Our mission in Adventurers in to introduce young kids to Jesus. We want them to find an amazing friendship with Him. With the combined focus on friendships and on Jesus, this is a great award to start your year off. And it’s an ideal award for anytime of the year! This award is a requirement for Sunbeams Investiture Achievement – Or.. it’s not. It depends on which requirement list you use. Whether your club requires it or not, it is a wonderful addition to your Sunbeam year. This award took parts of multiple meetings for my Sunbeams class.
Note: The requirements slightly differ between the Leader’s Guide/Adventurer Strong App and AdventSource (My three favorite places to find award requirements.) The Leader’s Guide numbering will be used in this post with AdventSource numbering in parentheses. The difference between the two versions is fairly small – AdventSource does not include the question about being kind to animals.
Worship: Jesus Chooses His Disciples
Fulfills Requirement # 7b (6b)
As both Eager Beavers and Sunbeams were learning about friendship at the same meeting, we read about Jesus picking out His disciples and inviting them to follow Him during our club worship. Most Bible story books will include a story about Jesus choosing His disciples. I chose to read “Jesus Chooses His Disciples” from The Beginner’s Bible from Zonderkidz (page 308) because it’s short, to the point, and I thought it’d hold the attention of all of the kids the best of all of my options. To engage the kids (and to help fulfill requirements) I had the kids repeat the names of the disciples whenever I read them.
Bible Story & Discussion: Heaven Breaks Through
Fulfills Requirement # 6 (5)
Requiring the kids to attend a baptism isn’t something that is feasible in my club. Some of our members attend other churches, and baptisms aren’t really an on-demand kinda thing. So, instead, we read the story of Jesus’ baptism (Jesus Storybook Bible page 200) and discussed what baptism is, what is means to be baptized, and why Jesus chose to be baptized.
Friendship Catch
Fulfills Requirements # 1, 5, 7a, 9 (1, 6a, 8)
What do you do when you have discussion questions, but your kids need to be a bit more active? Play catch! You will want a lightweight catchable object. I keep a beach ball at the church just for these kinds of activities. I ask the question and then toss the ball to one of the kids (or their parents!). Kids are only to be talking when they have the ball. Once they answer the question they toss it to someone else. Don’t know the answer? No big deal, just toss the ball to someone else. I had multiple kids answer each question as these are not really single answer types of questions.
- What does it mean to be a friend of Jesus? What does that look like?
- How can I show Jesus’ love?
- Why should you be kind to animals? What does that look like?
- How is Jesus good to you?
Craft: Cards for Homebound Seniors
Fulfills Requirement # 4 (4)
Although we can’t visit an older person during our meeting, we can make cards to send to them through our church! We made autumn cards for our home-bound church members. You can find autumn cards here, winter cards here, and spring cards here.
Club Worship
Fulfills Requirement # 3 (3)
We did the skit One Out of Ten from The Humongous Book of Bible Skits for Children’s Ministry by Group Publishing for worship. We kept it super simple. I read the part of the narrator and the sunbeams and the parents each acted a part. Kids who were comfortable reading a part volunteered for those parts. And kids who didn’t want to read took the non-speaking parts. We read through the script together during the previous meeting. The kids were encouraged to read through it once or twice at home before our meeting.
This is the first time I’ve used this book, and so far, I am super impressed. The skits were simple and fun. They can involve a wide range of group sizes. I recruited our parents to each take a part to help fill in our numbers.
My sunbeams are a bit older and are all strong readers; however, this is somewhat unusual. (It’s due to our small-club class rotation.) In a “normal” Sunbeam class filled with second graders (and likely first graders too!), you might want to give the larger roles to either parents or older kids. You could also make sure to give your sunbeams plenty of time to memorize their lines. Please give them the opportunity to read through it ahead of time. We never want to embarrass our emerging readers.
Bonus: This story fulfilled one of the Eager Beavers’ requirements for Thankful Heart. I love it when classes align!
Invite a Friend
Requirement # 2 (2)
“Invite a friend to a meeting at your church.”
<Sigh> I never ever want a kid to feel like they are being used by a “friend.” I love when kids love Adventurers so much that they invite their friends so their friends can join in the fun. But I never ever want a new child to arrive at any church event just to learn that they are there not as a friend but as a fulfillment of a requirement or as a way to for their “friend” to earn a prize. It’s an awful feeling for the invitee. And it’s also completely impractical for our kids who only know other Adventist kids.
This requirement starts showing it’s ugly head in Adventurers and goes all the way up through Pathfinders. Encourage your Sunbeams to invite their friends to Adventurers, to Sabbath School, to that really cool program your church is putting on. But invite those friends for their sake, not to fulfill a requirement! (Yep, this is a requirement I skip each and every time it shows up.) <End Rant>
Find an Apostle
Fulfills Requirement # 7b (6b)
What is an apostle? Who were the apostles? And how many apostles were there?
Before the meeting, I hid two sets of apostle cards from Bible Fun for Kids in the classroom. To introduce this activity, we discussed what an apostle is, and I asked the question “How many apostles were there?” And, I warned everyone that the question was a bit of a trick question.. The sunbeams searched the room for the apostles until they each found seven cards. (Two sets of fourteen cards divided by the four kids who were there that week – pick the number of sets and card limit that makes sense for your club.)
After the sunbeams found all of the cards, we came back to the table to match them and share some facts about each apostle. The kids took turns sharing an apostle and reading one fact from the card. The person with the match would match the cards and then share one of their apostle cards. *Reminder: My sunbeams are older and strong readers. For newer readers, you could read the interesting facts to them as they match the cards.
To Create the Cards
To create apostle cards with facts, I used the Disciples of Jesus posters and printed nine to a sheet of card stock.
Prayers
Fulfills Requirement # 8 (7)
“Be able to say a prayer at mealtime and one at bedtime.”
Honestly? This is more of a home requirement. I encourage kids to pray at Adventurers, but I never require it. Some kids love to pray aloud in front of a group, and some kids are terrified. All are loved by Jesus, and all are welcome in Adventurers. If your Sunbeams all love being the center of attention during prayer, by all means, lean into it during your meetings, but if you have shy kids, encourage their parents to work on public prayers at home, and consider the requirement fulfilled.
Alright, you’ve read my ideas, and I bet you have ideas for this award too. Please tell me in the comments about some of your plans for teaching Friend of Jesus. Or, tell me how your award went in your club. I’d love to hear all about it!