Conversation Starters: The Gift of Grace
Posted by Karah
THE BIBLE MEETS LIFE: Our lives are filled with both joys and sorrows, opportunities we embrace and difficulties we’d rather avoid. We don’t question God’s presence in the good times, although we might when life gets hard. God is with us through it all: good and bad. We are no less in God’s hands or useful as His instruments when we face challenges. God’s grace is always with us.
Conversation Starters: The Gift of Grace
Preschool
Acts 17:16-34
LIFE POINT: Paul traveled to the city of Athens. While there, Paul went to the synagogue and talked to the people about Jesus. Paul went to the marketplace every day and told about Jesus to anyone he met. Some men heard Paul teaching about Jesus. The men asked Paul to go with them to a special meeting place on a hill. People came from all over Athens to the hill. Paul stood up in the meeting and said, “I want to tell you what I know about God. God created the world and everything in it. He made all people, and He loves all people. He wants people to love Him.” Paul told the people about Jesus, God’s Son. Some of the people did not believe what Paul was saying. Some people wanted Paul to come back and talk again. And some people believed what Paul said about God and Jesus. Paul helped people in Athens learn about Jesus.
LIVE IT OUT: Help your child make a gift for a favorite teacher at church. He can decorate a foam or wooden picture frame with stickers. Print, “Thank you for teaching me” on a paper that will fit into the frame. Let your child print his name and decorate the paper. Encourage him to give it to his teacher at church.
Kids
Acts 17:16-34
LIFE POINT: Paul waited in the city for his friends. He saw idols everywhere! Paul even found an idol with a sign “To the Unknown God.” Some of the men liked to hear new ideas. They invited Paul to talk to them. Paul told the men that the God who made everything does not live in a shrine. He told how God did not need anything because He Himself gives what people have. Paul said, “Don’t think that God is like gold or silver or stone that men make into idols.” He told the men how God knew when each person would live and where he would live. Paul urged the men to stop sinning and to turn to the one and only real God. The men listened until Paul told them that God had raised Jesus from the dead. Some people laughed. Others wanted to hear more. Some people believed Paul, and followed Jesus.
LIVE IT OUT: Talk with your child about her teachers at church. Remind her that they are following God’s command to teach about Jesus. Encourage your child to write a thank-you note to one or more of her teachers. Tell her to mention something specific she learned from that teacher.
Students
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
THE POINT: God’s grace allows me to face anything life throws at me.
• If you could have a lifetime supply of any product, what would you choose?
• What are the risks and rewards of sharing our spiritual experiences with others?
• What are some reasons God allows us to go through hardships?
• What are some appropriate ways to respond when God says “no” to our prayers?
Discuss the following quote:
“Grace must find expression in life, otherwise it is not grace.” —Karl Barth
LIVE IT OUT: Encourage your student to take practical steps to take his or her faith and Live It Out. Here are some ways you can encourage your students to live out their faith with Christ personally, in community, and in their culture:
• CHRIST: Discuss with your student this week the grace that we receive as followers of Christ. Take time to give thanks for His continued grace.
• COMMUNITY: Grace is necessary for our salvation, and it also empowers us to serve others. Consider ways you and your student may use that grace to serve others.
• CULTURE: God wants to make His grace evident through us. Pray that God would use you and your student as an example to lost friends.
Helmut Gollwitzer, An Introduction to Protestant Theology (Louisville: Westminster Press, 1982), 174.
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