Posting more ideas which I recently suggested to a member about
Games
John 15:9-17
(see copy of scripture I pasted in below).
1. I see each of these as a pantomime/charades game. There are four ideas in the passage (which I've briefly excerpted below). Write them on slips of paper (2 per verse) and pass them out. Have individuals act them out like a charade, BUT >> Don't let anyone yell out the answer. Make each person write down their answer and submit it. You can do this in pairs or teams.
v9....ABIDE in my love...
v12....Love...as I have... lay down your life for your friends....
v15....I call you my friends...
v16...You didn't choose me, I chose you
2. I see KEY words in each. Play a game of "How Few Can You Do" to get the kids to condense each section of verses into the shortest possible number of words that will still convey the meaning. I've described this game elsewhere on the site. You tell them "do it in 10 words or less," then challenge them to do it in 6 or 7 or less. Kids write them and present them.
v9, for example, could be shortened to: "Father loved, I love, you love."
3. When you isolate just the keywords in this passage, there are so MANY awesome words and phrases each of which can be "unpacked," illustrated or painted in a collage. Joy, Lay down, Friends, Chosen, bear fruit....So Many Great Words! The whole passage has a wonderful tone, full of love that can be expressed visually through art.
The passage:
John 15:9-17
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 1
5 I do not call you servants] any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.
16 You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.
