The Unforgiving Servant

Hi everyone and welcome to Christchurch Kids . Today we are talking about forgiveness. It's something the disciples were finding difficult and so they asked Jesus "How many times do I have to forgive someone? Seven times?"

Jesus replied with "Seventy times seven". That's a really big number. In our video, some children are going to tell us the parable that Jesus told to explain forgiveness. It's called the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant.

In this parable Jesus was reminding us how much God has forgiven us. When Jesus died on the cross and came back to life on Easter Sunday, he was taking the consequences of all the things we get wrong. 

Jesus forgave us for everything. 

If someone does something wrong that upsets us, it can be hard to forgive them but if we remember how much God loves us - and them, then it can become easier. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes and forgiveness of each other is an amazing way to show love in our families and with our friends.

Sometimes, people can get things wrong and they need help to know that they are making the wrong choices.  If we are being bullied at school, we can forgive that person for their wrong actions but it doesn't mean we have to let them carry on. We can ask adults we trust to help that person make good choices. God can help us forgive that person, which would mean that we wouldn't be carrying around anger and upset towards them in our hearts.

Our colouring page today has a Bible verse about forgiving each other. It asks us to BEE kind and loving.You can download it here

Target games

When Jesus replied to the disciples that we should forgive others seventy times seven (not really a jillion and twenty!), he wasn't really talking about Maths. We could remember our story today by making some target games. Maybe we could make the points from the 7 times table? Maybe the highest score could be seventy times seven. Do you know how much that is?

Here are some great ideas to make target games...

Basket targets

Target Golf

Maybe you could go outside and make a nerf target game?

Nerf targets

Prayer

Today, we are going to spend some time thinking about what forgiveness is like. 

If we choose not to forgive someone, it can be like carrying around a big weight in our hearts.

Forgiveness experiment

You will need:

Two people

A backpack

Some food tins (or something similarly heavy)

One person will put the backpack on their front. The other person will say "Will you forgive me?" and the person wearing the backpack says "No". Every time they say "No", the person wearing the backpack adds a tin to the bag. Repeat a few times until the bag is feeling heavy.

Now the second person asks "Will you forgive me?" and the person wearing the backpack replies "I forgive you" and removes a tin from the bag. Repeat until the bag is empty. What does it feel like now all the tins have gone?

If we choose not to forgive, we are carrying that upset, hurt and anger around inside and it is a like a big weight. It can be hard to let it go, but God is there to help us.

Spent a few moments quietly talking to God about forgiveness. We can say sorry to God for things we have got wrong. We can thank God that he has forgiven us. We can ask God to help us say sorry to the people we might have hurt or upset. We can ask God to help us forgive people who have upset us.

We've got  new song today about when things don't go well we can trust that God is bigger and stronger than anything that could go wrong. Could you make up your own actions to this song?

We'd love to see pictures of your target games. You can send them in following the instructions in the right hand column. Thanks for joining in us today and we'll be back for a dance on Wiggle Wednesday.