Scripture: Matthew 18-21-35

Faith + Open: Welcome the children to children’s time. Begin by asking them how school is going and about their friends.

 Faith + Share: (If you have an object that perhaps was damaged by a friend or sibling bring it in to show the children. You can use it to talk about how it reminds you that your relationship with your friend/sibling is more important than the object.) 

Say: “you know one time my friend/sibling broke something that was mine. I really liked this thing and I was so mad when I found out that they broke it! I didn’t want to talk to that person for a really long time. They said that they were sorry, but I didn’t believe them. I even told them back “I forgive you” but I didn’t really mean it. I wanted them to be sad like I was and I even thought about breaking something of theirs! Has that ever happened to you where you were that mad at someone who broke or took something that was yours? Well, even though I felt that way for a while, I began to be sad that I was having fun with my friend anymore. They knew that I was still mad so they did not play with me at school or after school. I wanted to be friends again so I had to really mean the words “I forgive you” and act like a friend again. This is so hard isn’t it?? But have you ever accidently broken a toy of a friend or sibling? Yeah, I have too, you feel really bad don’t you and the only thing you can say is “I’m sorry.” We feel really good when that friend forgives us and still wants to play with us though, right! Right!

God loves us very much and in our Bible story today Jesus says that we are to forgive people over and over to be a good friend and show God’s love to them. God forgives us over and over and over and over….and so we should love our friends and everyone we meet that much too!” (You may need or want to say at this point that if someone is hurting you that you, forgiving them doesn’t mean you have to hang out with them and let them hurt you again.)

When we forgive, we are praying that we want everyone to be the kind of friend who helps each other and not hurt each other. This is very hard and we have to ask God to help us every day! Jesus taught his disciples the Lord’s prayer which talks about forgiveness for this reason! We will mess up, which is why we ask God and our friends to forgive us! God does not want us to be hurt or to hurt anyone so we have to talk to each other to get along! This is why learning the Lord’s Prayer can help us with this.

Faith + Prayer:  Lead the children in a short prayer followed by the Lord’s Prayer:

Dear forgiving God, we thank you that you love and forgive us when we mess up. Please help us to be kind to one another too! Thank you for sending Jesus to show us how to love people. Jesus taught us to pray…Lord’s Prayer