The Elijah Lesson Plan

The Hangman phrase this week will be Exodus 20:3 "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." I'll remind the children (if they don't remember on their own) that this is the first of the Ten Commandments, and that it basically means that we should worship God and no one else. I will then ask the children why we should worship God instead of a rock or a statue. Answers may include that God loves us and has the power to answer our prayers, whereas other things don't. God is the one true God.

But some people disagree. In Elijah's time, there were people who believed in a false god named Baal. In fact, Baal had a lot of followers, including 450 prophets, while Elijah was the only prophet of the Lord. So Elijah presented a plan to convince everyone that the Lord was the one true God and that Baal wasn't. At this point, it would make sense to turn to the scriptures. 1 Kings 18: 21-24 would be a good place to start. Those verses give a pretty clear image of what was going on and what the challenge was. In Kings 18: 25-26, the prophets of Baal perform their part of the test, but they get no response. Elijah mocks them a bit in verse 27. In verses 28 and 29, they try even harder to get Baal's attention, but they still fail.

In the next several verses, it's Elijah's turn. He rebuilds the altar in verses 30-33. In verses 32-35, Elijah makes his task even harder for himself, but he prays in verses 36 and 37, and in verse 38, God answers so spectacularly that everyone accepts Elijah's God as the one true God in verse 39.

I won't make a point of bringing up 1 Kings 18:40, but if it comes up, I'll tell the class that, at that time, following the Lord meant obeying the Law of Moses, and in at least two places (Exodus 22:20 and Deuteronomy 18:20), the Law of Moses states that anyone who offers sacrifices to a false god or prophesies in the name of one shall die.

After those scriptures, I'll tell the kids that we should worship God and not anyone or anything else. We'll probably discuss what "worship" means, how we worship God, and what things some people are tempted to worship instead, like money.

I'll plan to leave some time after the lesson to play some more hangman, largely because next week is Fast Sunday, and I think it would be nice to let the kids spend a bit more time playing a game, since they won't have their usual treat. Plus, hangman is flexible. If we need to quickly wrap up a game of hangman and go to closing exercises, we can do that instead of rushing through or skimming over the last few points of the lesson. It makes sense to plan for some flexible time after a lesson, time that can be sacrificed if the lesson goes longer than expected, and time that can be stretched out if the lesson runs shorter than expected. Potential additional hangman phrases include "worship," "sacrifice," and the phrase the people said when the Lord proved Elijah right, "The Lord, he is the God."

Overall, I'm feeling pretty confident. It's a fun and exciting story, and as long as I don't present it badly, it should be able to hold my class's attention. There's plenty of scripture in it to go around, which is good, since a lot of my kids enjoy reading, and there's some practical application to it as well. I think it'll be a good lesson.