Wordless Book Mobile Craft

After discussing the Armor of God,
I felt led to really go into the doctrine of salvation.

Of course,
these are 3 - 5 year old children,
so you've got to keep it simple.


The first week we worked on the BLACK tag.

I've noticed that fewer and fewer children understand
the concept of "being bad".

Thirty years ago,
when I first started working with the preschool aged children,

I could say,
"Have you ever done something bad?
Told a lie?
Disobeyed your parents?
Were mean to a brother or sister?"

And I would get solemn head nods
and stories of "I was bad because..."

But about 15 years ago,
I began to notice a change - though I had always seen
the one or two "I'm good - I'm never bad"
children's comments.

Suddenly,
only one or two would understand
"being bad"
and most of them adamantly and enthusiastically
confirmed that they were never bad.

As time passed,
it became harder and harder to explain sin.


As I was explaining this concept a few weeks ago,
I could see that there was no connection there in my group.

I prayed for inspiration and wisdom...

And then I told them that sin was like a super stinky pig pen
with tons of rotten stinky moldy vegetables and such.

I asked them if they could clean that stinky sticky mud off of themselves.

NO WAY!

I asked them if their mom's and dad's would let them inside of their houses
all covered with slimy stinky mud?

NO WAY!

Well,
how would you get into your house?

Confused eyes looked back at me,
until one fellow said,
"My mom would wash me off with a water hose and soap,
and clean me all up before I could go inside."

Exactly!

And that is what God wants to do for you.
But the muddy pig pin of Sin is so slippery and gooey,
you can't even stand up!

There eyes were round
taking all of this in.

BUT
God is willing to reach down and wash you
clean.







The next week was RED.

We talked about Jesus dying on the cross,
even though he never fell into the pig pen of Sin.

And the only thing that could get our hearts,
not the one that goes "lub dub",
but the part that makes us who we are ...
the only thing that can get us clean is Jesus' blood.

We talked about the Christmas story,
and the Easter story.

And then we talked about baptism -
and that it was a picture of what God had done
inside of our hearts.

 

WHITE

We repeated the story of the Black and Red

Then we talked about being clean.

So clean that all of the Sin Mud was washed off of our hearts,

like washing clothes
or sheets
or shoes.

Clean and New and Bright

Perfect.

But only because of God's Love,
reaching down to wash us in Jesus' blood.


I asked them,
now that God has washed the Sin away,
can they get into God's house.

They all excitedly yelled, "YES!"

YELLOW

That is for heaven.

We talked about what is IN heaven.

Golden streets,
Jewels
Mansions
God's love

and what would not be in Heaven

Owies
Sadness
Crying
Splinters and Stickers


We talked about Hell a little bit as well.

Finally,
GREEN.

What do we do after God has washed our hearts clean,
but while we are waiting to go to heaven?

We GROW.

We grow by...

reading the Bible
Going to church and Sunday school
singing praise songs and hymns
praying
obeying God
obeying parents
loving our neighbors

Finally,
we tied them all together,
and put a hanger on top.

I almost forgot to take a picture!

But Sunshine and Pinky were happy to help me out.

We did eventually realize that we were putting
most of them together
backwards.

But the kids happily told me this week
that their parents had hung them up

they excitedly mentioned
kitchens
living rooms
bedrooms

I love how you can incorporate the wordless book into so many crafts.
In the past,
we have painted beads,
made bracelets or necklaces
made chains (5 of each color)
made fans
and even fingers on a hand print.