WELCOME
“To take off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.” —Ephesians 4:22–24
When God renews us, we not only get a new heart and a new identity, but we also get new power. That is because God gives us a new partner to help us.
WARM-UP
Holy Spirit Seek
I need one volunteer who would like to be the main participant in our game today. Make them walk away/cover their ears while you give instructions to the other kids. Take the rest of the kids and split them into two groups, one group will be telling your participant the right directions and the other group will be telling the wrong directions at the same time. The participant will be blindfolded and will have to try to locate the object by the mixed directions of the two groups.
Invite the participant back to the group and either blindfold them or have them close their eyes. You place the object somewhere near and when you say go the participant will start walking around looking for the object and changing directions based on what they are hearing. They will be confused because the participant doesn’t know that one group is telling them the wrong directions and one is telling them the right ones. Play two rounds about 1-2 mins long or until they find the object, the last round as they are searching and struggling you come up and guide the participant to the object so that they can get it much quicker than the previous times.
Direct this question to the participant. Was it confusing hearing different directions from both sides, how did you know who to trust? Was it easier the third time when I guided you to the object?
Q: Who did Jesus leave us with when He went back up to Heaven? That’s right, the Holy Spirit. There are so many directions we can go in life. The Holy Spirit is given by God to help us go in the right direction.
WORKOUT
BIBLE STORY: Disciples in the Upper Room Pentecost—Acts 1:4–15; Acts 2:1–13 (Leader read Acts 1:4–15, then choose 2-3 athletes to read sections of Acts 2:1–13.)
When you play any sport, what is the goal in the game? To win it! You and your team together go against another team. On a sports team, you have a coach who can help you to learn how to play and how to win in the game. So, before the game, you and your teammates meet to get instructions from your coach on how to win.
The disciples were thinking the same way. When Jesus went to be with God, the disciples gathered together to pray and wait for God to instruct them how to keep moving. Over 100 people were meeting there!
As they prayed and waited, the Holy Spirit came down and went into all the people. This gave them a brand-new powerful faith and even helped them to speak in different languages to help reach more people. The Spirit gave them what they needed to do the HUGE job of sharing Jesus with everyone that they could.
WRAP-UP
NEW POWER
When you ask God to save you from your sins, He sends you the Holy Spirit, just like Jesus’s disciples. If our new purpose is to share Jesus with everyone, we need the Spirit to guide us and help us with what to say. God promised He would never leave us alone, and that is especially true when we tell others about Him.
Q: Do you believe that God’s power can help you?
Q: What in your life could God’s power help you with?
As we close, we will pray that God will give us that power.
(Pray and break the huddle)