Teaching older children about God and his love is not as easy as it is with very small children. They are not as impressed with single object lessons or messages. Most of the time, it takes a little creativity to spark an interest in the message that you are trying to convey.
I have written several object lesson articles for small children. Click on the titles below to read them if you are in need of simple object lessons for young children.
Flashlight Object Lesson: Let Your Light Shine
Mirror, Troll, & X-ray Object Lessons: God looks at the heart.
For older children, one of the important lessons to teach them is that we are all sinners and that we all make the mistakes that they are making. To illustrate this, you will use a backpack and load it up with weight to show the impact of sin. Be sure and use an adult volunteer to hold the heavy backpack so not to injure a child who may have an unknown sensitivity. Speak to your volunteer ahead of time and explain the things you will need from him/her.
Start the class by asking if anyone in the class has ever sinned. Get a conversation going about what sins we may have committed and how they make us feel. Ask for a volunteer from the class and call up your adult volunteer that was previously informed.
Put a backpack on your volunteer. Any backpack will work but a clear backpack works best because the students can continue to see through it. Begin pulling out heavy things from a box or bag and placing them in the backpack on your volunteer. As you are “weighing” him down, explain that the objects represent sins that we all commit. Put a larger rock in the backpack and add that the rock represents the cheating that one may do. Keep adding objects like rocks, bar bells, books, ice packs, anything heavy. Continue to recite sins that could be represented by the objects…..lies, swearing, deceit, flattery etc. The volunteer will find it easy at the beginning but as the bag gets heavier, he/she will begin to complain that it is beginning to hurt him/her.
After you have the volunteer weighed down, ask the volunteer to walk with all his sins on his back. The volunteer should have a hard time walking and insist on sitting down. Have the volunteer keep the backpack on but sit so that he cannot feel the weight while you teach a moment.
Recite Roman 3:23: For all Have Sinned and Fall Short of the Glory of God
Explain that God tells us clearly in the bible that no person is blameless, that we all sin and fall short when it comes to God’s glory. Tell them that when we sin and then carry the weight of those sins around with us, we are hurting just like our volunteer. It is hard to live a life pleasing to God when we are hurting so badly from sin.
Tell the children that we should try not to sin in the first place so not to have to carry such weight. That plan is a great one but we will eventually sin, all people do. Tell the children that if we had to carry all the weight of our sins forever, we would have an unhappy life, a painful life. Explain that there is good news. God allows us to get rid of all the weight of our sins anytime we want.
Have the volunteer stand back up carrying his heavy backpack of sin. The volunteer should bow his head as if he were praying as you take off the heavy backpack of sin. Tell the children that when the volunteer asked God to forgive him for his sins and to help him live better, the sins were all taken away. The volunteer will now walk around in a strut explaining how easy it is to walk now, how much better he/she felt.
The main message that you want to get out to these children is that our sins are heavy to carry day to day and they hurt us. When we ask God to take our sins away and help us to live a better life, he does. We do not have to go a single day carrying heavy sin on our backs. God is there to lift it off, to take it away.
Read Luke 5:24: I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.
End the class by telling the children that all they have to do is confess their sins to God and ask for forgiveness and he will gladly forgive them. God can and will remove the weight of sin in our lives, helping us to walk freely. Pray with the children, asking God to help them surrender their lives to him.
