Paul is Shipwrecked: Acts 27
We believe that spiritual development happens in the home as well as at church. We hope that these ideas will help you engage as a family. It’s designed to help you connect with your child about the lesson they had this past week. Use all the ideas one night, or spread them out throughout the week. Enjoy!
- SCIENCE EXPERIMENT items needed: 4 small pans of boiling water, pasta, egg, tea bag & graham cracker
Provide 4 small pans of boiling water. In the first pan, put some small pasta (like angel hair spaghetti) that will cook quickly. In the second pan, boil an egg. In the third pan, place a graham cracker.
What happened to each of these? The pasta got soft. When there are obstacles that keep us from our plans, sometimes we get soft and just don’t care. The egg got hard. When difficulties come, some people get hard and won’t let anyone help them. They harden their hearts and minds. The graham cracker fell apart. It was ruined. Some people fall apart when difficulties come and they never get over it.
Now, put the tea bag in some boiling water. What happened? The tea bag changed, BUT so did the water. The water became full of flavor. Some people can take their difficulties and use them to make something good happen.
- ACTIVITY
Together, create an obstacle course in your back yard or in the house. Each family member is going to have to go through it, so keep that in mind. Include things that you will have to climb over, crawl under, wiggle around, and avoid.
Talk through the course and then each family member will go through it. (Get out the camera!) Talk about the obstacles that get in our way as we try to live for the Lord. What keeps you from doing what God wants you to do, and living the life He wants you to live? Write each one of these on a separate piece of paper and attach it to one of the obstacles in your course. Some things that may go on your papers are: life gets busy, don’t know what God wants me to do, selfishness, I’m scared, wrong friends. Talk about how you can get around each of these obstacles with God’s help and be His Survivor.
- GAME: “Get the Men to Shore” items needed: fan, 15 ping pong balls, 3 toy putters, 3 large Styrofoam cups.
Beforehand, cut the bottom out of all 3 Styrofoam cups. Divide the kids into teams of 5 kids each. Place each cup on its side, top of the cup toward the kids, 15-20 feet away from the teams.
Then, give each team 5 ping-pong balls and a toy golf putter. (You can use a real putter if you feel comfortable with that.) Set up a fan so that it blows across at least part of the area where players will be moving ping-pong balls. Remember in our story, the winds blew!
There were 276 men on the ship and they all made it to shore safely. Each of these ping-pong balls represents a man on the ship. Each team will try to get all of their men safely to shore. At the signal, the first person on each team will use the putter to get one man (ping-pong ball) to go through their Styrofoam cup. As soon as it does, they return to their team, give the putter to the next player, who will get another man to shore and through the cup. The first team to get all 5 of their men (ping-pong balls) to shore and through the cup gets the chance to score 1,000 points by successfully completing a fill-in-the-blank question.
If you have lots of kids and plenty of room, you can run more teams. Or, you can rotate teams through.
Post the following words where everyone can see them: escape, piece of wood, 25, prisoner, cut, lifeboat, Rome, kill, overboard, 276, tied, Crete, commander, have a party, whip.
- KNOW YOUR BIBLE items needed: Bibles
Look up these verses together. We have used the New American Standard Bible (NASB). You can find online versions of the Bible at www.biblegateway.com Find words like “obstacle”, “difficulties”, and “overcome”. Tell how each one of these can encourage us to be Survivors.
1. Isaiah 57:14
2. John 16:33
3. 2 Corinthians 12:10
4. 1 John 4:4
- Scripture Memory
Galatians 3:22 (NCV)
”Instead, the Scriptures showed that the whole world is bound by sin. This was so the promise would be given through faith to people who believe in Jesus Christ.”
- Thought For The Week
WE CAN BE SURVIVORS BY DEPENDING ON GOD!