Operation Sword and Shield

July 30th to August 3rd, our church will be having Vacation Bible School! There is a team of helpers coming from our church in North Carolina, and we couldn’t be more excited about what will take place that week. VBS is a great outreach to the community - by reaching the kids you are reaching not only the next generation but also your future church!

I’ve been put in charge of the 4s&5s class, which I am super excited about! I love working with kids, and don’t get too much opportunity to do it any more! Teaching is fun - I am sure it would get old if I did it all the time, but since I don’t, I enjoy each opportunity I get!

We are using a curriculum by Jerry and Suzan Hanson and Gary and Wendy Collins called Operation Sword and Shield: Adventures in Faith, focusing on being part of the Lord’s Army! We used this curriculum in the past with great success, and we’re excited to give it another go! Here is the clincher, however: I have to come up with my own program for my class! While the curriculum has some ideas and a general game plan, the lessons, work sheets, etc. are all geared to older kids, leaving me to start from scratch!

That is ok with me, I love a good challenge, especially when it means digging into God’s Word and coming out with something for the little kiddos I’ll have in my class!

I decided it would be fun to appeal to include my great blogging friends, and prick your brains for some ideas. I’ll blog periodically from now until then, getting some feedback from you and sharing my ideas, and at the end I’ll blog through the lesson plans I come up with each day of VBS, ending with a file of curriculum to share with you! That is the plan, anyway...now its up to you to help me make it happen. :)

Here is the general plan for the week:

Monday: Gideon
Tuesday: Joshua
Wednesday: David
Thursday: Fiery Furnace
Friday: Review and salvation

In reading through each of these stories and considering how each of these heroes of the faith were in God’s army, I decided I want the focus of each night to be how God gave each of these men the strength for the task. Yes, they were faithful and did what God called them to do, but ultimately it was God who gave them the strength to complete His task. I feel that if I were to constantly emphasize that these men were part of God’s army, that could be confusing to 4s and 5s. They take things so literally at that age, I’m afraid they wouldn’t really understand that! So focusing on how God gave these men strength - while still including the army theme - might be a safer route.

I’ve started just going through each of these stories and deciding what I want to talk about and emphasize. I won’t be writing out a word-for-word “story” on each of these men, but using my Bible and reading verses and talking about the story on a level that they can understand. And of course, using lots of object lessons, props, and examples. So, starting at the beginning, here is my first question:

From the story of Gideon (Judges 6:11-12, 36-40; 7:2-22) in what ways would you say Gideon had to rely on the Lord for strength? Where do you see evidence that the Lord was with him? (Other than the obvious angel. I got that one.) What would be good props/object lessons to go along with this story?

I already have some ideas floating around, and a general story line, but I’m looking forward to reading your suggestions and incorporating some of them into my lesson plans.

I’ll be back soon to talk about the Joshua story, and at some point in the near future I’ll fill you in on the puppet, games, songs and prizes I’ll be including. It will be a busy, but fun few weeks of preparing!