Friendship
Prov. 17:17 - A friend loves at all times
Objective: To evaluate areas of strength and weakness in ourselves as friends. To look at what the Bible says about friendship. To encourage each other.
Materials: yarn (various colors), scissors, copies of friendship quiz, Bibles, concordance.
Preparation: Make sure you understand the quiz analyzer and how to make a warm fuzzy. You may want to have a story about your life and friendship ready to tell. Pray for guidance from the Holy Spirit and for the group’s time together.
Lesson:
Question: Who do you think is the best at being a friend of anyone you know? What makes that person good at being a friend?
Friendship is something that doesn’t always come naturally to us. Why do you think we have to work on being a good friend sometimes?
Activity
Directions: “This activity is partly just for fun, but it also will get us thinking about the areas we are good or bad at when it comes to friendship.”
Each person will take the quiz. Let them know that they should think about what they would be most likely to do, not what they think they should do as they take the quiz. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses.
Next, the leader can read the quiz analyzer as the girls evaluate themselves.
Ask them to look at their quiz and find one area of strength and one area of weakness. Emphasize the fact that no one but Jesus is a perfect friend. We all have areas of strength and areas of weakness.
Warm-Fuzzies
Cut a 1 ½-2 ft. piece of yarn. Open one hand and lay it flat (so that it is at least 4 inches wide from thumb to pinky). Using the rest of the yarn, wrap yarn around your fingers 20-30 times. Then carefully take the yarn off your hand and use the long piece of yarn to tie it off in the center (it helps if someone else ties it off for you). Cut each end.
Now you should have a ball of yarn that resembles a Koosh ball with a long string in the middle. Tie off the string so that it will hang around your neck.
Encourage the girls to mingle while the group makes a craft or has a snack. When they want to pray with someone or say something encouraging to them, they pull a short string out of their warm fuzzy and wrap it around the neck string of their friend’s warm fuzzy. This is a way of encouraging the girls to show kindness to their friends. They can tie the warm-fuzzy onto their book bag since they probably won’t want to wear it around their neck at school,
Friendship Quiz
1.
Your friend apologizes for ruining your favorite shirt when she borrowed it. You . . .
a)are kind of bummed but realize that it’s just a shirt and forgive her.
b)tell her it’s okay, but never let her borrow anything again.
c)refuse to talk to her for two weeks.
Ephesians 4:2
2.Your friend is failing spelling class. You . . .
a)quiz her on her words, twice a week, all semester.
b)remind her to study once a week.
c)don’t understand how she could fail spelling.
Proverbs 3:28, Galatians 6:2
3.A friend asks you to pray for her dad who lost his job and needs to find a new one fast. You . . .
a)pray with her and then for her dad, every day.
b)pray when you think about it.
c)want to pray, but keep forgetting.
1 Peter 5:16
4.Your friend wears a skirt that is really short. You’re pretty sure she doesn’t realize that her underwear even shows when she bends over. You . . .
a)tell her when you’re alone that you noticed it and don’t mention it to anyone else.
b)ask all of your other friends what to do and make it a big deal.
c)Criticize her behind her back.
Prov. 25:11-12, Prov. 11:13
5.You know that your friend does not understand who Jesus is
You think that she may listen if you tell her. You . . .
a)pray and keep looking for a chance to tell her until you find one.
b)pray and hope someone else will tell her.
c)assume she’ll figure it out eventually.
2 Tim. 4:5
6.On an outing, your friend tells you she forgot her lunch money. You’re really hungry yourself. You . . .
a)give her half of your money and the two of you share lunch.
b)buy her a bag of chips.
c)pretend you forgot yours, too, and hide from her at lunchtime.
Ephesians 4:28
7.You’re sitting in class and notice that one of your friends looks really sad. You . . .
a)try to catch her eye and give her a smile.
b)wonder what might be wrong.
c)don’t even notice.
Proverbs 15:30
Friendship Quiz Analyzer
Everyone has strengths and weaknesses as a friend. We’re going to look at which areas may be our strengths and weaknesses.
a= Strength
b= Average
c= Weakness
If you answered honestly, then you should not have all “a” answers.
Questions #Friendship Trait TestedVerse that Applies
1Forgiveness/Faithfulness Ephesians 4:2
2Help/Bear Burdens Proverbs 3:28, Galatians 6:2
3Prayer 1 Peter 5:16
4Advice/ Honesty/ Gossip Prov. 25:11-12, Prov. 11:13
5Share the Gospel 2 Tim. 4:5
6Generosity Ephesians 4:28
7Cheer up/Empathy Proverbs 15:30
Choose one area of strength and one area of weakness. Look up the verses that apply to that friendship trait.
What other friendship traits are important?
Pray that God would keep using us to sharpen each other.
Timeline Part 1-A Look at the Book of Genesis
Objective: Have a general idea of the major themes in Genesis. Be able to put Abraham onto the timeline. Understand that most of the Old Testament is about God’s promises and plan for the Hebrews (a.k.a. the Jews or the Israelites. Help the girls to realize how amazing God is so that they can worship Him in spirit and truth.
Materials: Pipe cleaners, Bibles, paper, pencils, hat, list of Review Questions, movie about Joseph or visitor to play Joseph (week 2), copies of timeline to be kept in planner (pg.63).
Preparation: Be familiar with the important themes and stories in Genesis, find a good movie about Joseph or arrange for a visitor to come, and make a timeline. A large timeline can be made with rope draped across the room and clothes pins to hold the dates and events. A smaller group timeline can be made on poster board.
Part 1- Genesis Overview
Pre-lesson activity:
What are some of the stories found in the book of Genesis? Get in groups of two and use pipe cleaners to represent one of the stories you may know from the book of Genesis. Find that story in your Bible so you can share your pipe cleaner shapes and the place in Genesis where you found the story.(Take 10 minutes or so to let them skim the book of Genesis.)
Then come together and share pipe cleaner shapes and stories. Another variation of this game can be played. Teachers prepare story descriptions from Genesis. Each group gets a story card and Bible reference to sculpt using the pipe cleaner; then shares their sculpture with the group.
Help the girls learn these facts in order:
What happens in chapter 3? Adam and Eve sin. What were the results of that sin?
What happens in chapters 6-8? God protects Noah and his family but sends a flood to destroy everyone else.
What happens in chapter 11? God confuses peoples languages and they move all over the earth.
Read and stop at the underline words to see if the girls can fill them in:
Next around 2,000 BC, God decided that He would stay close to one family and they would become a special group of people. Most of the people in the rest of the Bible are from this family of people. These people would be able to show the whole world how great the One True God is. The Lord chose one couple to be the first one of this group of people. Do you know their names? Abraham and Sarah were their names. God came to Abraham one day and gave him directions to move away from His brothers and sisters. God made Abraham a promise (covenant) that would last forever. The promise was that Abraham would have many children, some of his family line would become kings and there was more. God promised to take care of Abraham’s family and they would become a great nation. God promised that they would have the land called Canaan to live in someday too. God promised that the whole world would be blessed by Abraham's family. Do you know how God used Abraham's family to bless the whole world? It was through Jesus Christ who was born into this family 2,000 years later. He would die for the sins of the world.
God likes to show us how great He is, so He chose Abraham and his wife, Sarah, to be the parents of this new family and group of people. The funny thing was that she did not have kids and she was very old and it seemed impossible for her to ever have a baby. But she did, she had Isaac. Then Isaac got married to Rebekah and they had two twin sons, Jacob and Esau. God told Jacob that he was the one who would get to be one of God’s chosen people. Then Jacob had 12 sons and all of them got to be one of God’s chosen people. They are the 12 tribes of Israel. Joseph was one of Jacob’s sons. Do you know anything about Joseph?
What do we learn about our Great God from what happened in the first 30 chapters of Genesis?
Instructions: Listen closely while I read about this family one more time. I’m going to give you paper to make a family tree and see how much you can remember.
Abraham and Sarah only had one son, Isaac. But Isaac and Rebekah had two sons. One of Isaac’s sons was Jacob. Jacob had two wives, Rachel and Leah. Jacob and his wives had twelve sons. One was Joseph.
See who remembers the most. Read it once or twice again and let the girls help each other make their family trees.
Another Review Activity:
Have the girls use note cards with; creation, first sin, worldwide flood, and God gives a promise to Abraham written on separate cards. Have the girls work to see if they can put the cards in order.
