A Giant Staircase to Heaven
The focus of this family time is to use five easy steps to teach our children that the people in the story thought they didn’t need God and tried to get to heaven on their own. We learned that the way to heaven is not through something we do, but through a person — Jesus.
Learn the Memory Verse together and say it throughout the week to help your family remember and apply what they have learned.
MEMORY VERSE:
Introduce the verse: “Remember the reason that God sent the flood was because the world was full of evil; it was full of sin. So we are going to practice the verse from last week.
The Lord saw (Make goggles with your hands)
that the human heart (make a heart with hands)
was only evil. (Thumbs down)
Genesis 6:5
STEP 1. GATHER!
Getting Started. Players must sit in a circle They need to be close enough that whispering is possible, but not so close that players can hear each other whisper.
Begin the Game. The first person in the circle whispers a word or phrase into the ear of the person sitting or standing to their right.
The Game Continues. Players whisper the phrase to their neighbors until it reaches the last player in line.
The Conclusion. The last player says the word or phrase out loud so everyone can hear how much it has changed from the first whisper at the beginning of the circle or line.
STEP 2. WORSHIP!
Elementary:
Preschool:
- Sing and have fun while worshiping then pray. Take a moment here to thank God for your family and your time together!!
STEP 3. BIBLE!
A Giant Staircase to Heaven
Read aloud pages 48-55 from The Jesus Storybook Bible or Watch:
STEP 4. DISCUSSION!
Use these questions and points to have a conversation with your children about the Bible story.
- The people decided to build a really tall tower because they wanted to show that they loved God or that they did not need God? Right, They thought they did not need God.
- The people thought they could get to heaven by themselves. Is that true? Can we get to heaven by ourselves? That’s right, We could never reach heaven so heaven had to come down to us. Who came down from Heaven to rescue us? Jesus!
- If the people had built the tower, would they would have ended up destroying and hurting themselves. Yes! Because he loved them, God decided to stop the building.
SAY “The people wanted to build a tower because they thought they could get to heaven by themselves. They thought they did not need God. Because this is not true and because God loved them, he stopped them by giving them all different languages so they could not understand one another. God wanted them to see that the way to heaven is not a tower; it is a person. It is Jesus.”
“Say this with me… “Jesus is the only way to heaven!”
- Say: “You see, God knew, however high they reached, however hard they tried, people could never get back to heaven by themselves. People didn’t need a staircase; they needed a Rescuer. Because the way back to heaven wasn’t a staircase; it was a person.
- Say: “People could never reach up to heaven, so heaven had to come down to them. And one day, it would…Jesus!”
STEP 5. Pray!
- Pray aloud, asking that God would help you and the children to remember that you cannot get to heaven by yourselves. Ask the children to pray, thanking God that Jesus is the way to heaven.