Theme Discussion
Watch today’s Bible story:
If the first person gave bags of money to the church, and the widow only gave 2 little coins, how could it be that Jesus said the widow gave the most?
For the rich person, giving away a lot of money was easy – they had lots to spare. What was in their mind as they were making their donation, do you think? Why were they putting the money in? Perhaps they cared about the work of the church, but maybe they were also just trying to show off and look good to their friends?
The widow was giving all the coins she had – just two. What was in her mind as she was dropping in the coins, do you think? Why might she be giving those coins to the church?
Have you ever heard someone say they’ve “given it everything they’ve got”? It means they tried very hard and put all their efforts into succeeding in a task. The person usually feels pretty good, because they know they’ve done their best, even if it didn’t work out perfectly.
The widow gave everything she had to God. She was being both generous and also trusting that God would provide for her.
How can we give ‘everything we’ve got’ to God? What is it that God wants and needs from us?
There are many real heroes in our world who ‘give everything they’ve got’ to help others. Today we are honouring the men and women of the armed forces who gave, and continue to give, so much in wartime, peace-keeping missions, and disaster-response. How will you recognize and remember them this year?
Response Activity Ideas
Colour by Number
Click to print PDf
Write to the troops
Canadian Armed Forces personnel appreciate receiving encouraging messages, letters, or cards from Canadians. Visit: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/contact-us/write-troops.html for information on how to post a message online, and where to send hand-written cards and letters.
These can be sent via the Any Canadian Armed Forces Member Program: “All mail that arrives at the Canadian Forces Postal Unit is sorted between the different operations/locations, combined into larger shipments, and then sent to each location on a weekly basis. This work by the postal unit staff continues every week, all year round. Regardless of what day it is on the calendar, any received mail item is always appreciated by the deployed soldier, sailor or aviator when it arrives.”
Silhouette Art
Materials – white paper, paint, pastels, crayons, or pencil crayons; copies of silhouette print-out or black paper, glue
Using paint or other colouring medium, fill the white paper with sunset or sunrise colours as a background. Next cut out the silhouettes of your choice from the templates or cut out your own from black paper. Glue them onto the background. (Alternatively, if you used paint for background, you could paint the silhouettes overtop using black paint.)
Click to print both PDF pages
