keys being stolen by pointing at the person they think is the thief. Choose a thief from the circle; they have to get the keys and sit back in their place without being spotted by the guardian. Everybody else has to keep really quiet in order to aid the guardian. If at anypoint during the game the guardian points deliberately at the thief then they have won that round. For round a table Put the keys in the middle and have all the children sit on their hands. Everybody must try to get the keys. But if someone else hears or feels another person moving then they call their name and protect the keys, by that person having to sit on their hands again.

Drama:

Or in threes or fours make a series of freeze frames to show good things people do or people avoiding bad things. Let the other groups guess what they have portrayed. Some suggestions are; helping an old man cross the road, sharing sweets with your friends, not shoplifting, giving money to charity, not cheating on a test.

Ask someone to act as Nicodemus and read this script; they can be interviewed by a leader. We had a ‘special guest’ from our church come in each week of the series as the character in modern dress. To convey the idea of Nicodemus being extra religious have him holding a OT commentary (the bigger the better), as for clothes, definitely something smart, maybe even resembling a church leader - if you can get a church leader to come in and act as Nicodemus; fantastic! You could easily have a leader or an older child read it out.

Activity: To reinforce the idea of a second birthday

Make Birthday Cards - you can use stickers, cut up old birthday cards or draw to make the fronts. As you craft chat about what it means have a second birth - what would it look like, why do we need one and how do we get that chance?

Songs:
So Great is Jesus’ Love - Emu Music
This is what you do - Bethel Music Kids

Memory Verse:

John 1:11 He came to his own but his own did not recieve him.

Use actions to help you learn this. He (point up) came (beckon with your hand) to his own (use your arms to hug an invisible obejct to your chest) but (both hands out in front as though to say stop) his own (again hug an invisible object) did not (point your finger then wave it back and forth as thought to say no) recieve him (use both hands to reach out and take an object and bring it back to you).