Jesus meets...

Our teaching this morning - We read the story of Jesus and Nicodemus in John 3 and talked through the gospel message using John 3:16 and the 4Points. Children were given an opportunity to pray a prayer and choose to follow Jesus.

Continuing the conversation - Each child will have received a 4Points wristband and a tract unpacking the gospel message in an age appropriate way. We have also been learning John 3:16 – the Rizers John 3:16 song is good for this too - the lyrics are pretty much word for word (I’ve put the lyrics at the end of this email) and pretty much sum up the gospel message. All these things can be a good starting point for discussions. A summary of the 4Points is below.

•God loves me - God loves the whole world and every person in it. This means that we don’t need to earn his love – we already have it
•I have sinned - We all do wrong things which means that we can’t be God’s friend or go to heaven. Even if we try really hard to be good we can’t be good enough by ourselves
•Jesus died for me - God wanted to make a way so we could be with him forever so Jesus came to earth. Jesus died on the cross and rose again, taking our punishment so that we can be forgiven and know him.
•I need to decide to live for him - We need to choose what we will do about this – to be sorry for what we have done, believe in Jesus and follow him

We don’t need to go through the whole gospel all the time but maybe drop bits of it into prayers or conversations: mentioning how much God loves us, or wants to know us; dropping bits of the gospel into prayers e.g. ‘Father, we thank you for your Son, Jesus, who paid for our sins’; pray together (and thank God) for forgiveness when appropriate; thanking God that he helps us.