This week's theme: Avoiding wickedness

Goals: To teach the children that:
1. The Bible is our guide for living
2. God wants each of us to righteous.
3. Righteous means to behave in the right way.

Opening object lesson:

A dog bone and a dog leash and other such dog items come flying out of the puppet stage. The leader picks up the items and wonders aloud why the fish might be throwing out all of this dog stuff.
The fish appears and is agitated. He informs the leader that the dog is going to come flying out next. The leader tries to calm the fish and talks to him about dog problem. The fish tells the leader that his dog, which he loves dearly is behaving terribly. He chews on the furniture even though he has a dog bone. He won't listen when he is told to sit or to stay. He runs away and into the street. He tugs on his leash when he is walked. He won't stay in the bathtub for baths. He is so disobedient that he is making life miserable.
The leader explains that the dog is behaving in a rebellious sort of manner. He needs to go to obedience school where he can learn to behave in a right way. If he learns to obey, life will be better for everyone.
The leader goes on to explain that sometimes children become like the puppy. They cry and fuss about bed time, they don't listen to their parents, they are messy and they disobey the rules. They rob their home of all of the joy when they behave in this wrong way. God wants children to behave in right ways, to be righteous. When children learn to respect their parents and be obedient and to behave right it makes everyone happier. The children are happier, the parents are happier.
Each person has a choice in life. They can choose to live a rebellious life by doing what is wrong or they can choose to live a righteous life by doing what is right.

Chef Skit:

The Swedish chef comes in to the room in his crazy manner, singing and flinging his utensils around. He runs around the room in an agitated sort of way as if he is very upset with someone. He has a cake that is not yet frosted, a can of worms and some frosting. He fumes about the moose (or the pastor). He is visibly disgruntled. He informs the kids that he doesn't like what that someone did and so he is going to put worms in their cake and hide them with frosting! The leader tries to convince the chef that it isn't right to do something terrible like that to someone. God wants us to do what is right. The chef completely ignores the leader and proceeds to put the worms on the cake and cover them with frosting. When he is done the leader tries to take the cake away from the chef, but he runs off before she can catch him.

The leader can talk to the kids about the chef's actions. Take time to get children's feedback on what kinds of things are right and wrong.

Crazy Moose story: Cocoa the crazy moose pops out in the puppet stage. He tells the leader that he knows all about a story in the Bible about someone who was not righteous. He was very wicked and did what was wrong in God's eyes. The leader is excited that the moose has a story, especially because it seems he knows it well and will get it right.
The moose goes down and comes up with some pickled herring. He tells the leader that this story is about King Herring; the king of the herring found in Acts 12. The leader corrects the moose and tells him that it is about King Herod.
He comes back up with a treat. He tells the leader that the king wanted to give treats to some of the people who belonged to the church. The leader corrects him and tells him that he wanted to mistreat some of the people who belonged to the church.
The moose comes up with a gourd and says that that explains why king Herod arrested James and ordered him killed by the gourd. The leader corrects him and tells him that he was ordered killed by the sword not the gourd. The moose is enlightened and says he wondered how anyone could be killed with a gourd.
The moose comes back up with a pail. He explains that it wasn't good enough for king Herod just to kill James. He saw how the Jewish people liked it when he killed James so he decided to arrest Peter and put him in a Pail, probably filled with worms or something. The leader corrects him and tells him that he was put in jail not a pail.
The moose returns with a bill and tells the leader that poor Peter was going to be billed! How terrible. He hates bills. The leader corrects him and tells him that he was going to be killed, not billed.
By this time the moose is frustrated. He tells the leader to finish the story.
The leader reviews what has been said already and then picks up with the story. Peter was thrown in jail, but God sent an angel to help him escape. When King Herod found out that Peter was gone he was very angry and had the guards killed. He was a very wicked man. He was always doing what was wrong. Later he continued in his wicked ways until God became so angry with him that he caused King Herod to be eaten by... Before the leader can get the words out worms come flying over the puppet stage. The leader picks up some of the worms and tells the children that the moose is exactly right this time. Herod was eaten by WORMS!

Cool Clyde's death defying double dare:

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 has gummy worms with ketchup on them.

Ephesians 5:17 Do not be foolish but learn what the Lord wants you to do.

Game: Worm Out
You will need a bowl of pudding with 3 worms in it for each contestant. The object of the game is to eat the worms out of the pudding using only their mouths. It is helpful to cover each contestant with a large garbage bag to protect their clothing. This also serves to contain their hands so that they can't use their hands.

Closing object lesson:
You will need a pad lock and four keys, only one of which will fit the lock. Write the words: Other people, Ability, Circumstances, and Jesus on the keys.
Sometimes we try to blame our lack of righteous living on other things. We say it is other peoples fault that I can't live right because they are mean to me.
Sometimes we blame our ability and say that we just can't do what is right because it is too hard.
Sometimes we blame circumstances and say that if life wasn't so hard then I could live right, but I just can't because life is too hard.
Jesus is the Key to living right. When we ask Jesus to live in our hearts and we allow him to control our hearts then we can live right. He is the key to right living.