1. Leaders Guide Younger Children Ages 4-7 BIG PICTURE:Serving God wholeheartedly BIG IDEA:Making wise choices BIG WORD:”Lord, you alone are my hope. I've trusted you, LORD, from childhood.” Psalm 71:5 Document Purpose: Use this Connect Group outline to prepare an impacting small group time for you and your children. The Big Questions 1.Which son of David’s became king after David died? 2.Who came to Solomon in a dream? 3.What did Solomon ask the Lord to give him? 4.Did Solomon ask God for the things they thought the king needed? 5.What is wisdom? Activity Sheets Children complete the Activity sheets in this time The Big Activity: Make a crown Make a crown for the kids to make, decorate and wear The Big Game: Newspaper Shuffle Mark out the play area and have all the children line up at the starting line. This game works best when played on a carpeted floor. Give each child two sheets of paper and allow them to take their shoes off and place a piece of paper under each foot. When you say “ready, set, Go!” the children race to the finish line by shuffling along on their paper. The first to the finish line is the winner.

2. Leaders Guide Older Children Ages 7-11 BIG PICTURE:Serving God wholeheartedly BIG IDEA:Making wise choices BIG WORD:”Lord, you alone are my hope. I've trusted you, LORD, from childhood.” Psalm 71:5 Document Purpose: Use this Connect Group outline to prepare an impacting small group time for you and your children. The Big Questions 1.Solomon asked for wisdom. What do you think made Solomon ask for wisdom? 2. If you could ask for anything what would it be? 3.Which should we pray for: what God wants or what we want? 4.Do you think God visits us in dreams today? Activity Sheets Children complete the Activity sheets in this time The Big Activity: Swords Solomon passed his wisdom along to us in the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Use your Bible to look through some of the Proverbs and then get them to write their own proverbs or: Pick several verses from these books and have the students race to find the verse first (quickest child wins). Have them read the verses. Pick verses that would be most applicable. Eccl. 12:13 / Prov. 1:8 / Prov. 22:1 / Eccl. 1:4 / Prov.21:2 / Prov. 15:16 The Big Game: Copy Ask the children to sit in a circle. one child leaves the circle while the group decides which person should be ‘IT’. The person who is ‘IT’ does an action whilst everyone copies. The person sent outside comes back into the room and stands in the middle. They need to try to guess who it is who keeps changing the actions that every- one is copying.

3. Big Message Outline BIG PICTURE:Serving God wholeheartedly BIG IDEA:Making wise choices BIG WORD: ”Lord, you alone are my hope. I've trusted you, LORD, from childhood.” Psalm 71:5 INTRO: “If the Lord came to you in a dream and told you that you could have anything that you want, what would you ask for?” (Let the children answer) “Today we are going to learn about a man that could have asked for anything he wanted. He was the king of a country. What do you think he asked for? Let’s listen to the story and find out who he was and what he asked for.” BIG MESSAGE:1 Kings 3:3-28 David was very old. He had been king of Israel for forty years. He had been a good king who tried to serve God. Even when he made mistakes, David was always sorry and tried to do better. The Lord knew that David had a good heart. David was about to die. He told his son Solomon to be the new king. “Always follow the Lord, Solomon. Obey His commands,” David told his son. And then David died. Solomon became the new king. He wanted to be a good king and he wanted to follow God. Solomon wanted to be a good king like his father. He worshiped God and prayed to him. One night Solomon had a special dream. It was like a dream but it was also different from a normal dream. This dream was real. The Lord came to Solomon in the dream and said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.” What do you think Solomon asked for? He was already very rich because his father had left him with all of his riches. Do you think he asked to be famous? What do you think he asked for? Solomon did not ask for any of those things. Solomon did not ask for anything for himself. Solomon asked for something that would make him be a good king. “Oh, Lord, I want to be a good king. I want to serve the people and help them. Please give me a wise heart so that I can always tell the difference between right and wrong. Help me to be a wise king for the people,” prayed Solomon. The Lord was very pleased with Solomon. “Solomon, I will give you even more than you asked for. I will give you a wise heart. You will be wiser than any man that has ever lived. You have not asked for riches and fame but I will give them to you anyway. If you follow me you will also have a very long life.” Things happened just as the Lord said. Solomon became known everywhere as a very wise ruler. He was also very rich and famous. People came from everywhere to talk to Wise King Solomon. They would tell Solomon their problems and he would give them wise advice to help them.

4. Big Message Outline Once, there were two women who were having a fight. They lived in the same house with each other. Each of the women had given birth to a baby. Each of the babies would sleep in the same bed with their own mother. One of the mothers said, “One night this other woman rolled over on top of her baby and it died. She quietly snuck into my room and put her dead baby beside me in my bed. She took my baby and put it in bed with her. When I woke up I found the baby dead beside me. At first I thought my baby had died. Then I looked closely and I knew that it was not my baby. She has my baby and I want it back!” “No!” argued the other woman, “It’s my baby!” “No! It’s my baby.” Everyone looked at Solomon. How could he ever know which woman the baby belonged to? But remember, God gave Solomon special wisdom. Solomon ordered one of his servants to bring him a sword. “I order that the baby be cut in half with this sword.” One of the women said, “Okay, that’s fair. The baby should be cut in half. That way neither of us will have more than the other.” The other woman looked very sad. “No, do not cut the baby in half. I would rather the other woman have my baby. I do not want my baby to die.” Then Solomon knew who the real mother was. He told his servant to give the baby to the woman who did not want the baby cut in half. He knew that a real mother would never want her baby cut in half. Everyone saw that Solomon really was wise. Everyone knew that God had given him special wisdom. Solomon, even though he was King of Israel, was not too proud to realise that he needed God’s help. He prayed for wisdom and God answered his prayers and gave him the special wisdom he needed to rule his people. We need to prayer and read the Bible so that we can make wise choices. Object Lesson: Magic Ball Well, you just heard of King Solomon’s crazy way of finding the real mother in today’s story. I don’t know if I would have been able to come up with such a creative way to solve such a big problem! So how does someone become as wise as Solomon? Because I’m sure all of you have been through situations where you would love to have had God’s wisdom in deciding what to do! Maybe you haven’t had to find the real mum of a baby like that story, but how many of you had to decide to make the right decision when your friends were telling you to do something wrong? We are faced with things all the time that call for wisdom to help us make the right decision! Have you ever seen one of these before? This is called a magic 8 ball. Now, you can get these on amazon for a little over £5. Here is what you do: you ask it a question, then shake it up, and Presto! You get the answer to the question you are looking for! Pretty cool, huh? So if you want to know if you should go to church, just ask it.... and see? You get your answer. If you want to know if you should do your homework, just shake it up.... and there you go. Your answer.

5. Now, does this seem like a good way to get answers to the tough questions you have in life? No! Do you think King Solomon used one of these magic 8 balls to solve big problems like what happened with those two ladies? No way! He had a different type of wisdom a wisdom from God. Big Message Outline pg. 3 OBJECT LESSON: Who is the smartest person you know? Someone in your family? In school? On TV? In this church? Who is the WISEST person you know? I looked it up on the internet and Google says Steven Hawkins. How about in the Bible? King Solomon asked God for wisdom, and was supposed to be the wisest ruler. Then there were the three Wise Men who followed the star to Bethlehem to see baby Jesus. What’s the difference between being smart or knowledgeable and being wise? Smart—knowledgeable, knows a lot of facts and information Wise—makes good decisions or choices Do you eat your vegetables every day? Do you always ask permission to use the computer? Do you share with your sister or brother? Do you spend all of your money or give some of it to church? Do you always wear a helmet when riding your bike? Myself, I’m pretty knowledgeable about good nutrition and regular exercise, but sometimes I don’t make the wisest decisions. I’d rather have two pieces of cake—because I LOVE cake— than walk every day for exercise. I KNOW what I should do, but sometimes I don’t make the best decision. Who knows what’s right for us? Parents? Teachers? God? Sometimes we know a lot, but don’t make good choices. We know what’s best, but we just don’t do it. Then there are some people who haven’t gone to a lot of school and may not think themselves very smart, but they are pretty wise and make good choices. Some of us today have some tricky decisions to make – what school am I going to go to? – Have I made the right choice? Should I take that chocolate bar out of the cupboard? Should I play with these kids? God can help us with our choices. If we ask him to. The Bible help us to learn about Jesus and how to make good choices.