Story time

God sends the Holy Spirit – Saddleback Kids

Some important points to remember from the story…

• Before Jesus went to heaven, He told His friends to stay where they were until God sent them the gift that He had promised. They listened to what He said and waited!
• One day, when all of Jesus’ friends and the people who believed in Him were sitting together, a sound like wind came into the room, even though the door was closed! Something that looked like flames hovered on top of each of them. And then came the gift of the Holy Spirit!
• The Holy Spirit filled each of their hearts and gave them beautiful, unique gifts! All of the disciples and friends from other places started speaking the same language and they could all understand each other! They talked about all of the wonderful things that God had done! Imagine if you went to a different country and you could understand what everyone was saying, even if you didn’t speak the language! It was kind of like that!
• Peter used this wonderful gift to tell everyone about what had happened to Jesus! The people were amazed and listened to Peter. They said sorry to God for all the mistakes they had made. That day, 3,000 people believed in Jesus and became His friend!
• The church grew bigger and bigger! People listened to Jesus’ friends. They started spending A LOT of time together. They prayed a lot, had lots of dinner together and helped people in need. They performed miracles and worshipped together. The church kept growing and the gift that God sent, the gift of the Holy Spirit, changed everything!
• Since that time many years ago, every person who has believed in Jesus has received the gift of the Holy Spirit in their hearts. We don’t see flames of fire resting on top of our heads but we do receive the power of the Holy Spirit to help us to live just like Jesus!

Some things to talk to your family about…

• Share three things you remember from today’s story with your family!
• What was the great gift that God promised to give Jesus’ friends? Can we have this gift too?
• What did the Holy Spirit help Jesus’ friends to do?
• What did the people do when they believed in God? Did anything change about their lives?
• How can we experience the Holy Spirit today?

Activities

So we have just heard a pretty amazing story haven’t we? On Pentecost Sunday, God the Father gave us a gift, the gift of His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a person too, and He is our friend that comes to live in our hearts, AND He never leaves us!

There are a couple of activities below to help us learn about the Holy Spirit!

The wind!

Activity: Go for a walk and look for the wind (or look from a window inside if easier!)

One way to describe the Holy Spirit is like the wind.  The wind comes and goes but we never actually see the wind itself.  We see how it makes the branches of the trees sway, or notice when leaves are blown in the wind. The Holy Spirit is kind of like the wind, you can’t see the Holy Spirit, but you do see how He moves in our lives! The Holy Spirit teaches us and guides us, He helps us to make good decisions and gives us joy, hope and peace and helps us to love people really well! We can’t see that happening but we can feel it! Go and try and spot something moving in the wind! When you have, think about how just like that wind, the Holy Spirit is moving and helping us do things that we couldn’t do on our own! The Holy Spirit is helping us to live like Jesus!

The lamp!

Resource: Lamp (unplugged and then plugged in)

The Holy Spirit gives us power, He helps us to live like Jesus! In the story we just watched, we heard about how 3000 people came to be Jesus’ friend because of the power of the Holy Spirit! Can you have a look at this lamp? It’s not plugged in at the moment and so there is no power going into the lamp, that means that we can’t see the light of the lamp. But look, when the lamp is plugged in and we turn on the power, it lights up! That is a bit like us and the Holy Spirit, He brings us power and we are able to do things or feel things that we wouldn’t be able to otherwise! Not only that but just like this lamp, when we have the Holy Spirit in our hearts He can also be a light to the people around us and God’s light can shine through us! Amazing isn’t it?

Prayer time

The Holy Spirit IS God. And He comes to live inside us if we ask Him to. When He comes and lives inside of us, we know that we are never ever alone. God the Holy Spirit moves in, right into our hearts, and stays with us forever. That’s what happened on Pentecost Sunday and that is what God wants to give us today too!

Have you ever asked God to come and live inside your heart? If not, why don’t you talk about this to your family today and you can ask Him to right now!

Because God really does come and live in our hearts and change our lives, we want everyone to experience this. We want everyone to experience His amazing Holy Spirit in their lives. Remember the story today? Remember how everyone started hanging out and sharing food and helping each other? Wouldn’t it be amazing if everyone in the world received this gift and had God living in their hearts? Why don’t we pray about this together today?

Dear God,

Thank you that you live in our hearts forever and ever. It is the best gift we could ever ask for! I pray that you would help me learn more about what it means to have you living in my heart. Thank you for the power of your Holy Spirit and that you are always with us. I also pray for people who have never had this wonderful gift before! I pray that today, people all around the world would make things right with you and ask you to come and live inside them and be their friend forever.

Amen

Craft time

In today’s story we heard about how the Holy Spirit looked like ‘flames’ resting on top of all of Jesus’ friends. Well, we are going to make some cool headbands or some ‘flying flames’ that you can to wear or wave to remember how Jesus left this amazing gift for His friends and for us!

Take a long strip of paper (you’ll have to cut it!), about two inches wide, and cut it to make sure it’s long enough to wrap the whole way around your head. It can rest on top of your head like a crown. Then, cut out a piece of paper in the shape of a flame. Colour this in however you want and stick it to the crown. When you put this on your head, it should look like a flame is resting on your forehead!