## Join us for the Summer Family Night Challenge
First time to do the Family Night Challenge? Watch our intro video first.
This Week's Lesson: Jonah
For preschoolers, you may want to read from The Jesus Storybook Bible, "God's Messenger" (p.160-169.) For older kids, read Jonah 1-3 together as a family.
Watch Daniel Smith's message from Sunday, August 2.
The Knights of Narnia are running away to Tarshish??!!
Family Night Discussion Questions:
- What did God want Jonah to do?
- Why do you think Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh?
- What happened when Jonah got on the boat?
- How do you think Jonah felt when he was in the belly of the fish?
- What did Jonah pray to God?
- Just like Jonah, how can our sin make us uncaring towards others?
- How does you serving others help bless other people?
- How does you serving others help bless you?
- How is Jesus the true and better Jonah?
Family Night Ideas for Fun:
- Make a list of friends, family members and neighbors. Write their names on notecards, one per card. Put them in a mason jar on the table. Each night before you eat dinner, draw a name out of the jar and pray for that person or family.
- In honor of Jonah, play “Go Fish”.
- Grab some old bread and go to the pond to feed the turtles.
- Make Jonah in a bottle. Use an empty water bottle to decorate it like a fish. You can cut out fins and flippers from construction paper to tape or glue on the sides of the bottle. Draw on eyes or glue wiggly eyes on if you have them. Take a clothes pin and draw two eyes and a mouth to be Jonah. Put Jonah inside the bottle, then close him up with the bottle’s lid. Practice retelling the story of Jonah with the fish and “Jonah”.
- Make a “whale tent”. Use a large blue blanket, sheet or piece of material to be the whale. Drape it over a chair or table with one end open. This end will be the mouth your child uses to crawl inside. The other end should be closed. Once the child crawls inside the dark tunnel, talk about what it might have been like for Jonah to be stuck inside the whale. You might even open a can of tuna or sardines and take it inside your tent to experience what it might have smelled like in there.
- OR choose your own fun activity.
Throughout the summer we have a unique opportunity to learn together as families. Our entire church, from preschool to elementary to adults, will be focusing on the same Bible passage each week. To make the most of this time, we are issuing the Summer Family Night Challenge! Here is what you need to do:
- Watch the Sunday message together as a family either online or in person. Find the Plano messages here.
- Set aside a night of the week to be your Family Night for the next six weeks.
- Visit the Plano Kids Kit page each week for videos, discussion questions and fun activity ideas that you can use to plan your Family Night.
Your two goals for your Family Night should be to have fun and have some intentional conversation around God's Word.