Thanksgiving Bible Celebrations
Posted by: Buffalo Dream Center
Topic: Holidays
Verse:
Props:
Bag of objects we should be thankful for
Instructions:
(Choose funny, everyday objects – toilet paper, a fork etc)
Discussion:
Introduction: Why do we celebrate thanksgiving?
a. Why is it important to celebrate thanksgiving?
b. Who knows the history behind it?
c. What did you do that was special on thanksgiving?
It is important we are thankful all the time.
d. Hold up bag.
e. Inside this bag I put some things that I am thankful for.
f. Some of them are things we don’t always think about – but what would life be like without them.
g. Pick volunteers to come up and pull them out of the bag.
h. Talk about what life would be like without the object picked out.
Did you know Thanksgiving was in the Bible?
i. In the Old Testament, God told His people to throw a celebration after the harvesting.
j. The purpose of the harvest was to celebrate how thankful they were.
k. Now in Israel they had 2 harvests, so every year they celebrated 2 thanksgivings.
In the spring they celebrated the wheat harvest – Feast of the Weeks
l. They planted wheat in the fall and it grew all winter. (It is much warmer in Israel than here)
m. In the spring they would cut the wheat with big sickles, and then they would tie the wheat and take it to the barns.
n. It was a lot of work getting the corn part of the wheat.
o. They had to use cows and big heavy sledges with iron attached to separate the heads from the stalks.
p. Then they had to separate the wheat from the chaff to get this (hold up popcorn seeds)
q. Then they crushed these to make bread.
r. After all the grain was completed, they would make their best bread, go to the temple and celebrate this harvest.
s. They would give thanks to God, and share their bread with everybody.
In the fall they celebrated the grape harvest- Feast of the Tabernacles
t. This sounded like the most fun harvest.
u. After all the grapes were picked, they were placed in a large concrete container called a wine press.
v. Everyone would get in the wine press and stomp on the grapes.
w. The juice would run into another container.
x. They sang songs, and danced while stomping on the grapes.
y. People traveled far for this celebration so they would build little tents out of sticks and branches to sleep in.
z. The cities were over-full with people, friends, family, and people celebrating.
aa. The most important part of this feast was bringing offerings to the temple and thanking God for all he had done.
Conclusion:
1.Hand out scrap paper and pencils to everybody.
2.Have everybody write down 3 things they are thankful for.
3.Collect them and read them.
4.Pray
|
