Rotation.org Writing Team

Shepherds and Angels

Bible Skills and Games Workshop

Summary of Activities

Students will play through three "game stations," each focusing on a different aspect of the story and its meaning. They will learn to retell the story through an Unscramble the Story game, focus on learning the memory verse in a modified game of "Telephone," and then reflect on ways they can share the good news of this great joy in a game of "Sharing Charades." 

Scripture for the Lesson

Luke 2:1-20 (NRSV, with an emphasis on 8-18, Shepherds and Angels.)

Key/Memory Verse:  “Do not be afraid; for see — I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord." Luke 2:10-11 (NRSV) 

Lesson Objectives

See the Bible Background at rotation.org for this set's complete list of objectives. 

Preparation and Materials

• Read the scripture and Bible Background.
• Prepare the three "game stations" around the room, or have each game's materials grouped and ready to use.

GAME 1 UNSCRAMBLE MATERIALS

• Create a “dark” tunnel to crawl through either by folding a large tarp, or clipping two blankets together.
• Print scripture cards for Game 1 (pdf attached) and prepare according to the instructions on the PDF. 
• Phone or camera to take photo of the students lined up with story cards.

GAME 2 TELEPHONE GAME MATERIALS

List of the memory verses to be "whispered":

• “Do not be afraid,"
• "I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people”
•  “to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord"
• "This will be a sign to you: you will find a child in a manger"
• "The shepherds said to each other, 'let us go and see this thing that has taken place'”

GAME 3 SHARING CHARADES

Items gift-wrapped and placed in the large gift-wrapped box:

• A Christmas cookie
• Cleaning supplies
• A clock ("time")
• Ornament with the words "Jesus is reason for the season" written on it
• Children’s Christmas Bible storybook
• An announcement of the Christmas Eve worship times
• Pen and blank writing paper
• Christmas carol song sheet
• Can of soup
• Thank you card
• Empty brown lunch bag

Lesson Plan

Opening

Welcome your students and explain what they will be doing and learning today.

OPENING QUESTIONS:

1. Who can tell me where we can find stories about Jesus' birth in the Bible? (New Testament, Matthew and Luke)
2. Our story today comes from the Gospel According to Luke.  What's a "gospel"? (good news)
3. What's the "good news"? (that God is love and sent his son to save us from our sins)
4. Who is Luke? (a physician friend of the Apostle Paul; Luke wrote the story of Jesus for the church)
5. In his second chapter of his gospel, Luke tells about the angels appearing to the shepherds on the night of Jesus' birth. Do any of you know that story?  (ask for a short summary)

Conclude the opening and transition to the games! 

SAY: Now we're going to play some games to learn more about Luke's amazing story.

GAME TIME!

GAME 1 – Scripture Unscramble

Description: Students will go from darkness to light as they crawl through a tunnel (blankets or tarp) and emerge into the light where they will perform several Bible story scramble games with the attached cards. We have created two similar tunnel-scripture scramble games. The first (1A) uses just the TEXT of the story which the students must collect in the tunnel and assemble together in the light. The second time through the tunnel (1B) they are collecting just the IMAGE-ONLY scripture cards and assemble those in the correct order and answer questions about them from the teacher. See group size adaptations below.

SAY and ASK: On the night of Jesus' birth, the shepherds were outside in the dark watching over their sheep. Do you think they were a little scared of the dark? What might they have been afraid of; what were they watching for? (predators, losing sheep)  Are you scared of the dark?

SAY: "Darkness" in a story can also mean "not knowing" or "being lost" (or "sinful"). The shepherds and the entire world were "in the dark" about what was about to happen, and the saving peace that was about to come into their world in the form of the baby Jesus. God's light was about to shine on them, a light for the whole world.

SAY HOW TO PLAY GAME 1A -- TEXT UNSCRAMBLE

Our first game shines some light by helping us LEARN the story of Jesus' birth. FIRST, you are going to crawl through the darkness. Inside the tunnel I have placed 7 Scripture Cards. Your job is to find 1 of the cards inside our tunnel and crawl out into the light on the other side. Remember: Only 1 card per crawl!

After they come out of the tunnel, have them stand in the correct order holding the text-only cards in what THEY think is the correct story order. Once they think they are in the right order, have them read aloud the text to see if they got the story order correct. Let them rearrange their order as needed.

Note to Teacher:  If you have fewer than 7 students, have some students go twice until ALL of the scripture cards are brought out of the tunnel. If you have more than 7 students, split into two teams and see which team can collect all 7 cards in the fastest time -- 1 card at a time. 

HOW TO PLAY GAME 1B -- "PICTURE" UNSCRAMBLE:

Now put the image-only cards inside your tunnel and repeat the "crawling" game, reminding students to only bring one card out with each crawl-through. When they have collected all 7 image-only cards, have them quickly decide the correct STORY ORDER (without your help).  

Have them stand in the correct order holding the images. Then read aloud Luke 2:8-18 from your CLASSROOM BIBLE to see if they got the story order correct.

Questions to Ask Our Unscramblers: 

1. Who has the story part that describes what the shepherds were doing that night?  What do you think were they watching for? Were they expecting a heavenly announcement?”
   
   
2. Who has the story part that says how the angel first appeared to the shepherds?  How would you have felt if you had been watching your sheep and suddenly light beamed down from heaven?”
   
   
3. Who has the story part that tells what the angels said?  Describe how it would feel to change from being frightened to being “filled with joy” that God was coming into your world in Peace and love?
   
   
4. Who has the story part that explains where the shepherds will find the gift?  How surprised do you think shepherds would be that the good news would be a baby in a bed of hay?  What was God trying to tell us by letting Jesus be born in that place and way?
   
   
5. Who has the story part that tells what the shepherds did after they saw Jesus?  How did the shepherds become like the angels in the story? (by sharing the good news)
   
   To everyone: How can we become like the angels this Christmas -- sharing the good news of God's peace with people who really need to hear it?

Say as you Transition to the Next Game: The angels said the good news was for all the people. So, just like the shepherds and angels, it is our job to share the news of God's Peace, God's salvation through Jesus with everyone. In our next game we are going to practice sharing the GOOD NEWS!

Game 2 -  Whispering the Good News

Description: Using Luke 2, verses 10 and 11 (our memory verses for this set) students will play the telephone game and add MOTIONS to the message as they whisper it to the next student.

HOW TO PLAY:  Organize students into groups of 3 and have them sit in a line together. The teacher begins the verse message by whispering to the first student. The teacher also adds a "motion" to go with the message. The first student then whispers the same message and makes the same motion to the second student. The second does the same to the third student. The third student then repeats OUT LOUD what they heard and makes the motion. If the message is badly garbled, the teacher should start the message again with the first student. Do it as many times as needed, but keep in mind that part of the fun of "telephone" is that the message does get somewhat garbled and that our goal here is a "working knowledge" of the verses, not rote memory.

Tips: Put space between students if they can't whisper softly enough. Allow each student to request one "repeat whisper" before they have to pass along what they think they heard (and the motion that came with the message). With younger students, break some of the longer verses into smaller parts, or concentrate on the first three messages to whisper.

Here are the "whispers" to share:

1. “Do not be afraid;"  (a short one to get warmed up with)
2. "I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people”
3.  “to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord."
4. "This will be a sign to you: you will find a child in a manger"
5. "The shepherds said to each other, 'Let us go and see this thing that has taken place'” 

For larger groups or older students, divide into more teams for a little competition between the teams, or enlarge your teams to four or five students each. 

After each "whisper" -- tell everyone what the original verse whisper was. Say, "repeat after me" as you "line it out" to them in short phrases.

Questions to ask after each verse:

1. Why were the shepherds afraid? Would you have been afraid?
2. What is the "great joy" the angel is talking about?
3. What is a "Messiah"?  (Christ, Savior)
4. How did the shepherds know where and who to look for?
5. How do "we go" each year to see and share "this thing that has taken place"?

Transition: Sharing the good news of Jesus, becoming shepherds and angels, isn't easy for many of us. We tend to keep our faith to ourselves. But Jesus wants his message shared, and that's our job as his disciples. In our next game we are going to act out some ways we can share the good news!

Game 3 – Sharing Charades 

Description:  Students reach into a gift box one at a time and pull out a loosely wrapped gift. They then have up to 30 seconds to figure out how to ACT OUT how that gift can be used to share the message of God's peace this Christmas and beyond. You do not have to keep the object hidden. What you're acting out is what you can DO with the object to spread the good news. Students may ask the teacher for a hint. If nobody has guessed after 1 minute, another student can step forward to act it out.

SAY: In a moment, I'm going to call one of you forward to take a gift out of this box. Pick any one and unwrap it. Once you have unwrapped it you have thirty seconds to figure out how to ACT OUT using that gift to share God's Christmas message of peace and love with others. Before acting it out, tell me what you are going to do. Then start to act it out and the class will try to guess what you are doing. Let us know when we get it right. If you go longer than one minute, don't blurt out the answer, instead, hand the gift to someone else and let them use it to act out an example of sharing the good news.

You may not talk. Point when someone is getting close to figuring out what you're doing.

Suggested "sharing" props to be wrapped and placed in the box:

(with notes about what they could possibly mean...)

Note to teacher:  Your goal here is to get them thinking of "what they can do" to share the message of God's peace and love for the world -- for which the birth of Jesus was a sign (according to the angel). The point is not to "do nice things" but to do things that will share that message. After the student is done acting ASK HIM/HER and the rest of the class to explain his actions -- and use that as an opportunity to refine with them how an action can share a message, and not merely be something "nice to do."

Closure

Gather around all the "Sharing Charade" gifts, memory verses, and scripture cards. Suggest that what we've learned today is that the good news must be shared, not just celebrated. That we shepherds are called to become angels too!  Close with a prayer that each student would remember the lesson today and look for ways to share the peace and joy of Christ's birth with words AND ACTIONS at home, in school, and wherever they go this holiday season.

Adaptations

For younger children:  In Game 1 only use the image cards. In Game 2, break up the longer sentences into shorter ones. In Game 3, offer suggestions for what they might act out. 

Extra resource for younger children:  Print the coloring page version from the author's website of the card images used in Game 1. It can be trimmed into a take-home book.

For those with more class time or older students: In Game 2, split into teams and see which can transmit the "whispered verse"  the fastest and most accurately. In Game 3, change "charades" to "Pictionary" -- having them illustrate their idea to the rest of the class. You can also keep the gifts "hidden" from the other students so that they have to guess not only what's being done, but what the object was.

For those with less class time:  Eliminate the "dark tunnel" part of Game 1. Reduce the number of "whispered verses" in Game 2. 

Resource

The Game 1 Scripture Card graphics are licensed for non-commercial teaching purposes by the author and illustrator. To see the original graphics and others, go to  http://www.lambsongs.co.nz

Written by Robin Stewart and the Rotation.org Writing Team
Copyright 2019, Rotation.org Inc.