Gideon Trusts God When He is Afraid

Games Workshop

Summary of Lesson Activities: Reinact the story using Story Table (figures) technique, Followed by two games to reinforce the notion that God helps make us brave when we are afraid "Fear Tag" and "Dominos".

Scripture Reference: Judges 6-8

Memory Verses:

Don’t be afraid; I am with you. Don’t tremble with fear; I am your God. I will make you strong and help you.” (Isaiah 41:10a, CEV)

Rotation Objectives --at the end of the Rotation, children should be know:

• About God: God is patient with our weaknesses. He helps us do what he wants us to do.
• About Us: We can rely on God’s promised help.
• To Do and to Share: When I am afraid, I can remember God’s promise to be with me, and ask him for help.

Main Point:

God will help us be brave enough to do what he wants us to do.

Leader Preparation:

• Read Judges 6-8
• Review Bible Background notes
• Read lesson and gather the materials.

Supplies List:

Games

• White board and markers
• Whistle
• Hat or scarf to mark who the Scary Thing(s) in the game of Fear Tag
• Dominoes (lots)

Story Table

• Playmobil or Lego people to act out the Gideon story: Gideon, 2 soldiers who were afraid, 2 soldiers who kneeled to drink, 2 soldiers who stayed with Gideon, a few Midianites and camels, other Israelite soldiers from other tribes
• Blocks, coloured paper, scarves etc. to make a valley with hills on 3 sides and water on one side but not the other.

Advance Preparation:

• Write memory verse on white board
• Set up the Gideon battlefield with the blocks where the children can gather around. Make a desert, a farming area, a valley with hills on 3 sides and some water on the other side of the hills.
• Make sure there is an open space to play the Fear Tag game

Opening- Welcome and Lesson Introduction:

Make sure you have your nametag on. Introduce yourself and welcome the students. Take attendance.

Ask/remind the kids what story they heard last week. (Gideon)

Was Gideon a brave man? (discuss: he was afraid a lot, but he became brave when he relied on God)

Story Table (Bible Story):

Tell the children they are going to act out the battle part of Gideon’s story. There are other parts of the story, but they won’t do them today. Decide which children will control which pieces. They should move their pieces as the story goes on.

NOTE: This will work best with a small class size. If your class is large, you can control all the props, or invite a small # of children up to help while you review the story. In either case, try to guide them into telling you the story. The main points are outlined below.

1. Background: Gideon’s story is found in the Old Testament, in the time before Jesus was born and after God led the Israelites to the Promised Land. When there was a problem, God assigned one of the Israelites to help. He called them Judges. Gideon was one of the these judges and his story is found in the book of (guess?) Judges.
2. Opening: In those days, the Israelites were farmers. (Place them in the farmland) Other people in the area were nomads, who roamed all over the desert with their camels. One group of nomads was called the Midianites. (Place the Midianites and camels in the desert outside the hills) Every year when the Israelites’ crops were ready, the Midianites would come in from the desert and camp all over the crops. (Move them in) There were so many men and camels that they looked like sand on the seashore. The Midianites would take some of the crops and ruin the rest, and the Israelites went hungry. Some of them were so afraid that they started to live in caves. (Judges 6:1-6) After 7 years of this, the Israelites called on God to help, and God called Gideon.
   
   
3. God calls Gideon and Gideon is Very Afraid: Gideon was a farmer, not a soldier. When God sent his own angel to tell Gideon to go and fight against the Midianites, Gideon was very afraid, even though God said he would be with Gideon. (Have the kids show you how they look when they are very afraid, or how Gideon might have looked – shaking knees, hiding face etc.)
   
   
4. 3 Tests: So Gideon asked the angel and then God to give him a 3 signs that God was really with him. What were they? 1. Gideon brought an offering like he would bring for God and it burned up on a rock. 2. Gideon put out fleece (a sheepskin) outside on the ground and asked God to make it wet in the morning and the ground dry. 3. Opposite of #2. God gave Gideon all these signs. Gideon was still afraid, but the angel told him that he would not die. Then he felt better.
   
   
5. Calling the Armies: The Midianites started to come in from the desert and camp nearby. (Move the Midianites and camels closer to the farmland) So Gideon blew his trumpet to call all the warriors in his tribe to come to fight. He also sent messengers to some of the other far away tribes of Israel to ask them to come and fight too. (Have the kids pretend to blow trumpets. Move a soldier down to the other parts of Israel and then bring them back.) 32,000 soldiers came to help Gideon. (Put Gideon’s army with him) Finally Gideon didn’t feel afraid. He had a big army and he knew God was with him. They all went to camp by the spring of Harod. (Move them to the water) Because Gideon’s army was already at the spring, the Midianites had to camp in a valley where there was no water. (Put the Midianites and the camels in the valley) Things were going well for Gideon.
   
   
6. Culling the Armies: What did God say to Gideon about his army? (It was too big) Why did God not want Gideon to have a big army? (So when they won, they would know God had helped them) How did God make the army smaller? Hint: 2 ways. 1. He said everyone who was afraid could go home. 22,000 men went home, leaving only 10,000. (Take away scared soldiers) 2. Everyone who knelt to drink from the water should go home. Only 300 stayed. (Take away other soldiers) How many Midianites were there? (Too many to count. Like sand on the seashore) (Add extra soldiers to them)
   
   
7. The Battle: Finally God said Gideon was ready to fight. So God gave Gideon a good idea. When it was dark, he divided his little army of 300 men into 3 groups of 100 each. He gave each man a trumpet and a burning torch inside a jar to hide the flame. (Give Gideon and his 2 soldiers each a torch and a trumpet) The men snuck down the hill and spread out around the camp. (Position them on 3 sides of the Midianites) When he gave the signal, they all blew on their horns and once and shone their torches. (Everyone pretends to blow a trumpet and wave a torch) The Midianites woke up. They were very surprised. They heard all the horns and saw the burning torches all around their camp, and they thought they were surrounded by a gigantic army they couldn’t see. They panicked and started fighting with each other. (Have the Midianites fight each other) Lots of them ran away, Gideon’s army chased them. (Do this. Midianites should go toward the other tribes) But the armies from the other tribes that Gideon had called earlier were coming from that direction. They caught the Midianites and defeated them. (End the battle)
   
   
8. God is Ruler: The Israelites were so happy that they wanted to make Gideon their ruler. But Gideon didn’t want to rule over them. He said “I won’t be your ruler, and neither will my son when he grows up. Only the Lord is your ruler.” He went home to his farm, and the Midianites didn’t come back for 40 years, as long as Gideon lived. (Put Gideon and the other Israelites back on the farmland and the Midianites in the desert. Kids leave toys and sit down)

Game 1: Fear Tag (Note: games can be done in either order.)

Read the memory verse with the children. This is God telling us not to be afraid. Tell them they should memorize the whole thing, but for this game they only need to remember one part: “Don’t be afraid; I am with you.” Repeat this several times.

Take the children to an open space where they can run around. Explain the rules for Fear Tag:

1. One person at a time is the Scary Thing. The Scary Thing tags people.
2. When you are tagged, you freeze with fear. To get unfrozen, you must call for help like the Israelites did. "Help me!"
3. To get unfrozen (not afraid any more), someone else who is not frozen with fear must tag you and say the memory verse: "Don't be afraid; I am with you." Then you can run again.
4. If you are outside, you must stay inside the boundaries (lawn, edge markers, etc.)
5. The game starts when you blow the whistle. It ends when everyone except the Scary Thing is frozen or in 2 minutes, whichever comes first. If it is the 2 minutes, you will blow your whistle again. The whistle means to stop running.
6. After the game ends, you can choose a different Scary Thing and play again. Note: if your space is large or your Scary Thing slow, you can can have more than one Scary Thing. That's life, right?

Choose one (or more) person to be the Scary Thing(s). The Scary Thing stands at one end and everyone else spreads out. Start the timer and say "Go!"  When the time is up, blow the whistle. And so on. When they're done, return to the classroom.

Game 2: Dominoes

Say: Gideon was afraid because he had to fight a very large and scary army. But God helped him not be afraid, and then gave him a way to win the battle. We are going to make a very large army out of dominos, then say the memory verse, blow our pretend trumpets, and watch it fall down.

Put out the dominoes. Show the kids how to stand them on their ends, side by side. Have them line up all the dominoes in the shape of a large G for "Gideon" and "God". If the G doesn't look like a G, that's okay. This might take a while. Be careful and be quiet so the army doesn't hear you. When it is all set up, say the memory verse together (older kids can try to say it without looking) and make trumpet sounds. Knock down one end domino and see if the whole thing will fall down. Fiddle until it does if you have time. While you are setting them up, discuss the following questions.  NOTE: It might work better to have several groups making smaller rows of dominoes.

Discussion:

Gideon was often very afraid. What helped him not be afraid? (Praying and asking God to reassure him. God always answered and let him know that he was there with Gideon.)

• What are some ways God reassures us that he is with us? (through Bible promises and stories, through people, by touching our hearts when we pray…)
• When we are afraid to do what we need to do, what should we do? (Ask God to help us be strong and brave, read the Bible to remind ourselves of his love and promises, read books about Christians who had strong faith…)
• What if we feel like we don’t deserve God’s help? (ask anyway, say we’re sorry if we need to.)
• Should we give God tests like Gideon did? Actually, the Bible and Jesus both say we shouldn’t put God to the test like Gideon did. We should read our Bible and ask God for faith to believe.
• Discuss: It’s a funny thing, but not everyone in the Bible, even the heroes, always does things we should do—especially the Judges, if you read more of those stories. That’s because no human is perfect. Only God is perfect. But God knows that, and he still helps us. God did give Gideon signs, but he wants us to have faith in his promises, not like Gideon.
• Who is the one person in the Bible we can always imitate in everything? (Jesus)

Closing:

Say a prayer, thanking God that he is with us so we don't have to be afraid. Ask him to help us remember to ask him for help when we do feel afraid. Amen.

Sources:

Domino game was adapted from the above Game Lesson written by Alison from: Augustana Lutheran Church https://www.rotation.org/topic...4#295011598215972514