The Celebration Kitchen

This week's theme: Learn to honor God

Goals: To teach the children that:
1. The Bible is our guide for living
2. God wants us to honor him
3. God honors those who honor him.

Opening skit:
The Swedish chef comes in to the room in his crazy manner, singing and flinging his utensils around. He excitedly chatters about the Chicken A La Whack that he is going to make. The leader tries reminding the chef that he needs to use the recipe book. He just ignores her as he busies himself to cook. After looking at his cookbook upside down he flings it aside and starts to whip together ingredients. He flings the bird around with no regards for anyone else around him. He throws the bird in the air, almost whacks the leader with it, drops it on the floor, etc. He tries to fit the bird in a small pan, but it doesn't fit so he starts to beat the bird with a small baseball bat. He mentions that it's just a birdie wirdie. By the time the chef is ready to cook the bird it is so badly mangled that it doesn't even look edible. The chef just tosses the bird aside and leaves to go find a new birdie.
The leader explains to the kids that the way we treat things or others is important. She explains that honor is treating someone or something as if it is very valuable and important. God wants us to honor him. He doesn't want us to treat him like the chef treated the bird. Some people treat God like he is not important at all. They ignore his word, refuse to respect him or his law. God deserves honor. He is valuable. We need to honor God with our actions. The Bible is full of stories that help us learn to live successful Christian lives.

Crazy Moose story: Cocoa the crazy moose pops out in the puppet stage. He tells the leader that he knows all about those stories. He has a great one to tell. He says he will be right back and comes up wearing fake wings. He says he is going to tell a story found in 1 Samuel about a man who could fly. The leader corrects him and tells him that it isn't about a man who could fly, it's about a man named Eli. The Moose seems surprised, but takes it in stride as he leaves to retrieve a new prop. He comes up with two buns and announces that maybe Eli couldn't fly cause he had two terrible buns that gave him a stomach ache. Again the leader corrects him and tells him that he didn't have two buns he had two sons, two terrible sons. He leaves again and comes back with a pen. The moose tells about how they used to have to bring stuff to the temple to sacrifice for their pens. Again the leader corrects him and tells him that people brought sacrifices to the temple for their sins. They brought lambs and bulls and birds and the like. When they brought the meat to the temple it would be boiled in a large pot. The moose stops her and tells the leader he knows what happened next; he leaves and returns with a cork. He tells her that they would throw the cork into the pot NO NO NO!! They would plunge a fork into the meat and whatever came out was given to the priest; The moose stops her and comes up with a baseball bat; yeah, given to the priest to beat! No No No.. it was given to the priest to eat. He finally tells the leader that she must know this story better than he does and he leaves the leader to tell it. The leader finishes telling about how Eli's sons were very evil. They didn't honor God and they didn't honor God's law. They insisted that the people who brought sacrifices give them some of the meat before it was cooked because they were selfish and wanted the best part of the meat for themselves. This angered God and eventually he punished them for their dishonor. God told Eli that because his sons dishonored him he was going to kill them.

Cool Clyde's death defying double dare:

1 Samuel 2:30 I will honor those who honor me, but I will dishonor those who ignore me.

Cool Clyde comes out to teach the memory verse. After teaching the verse he challenges the kids to his death defying double dare. This dare involves eating something really gross that he has cooked up. One child from each team comes up and takes the item out of Clyde's lunch bag, put it in their mouth and eat it and then recite the verse.
This week Cool Clyde tells the kids that since we are learning about being generous he is going to share his treat that is in the bag. He explains the rules and then dares the kids to come up and play.

Cool Clyde tells the kids he has brought the best in his lunch today, but the kids won't believe him because usually he has horrible stuff in his lunch, but this week cool Clyde has candy bars in his lunch box. However he keeps this a secret. Cool Clyde explains that we must honor God by giving him our best in everything we have and in everything we do.


Game
Pooper Scooper Game: fill a litter pan with kitty litter and then add unwrapped tootsie rolls. The object of the game is to scoop out the most tootsie rolls in 60 seconds.


After you play the game discuss:
1. Is there any one who really enjoys pooper scooping for real? Why not?
2. Poop is nasty. Nobody wants to be around poop. It is not valuable.
3. What does honor mean?
4. Do you think that sometimes people treat God as if he is not valuable?
5. How can we honor God?
6. How can we dishonor God?

Closing object lesson:
The Swedish fish comes up and starts throwing things out of the puppet stage. At first he throws out bananas, grapes and things of little value, but then all of a sudden he comes up with a very expensive item like a vase or something. The leader stops him before he can throw it and explains that when something is valuable it must be treated with more care and concern. You wouldn't throw a million dollar vas around carelessly.
Likewise, we shouldn't be careless about God and his law. We need to treat them with the honor they deserve.

Take the grapes and pick one off and lay it on the table. Ask questions such as does it honor God when we ignore God during worship and talk to our friends instead? No? Whack the grape with a small plastic bat. Repeat the process several times.

Tie the above object lesson into your closing as you challenge kids to honor God in all they do and with all they have.