252 Groups
January 2016, Week 1
Small Group, 2-3
Power Source
Bible Story: Power Source (City with broken walls) • Proverbs 25:28 (supporting: 2 Peter 1:3a)
Bottom Line: God can give you the POWER to control yourself.
Memory Verse: “A person without self-control is like a city whose walls are broken through.”
Proverbs 25:28, NIrV
Life App: Self-control—choosing to do what you should do, not what you want to do.
Basic Truth: I need to make the wise choice.
Social: Providing Time for Fun Interaction (Small Groups, 15 minutes)
1. Early Arriver Idea
What You Need: No supplies needed.
What You Do:
 Talk to the kids about things that make them feel safe. What would make them feel safe from
the dark? What would make them feel safe from a bug? What would make them feel safe from a
big dog? What would make them feel safe if there was a whole army of people coming?
2. What’s More Powerful?
What You Need: “More Powerful Cards” Activity Page
What You Do:
 Set out the “More Powerful Cards.”
 Choose two of the cards at random and ask the kids which one they think is more powerful.
There are some that will be obvious, but others that they might disagree on.
 Have them indicate which one they think is more powerful in some physical way; you could have
them stand for one and sit for the other, or clap for one and stomp for the other. Choose any
motions you like.
 Put down the one that was less powerful on one side and keep the one chosen as more
powerful. Then choose one more card to put up against the one you kept.
 Continue doing this, testing each card against all the others, until you have sorted all the cards
into a continuum from least powerful to most powerful.
What You Say:
“Imagine if you were powerful enough to control some of these powerful things. That would take a lot of
power, wouldn’t it? [Transition] Let’s go into Large Group and see where WE might be able to find
some power for ourselves!”
Lead your group to the Large Group area.
©2015 The reThink Group, Inc. All rights reserved. • www.ThinkOrange.com
If you change the content of this document, please add to the copyright: Adapted by (your name/organization name/date).
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252 Groups
January 2016, Week 1
Small Group, 2-3
Groups: Creating a Safe Place to Connect (Small Groups, 25 minutes)
* 1. Bold Boulder Blockers (application activity / review the Bible story)
What You Need: “Builder Blockers Diagram” Activity Page, masking tape, a large number of cardboard
blocks or shoe boxes, a large number of paper wads or playpen balls.
What You Do:
 Divide your kids into two groups that will compete against each other, or have your group
compete against another Small Group.
 Set up one block on its end as a target. Mark a ring of tape around the target block. The rest of
the boxes should be in a pile a few feet from the target box. One team will attack the target
block from outside this ring using the balls or paper wads.
 The attacking team will sit on the floor with their feet at the edge of the ring. They must use their
feet to roll the balls (boulders) to hit the target block as many times as possible with the balls.
The rules are:
o They cannot throw the balls or bounce them.
o They must roll them along the ground with their feet from outside the ring.
o They can attack the target from any angle or from all sides at once.
o They can go inside the ring to retrieve more balls, but they cannot roll them until they
return to their spots outside the ring.
 The other group will try to defend the target block by passing blocks to their team’s builder, who
will sit at the edge of the ring, but they will have to pass the blocks with their feet while sitting
down.
 Have the passing team sit on the floor, side by side in a line, facing the same way. The line will
be spread out between the edge of the ring and the stack of blocks they will use to build.
 The person on the end closest to the stack will take one block at a time, place it on his or her
feet, and pass it to the next person’s feet. When a block gets to the builder, he or she can pick it
up with his or her hands and go put it down to block the balls from the other team. Then the
builder returns to his or her spot.
 Don’t let the attacking team start rolling balls until the first block reaches the feet of the builder.
But then the attackers can roll balls from any angle they want to. They can completely surround
the target block and roll from all angles at once.
 Play the game twice to allow each team to be on both the defensive and the offensive.
 Keep score of how many hits the attacking teams got and congratulate the winners.
What You Say:
“It was a little harder to control those blocks and those balls when you had to use only your feet, wasn’t
it? But the longer you worked at it, the more you were able to be successful. What about putting the
blocks down around the tower? How did that affect how many times the target block got hit? You are
right; the more blocks surrounded the tower, the less it got hit. Just like the city in our Bible story today,
the target block started out with no protection. Any attack from any direction could easily hit it. But the
more blocks you built up around the wall, the harder it was to hit. Our Bible story says that the wall is
like having self-control. Self-control protects us! [Make It Personal] (Give an example from your life
of how having self-control protected you from a bad consequence or a bad decision.) We have
been talking a lot about power today, because self-control is powerful protection for our lives, but it
takes some serious power to have self-control! If you don’t feel like you can control yourself, you can
ask God for help. [Bottom Line] God can give you the POWER to control yourself.”
©2015 The reThink Group, Inc. All rights reserved. • www.ThinkOrange.com
If you change the content of this document, please add to the copyright: Adapted by (your name/organization name/date).
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252 Groups
January 2016, Week 1
Small Group, 2-3
2. Robot Control Cards (application activity)
What You Need: “Robot Control Cards” Activity Page
What You Do:
 Choose one kid to be the “robot” and one kid to be the “controller.” The other kids will be judges.
 You will draw a card and hold it so that the judges and the controller can see it, but not the
robot.
 The controller will then go to the robot and move the robot’s hands, arms, legs, feet, and head
into the position shown on the card.
 The judges will compare the position of the robot with the card and then give a thumbs up or
thumbs down. They must be silent so the robot can’t tell what is wrong by hearing them talk.
 Then the controller has a chance to check the card again and try to fix any error.
 If the controller can’t figure out what the error is, he or she can ask the “thumbs down” kids to
come up and point to the body part on the card that is incorrect. (Use your own judgment, if
thumbs down kids are being unreasonably picky.)
 Once everyone has thumbs up, rotate positions and play until all kids who wish to have had an
opportunity to be the robot or the controller.
What You Say:
“If you were the robot, did you know what was the right thing to do or not? No. You didn’t. You had to
rely on the controller for everything. Not only could you not control yourself, you didn’t even know what
to do if you could control yourself! Sometimes in our lives, we do things that aren’t smart because we
let others control us by going along with whatever they say. Sometimes we don’t even consider whether
what we are doing is right according to how God wants us to treat others or make wise choices. We just
do whatever we want to do. Living an out-of-control life might sound easy, but it’s dangerous, and
sooner or later we will get hurt. I’m so glad in our lives we don’t have to rely on anyone else but God to
be able to have self-control. [Bottom Line] God can give you the POWER to control yourself. And
we should use that power to do what we should do, and not just whatever we want to do.”
3. Order Up! (memory verse activity)
What You Need: “Memory Verse Cards” Activity Page; 2 sets for each Small Group (Note: These
cards will be used again in weeks 2 & 3)
What You Do:
 Help your group look up the verse in their Bibles, and then read it out loud together a few times.
Finding verses with 2nd and 3rd graders: Guide them to open their Bibles to the front and find the table of contents.
(Hold up a Bible opened to the table of contents to show the kids what the page looks like.) When the kids find the
table of contents, lead them to find Proverbs in the list under “Old Testament.” When the kids find Proverbs, lead
them to look at the page number beside the word. Explain that the number tells them on what page they can find
Proverbs. Help the kids find the page. When they find Proverbs, explain that the big numbers on the page are the
chapter numbers. Help them find chapter 25. Explain that the small numbers are verse numbers. Help them find
verse 28 in chapter 25.
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
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Divide your kids into two teams.
Mix up the cards for each team and place them a short distance away.
Have one team member at a time run to the pile, search for the first word of the verse, and then
run it back.
©2015 The reThink Group, Inc. All rights reserved. • www.ThinkOrange.com
If you change the content of this document, please add to the copyright: Adapted by (your name/organization name/date).
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252 Groups


January 2016, Week 1
Small Group, 2-3
As the cards are brought back, the kids who aren’t running should build a wall around
themselves with the cards that have been retrieved. (They can simply put the cards in a circle
on the floor around themselves, keeping the cards in order.)
Run the race until the kids have the cards all in the correct order.
What You Say:
“You did a great job putting the words from our verse in the correct order. We will be memorizing this
verse all month! Memorizing Scripture can be like putting a wall of protection around yourself. If you find
yourself in a situation where you don’t know what to do, but you have a few verses memorized, you can
bring those verses to mind and be encouraged to do what you should do. I hope this verse will help you
remember that [Bottom Line] God can give you the POWER to control yourself.”
Pray and Dismiss
What You Need: No supplies needed
What You Do:
 Sit or stand in a circle with the kids and ask everyone to hold hands.
 Before praying, explain that one of the ways we can have the power to control ourselves is to
surround ourselves with protection. The city in our memory verse and in our Bible story today
needed walls for protection. We can’t surround ourselves with walls, but we can surround
ourselves with a circle of friends who follow God.
 Pray that your group would be a circle of friends who love God and will help each other tap into
God’s power to have self-control!
What You Say:
“Tap into God’s power to have self-control in your life! [Bottom Line] God can give you the POWER
to control yourself.”
Give each child a GodTime card. Have each kid tell their parents the Bottom Line: [Bottom Line] God
can give you the POWER to control yourself. Tell them the verse that kids will be memorizing this
month.
©2015 The reThink Group, Inc. All rights reserved. • www.ThinkOrange.com
If you change the content of this document, please add to the copyright: Adapted by (your name/organization name/date).
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