The Good Samaritan

PRAISING PUPPETS

Note: This could be acted out as a drama as well.

Summary of Lesson Activities:

There are 3 skits:  2 scripted, and the third created by the children to represent "Good Samaritan situations in their school, home, neighborhood, community.

Scripture Reference: 

Luke 10:25-37

Key Verse for this lesson: We love because he first loved us.  I John 4:19

Memory Verse:     

“Love your enemies, and be good to everyone who hates you.  Ask God to bless anyone who curses you, and pray for everyone who is cruel to you.”  Luke 6:27-28 (CEV)

Concepts:        

• God wants us to love God, love our neighbors and love ourselves.
• We are good neighbors when we show kindness and mercy toward others no matter whom they are.
• God’s disciples help others in need without expecting a reward.

Lesson Objectives:  

This workshop will teach children to offer love and mercy to everyone, regardless of their own personal prejudices toward that person, because we are God’s children.   (We love because he first loved us. I John 4:19.

Teacher preparation in advance:

1. Pray:  Ask God to give you the talents, words, assurance and patience you need to teach God’s children this lesson.
2. Read the scripture passages and attend the Faith Quest Leaders Bible Study.
3. Make at least 12 copies of each script page.  Cut the scripts into pieces so that each player can have a copy.  You can also post two copies of the script at each end of the stage so puppeteers can refer to it.
4. Prepare a closing prayer.
5. If you choose to pre-record the scripts, family members and their friends can have a lot of fun playing the different parts.

Materials:

• Copies of the script.
• Puppets OR Costumes

Presentation

Opening - Welcome and Introductions:

1. Greet the children and introduce yourself. Wear your nametag.
2. Tell the children that today they will use the puppets to learn about how to behave with love and mercy toward other people.

Dig - Main Content and Reflection:

Bible Story:

The Bible story can take up to10 minutes of the workshop period.  For the first two weeks of the lesson, you might need to be more thorough; after that a quick review should suffice.  You can use a telling/asking approach to talk about the scripture.   A note about reading the Bible:  when you are reading the Bible passages, you can ask a child to read, but I have found that having an adult read makes the passage more understandable—it goes faster, has emphasis in the right places and keeps the interest up in the class.  The children can follow along in their Bibles if they brought one.

Here’s a suggested approach for telling the story.  You can start by setting the scene for this scripture:  people are gathered around Jesus asking him questions.  One person in the audience is an expert in the Law of Moses.  Does anyone know what the Law of Moses is?  Moses received the Law from God.  It includes the 10 Commandments and a lot of other laws and rules found in the Old Testament that the Israelites or Jewish people lived by.  For example, it even includes rules for what to do if your house has mildew!  (Leviticus 14:33-53)  So what does it mean if someone is an expert in the Law of Moses?  He knows all the laws in the Old Testament very well.

In the passage I am about to read, it uses the word, “Scriptures.”  Does anyone know what “Scriptures” means?  Bible, Old and New Testament.  At Jesus’ time it would have only been the Old Testament.  When the expert asks his question, he calls Jesus “teacher.”  Do you think of Jesus as a teacher?  more of a thought question—any response is appropriate.  Jesus knew God and the scriptures before he came to Earth, so he also was an expert in the Law.

(Now read Luke 10:25-28.)  What does God want us to do?  Love the Lord your God completely, love your neighbor.   Who is your neighbor?—let’s read more to find out.  (Read Luke 10:29-37.)  Jesus doesn’t just define neighbor, he gives an example of a real neighbor.  Who is the real neighbor?  Good Samaritan.  What makes him a real neighbor?  He helped someone who really needed help.  He saw to the man’s every need.  So do you think being a neighbor has anything to do with where you live?  No

What is a Samaritan?  Children will probably not know the right answer.  It is a Jewish-like religious group from a place called Samaria.  This group was separate from the other Jewish groups, believing a slightly different version of the Scriptures.  The two groups (Jews and Samaritans) did not think good things about each other.  Each group thought they were better and knew more than the other group.  You will probably want to tailor this information for the different ages.  Probably the main point to make is that the two groups of people did not like each other.

Who were the other two men that did not behave as a real neighbor to the injured man?  Priest, Temple helper.  These men would have been men that the expert would have liked and respected.  Again, tailor the information you provide based on age. 

Why do you think they didn’t help the man?  Another thought question—any response is appropriate.  For your own information, the priests and temple helpers might have been afraid for their own safety on this dangerous road and afraid of disease and uncleanliness, based on laws they believed they had to follow as temple workers.

Would you have helped the man?  Does anyone know what mercy is?  showing kindness and help to those who need it even if the person doesn’t deserve it.

Which man showed mercy?  Samaritan.

Puppet or Drama

Note:  There are 3 skits:  2 scripted, and the third created by the children to represent "Good Samaritan situations in their school, home, neighborhood, community.

You may have to repeat one or more of the skits to give everyone a chance to perform.  Let each child have a chance to operate a puppet or they will be disappointed.  There are a lot of questions provided, probably more than you could possibly cover.  Choose the questions you feel are most relevant for your age group, but ask enough questions to relate these skits to the concepts we are teaching about God.

1. Divide the class into groups of children for each skit (2 or 3 children).
2. You have several options about who will read the parts.  You may pre-record the entire skit on cassette tape before Sunday (this always worked well for me when I was a puppet workshop leader). You can choose a narrator (use a shepherd or workshop leader) to read all the puppet parts while children act out with the puppets.  You may also allow each child to read and act out his/her own puppet part (this works well with good readers, probably 3^rd grade and up). 
3. Give out scripts to each group.  Let children choose a puppet.
4. Allow the groups 5 minutes or so to practice their script.  Grades 1&2: The shepherd and workshop leader should help with the scripts, perhaps even “speaking” the voices while the children act them out. You may want to do this for the other grades as well to keep the pace moving and to allow the children to focus on what is being said and not the mechanics of reading.
5. When performing the skits, you may use the pre-recorded version.
6. If you have a large group of children, you may repeat one or more skits so everyone has a turn.
7. Perform Skit 1.
   After the skit, the workshop leader can ask a puppet a question about some aspect of the skit scenario.  Ask the performers to sit down and have a brief discussion with all children about what happened in the play.  Some possible discussion questions follow.  What do you think about Adam, the boy who hurt his arm?  Was it right to help him?  Do you think you could help someone you don’t like?  How do you think the other children felt after helping him?  God wants us to help anyone—friend or enemy—who needs help.  Our memory verse tells us that.
8. Perform Skit 2. 
   After skit 2, discuss it together.  Who was like the Good Samaritan in this skit?  Why did the runner stop to help?  What did the runner give up to help?  Did he/she get anything in return?  Did the runner seem to mind giving up the medal?  Do you think the runner would really stop again?  Could you do this for someone?  Think about how you would feel if you saw someone really hurt and no one else was helping?  Would your heart go out to them?
9. Skit 3:  Assign and give students several minute to come up with a contemporary skit:

• A new kid in school is in need of a friend but everyone seems to be ignoring him.
• A little kid (she looks like she's barely 3 years old) can't find her father at the mall.
• The person in front of you at the grocery store doesn't have quite enough change to pay for their purchase. (Let's say they need 50 cents).
• A friend invites you to his birthday party. However what he requests for birthday gifts is rather strange: he wants donations for the local dog shelter. You and your other friends discuss this concept.
• If you have to repeat a skit to give everyone a turn, you may hold the discussion until the last time you have repeated the skit.

Wrap-up:

Review the concepts covered:

• God wants us to love God, love our neighbors and love ourselves.
• We are good “neighbors” when we show kindness and mercy toward others no matter whom they are.
• God’s disciples help others in need without expecting a reward.           

Reflection Time:

Ask the shepherds to pass out the journal sheets and pencils/markers.  Tell the younger children to draw a picture of a Good Samaritan (either the one in the Bible story or a modern day one).  Ask the older children to write about the most important thing they learned today.  Then they can draw a picture of a Good Samaritan (again, Bible or modern day).

Closing:

Prayer:  Have the PUPPETS form a circle and each offer a simple prayer about love, thanking God for his love and asking him to help each of us feel God’s love and feel like sharing this love with other people—both friends and enemies.

References:

This lesson was created in part based on ideas gleaned at rotation.org.

SKIT 1

Kevin:  “There’s Adam riding his scooter.  I hope he doesn’t come over here.  He is always so mean.”

Annie:  “He just fell down!  Wow, he’s holding his arm kind of funny.”

Ethan: “I think his arm is broken.  I saw a kid at the skate park whose arm looked like that.  It was broken.  Should we help him?”

Kevin:  “Are you kidding?  I don’t like that guy.”

Annie:  “As much as I don’t like him, I think we should help him.  He looks pretty helpless, and he has tears running down his face.  Let’s at least tell his Mom.”

Ethan:  “OK, I’ll go tell his Mom.”  (runs off)

Kevin:  “I guess I could wheel his scooter home for him.”

Annie:  “I’ll go with you and tell him his Mom is coming.”

Kevin:  “You know, as much as I don’t like that guy, for some reason I feel kind of happy about what we’re doing—like it’s the right thing to do.”

SKIT 2

Frank/Faith:  “How was your race?  Did you win?”

Matthew/Millie:  “I didn’t really finish the race.  There was a kid ahead of me that tripped and fell.  His knee was really bleeding.  So I stopped to help him.”

Carl/Carrie: “I thought you wanted to win a new medal.   Why did you stop?”

Matthew/Millie:  “I did want to win, and I’m still disappointed that I didn’t.  But at the time, I just felt more like helping that kid.  Everyone else just kept running by him and that just seemed kind of mean.  I didn’t want to be mean like that.”

Frank/Faith:  “I bet you would have won.”

Matthew/Millie:  “I definitely was ahead in my age group.  I’m planning to enter another race soon.”

Carl/Carrie:  “Next time you can keep running.”

Matthew/Mildred:  “Yea, if nobody else gets hurt.”

Frank/Faith:  “You mean you’d drop out to help someone and give up a medal again?”

Matthew/Millie:  “Maybe—you probably would too.  You’d just have to be there to understand.  It just didn’t seem right not to help him.”

Carl/Carrie:  “That sounds like my Mom.  She says you should act nice to everyone and help anyone in need, no matter who they are or how they treat you, even if you don’t feel like being that way.”

A lesson from Kirk of Kildaire Presbyterian Church

A representative of Rotation.org reformatted this post to improve readability.