Joshua 6

94 Session 13 | Breaking the walls | Joshua 6 | Starting activities

To desire to serve a victorious God

Favourite fi lmsActivity time: 5–15 minutes Aim: to think about being certain of victory1 Ask the children to tell you what

their favourite fi lms are, and to summarise the plots.

2 Say that, in some fi lms, it can seem impossible that the ‘good guys’ will win, but deep down everyone knows that they will in the end. People don’t watch the fi lm to see whether they’ll win – they watch to see how they’ll win!

3 Explain that it was like that for God’s people when they attacked a city called Jericho. They already knew they would win, because God had told them they would!

ActivityActivity time: 5–10 minutes Aim: to discover that God is victorious over everythingYou will need: apolystyrene cups1 Give each child a polystyrene cup.2 Read Revelation 21:3–7; then

challenge the children to write or draw things on the cup that God has victorious power over, which were mentioned in the passage (for example, suffering).

3 Read the verses again and, at the end of verse 7, invite everyone to stand up and put their cup on the fl oor in front of them. On the count of three, ask everyone to trample on their cup and crush it.

4 Explain that, as they will fi nd out today, just as God helped Joshua to conquer Jericho, he also has a crushing victory over the things that spoil the world. One day they will be gone forever.

Praise Activity time: 5 minutes Aim: to praise God for his victorious powerYou will need: copies of the Xstream sheet from page 981 Give each child a copy of the

Xstream sheet from page 98 and invite them to look at the pictures. Challenge them to tell you what power made all these things.

2 Talk together about how great God is. Encourage the children to understand that he has power over everything and is greater than anything else.

3 Challenge them to say what God’s power conquered when Jesus died on the cross. (Sin and death.) Ask if there is any other power that could do that.

4 Use the pictures as a focus to help you praise God together for his victorious power.

Breaking the walls Encourage our children to understand that, although their own lives may not currently contain anything as dramatic as knocking down the walls of a city, the same God is inviting them to know and serve him.

Choose a selection of Starting, Into the Bible and Living the life activities to make your session fun and memorable.

The Bible points to parents as those primarily responsible for a child’s faith development. It is important to see that we are working in partnership with parents and carers.

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Interactive BibleActivity time: 20 minutes Aim: to desire to serve a victorious God

1 DiarySay that you have a diary that could have been written by one of the guards on the walls of a city called Jericho. Explain that the children are going to listen to this diary and make their own pictorial version of today’s story. Give each child a sheet of paper, and ask them to fold it in half to create four pages.

2 Tell the storyRead the script below to the children.Script: It wasn’t much fun – guard duty on the walls of Jericho – especially at night. It was cold and boring. There wasn’t much to look at, apart from the fi res of the Israelite camp below us. (Invite the children to draw, on the fi rst page in their diary, the walled city of Jericho, with the Israelites camped outside.)We could see lots of fi res, spread out over a large area, so we knew it was a big camp. There must have been thousands of Israelites – tens of thousands. We knew that meant trouble, so we made sure we kept our eyes wide open. Our city gates were kept fi rmly shut day and night. Well, nothing happened for a while, but then one morning a massive army came towards the city. We were glad there were strong walls between us and them, I can tell you!But there was something odd about them. They weren’t charging, just marching. And they weren’t banging their spears on their shields, or shouting war cries. In fact, they were completely silent. Tens of thousands of soldiers, armed for battle, but completely silent! Well, almost completely. As they got nearer, we could see some priests and hear the sound of trumpets. (Ask the children to draw a trumpet on the second diary page.)In fact, the quiet made us a bit nervous. Some of the lads fi red a few arrows at them, but I knew they were too far away to do any damage. We wondered what they would do next. As it turns out, they just marched around the city, without shouting or even talking, and then went back to their camp! (On the third diary page, encourage the children to draw the Israelites walking around the city. Suggest that they draw it as a bird’s eye view with small circles to represent the heads of the people and a large circle to show the city walls from above!)

They did the same thing every day for the next fi ve days. Today – the seventh day – they walked around slowly and quietly again… and again… and again! In fact, they’ve walked around six times so far.Hold on, here comes my sergeant. I’d better put my diary away for now. Never mind; I’ll continue when the Israelites come around for the seventh time…Invite the children to tell you why they think the diary was never fi nished. Then ask them to fi nd Joshua 6:5 to fi nd out what to draw on the fi nal diary page.

3 To think aboutChallenge the children to imagine that they are one of the Israelites who marched around the city of Jericho seven times. In small groups, encourage them to talk about what they thought and how they felt, as well as saying what actually happened. Afterwards, ask the children to share their thoughts. Emphasise how the Israelites might have felt when the walls came crashing down, and how glad they must have been that they had help from a victorious God!

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Act out the storyActivity time: 15–20 minutes Aim: to desire to serve a victorious GodYou will need: cardboard, silver foil (optional), a stapler, chairs or cardboard boxes, a shoe box, two bamboo canes, gold paper (optional)

1 PreparationExplain that everyone is going to help make some props to use when they act out the story. Give each child a sheet of paper, which they should roll into a cone to make a trumpet, staple, and then decorate – perhaps to look like a ram’s horn. Make a sacred chest (Ark of the Covenant) from a large shoe box (covered in gold paper, if possible). Attach two bamboo canes to either side of the chest, to make carrying poles. Create a ‘Jericho’, in the centre of your room, leaving enough space to march around it. This could be as simple as a ring of chairs, or something more ambitious, such as a circular wall built with boxes. You may also want to make some swords, shields or helmets from paper or card and silver foil.

2 Bible versesDivide the children into one-third priests and two-thirds soldiers. Read Joshua 6:6–15. As you do so, invite the two groups to act out the story, marching around in the correct order. The soldiers should march in silence, while the priests make trumpet noises. Two priests should lead the procession, carrying the sacred chest on the poles.Encourage everyone to march around the circle of chairs or boxes six times, pausing briefly between each circuit of Jericho; then on the seventh circuit, they must march seven times without stopping. (If you are short of time, you could just do the final seven laps.)Ask everyone to stop. Choose a confident reader to take on the role of Joshua and read aloud Joshua 6:16,20. Then encourage the children to shout and blow their trumpets.If you have made a wall of cardboard boxes, at this point a leader should knock it down. Alternatively, a leader could tip the chairs over (carefully!). Invite the children to ‘capture’ the city by sitting inside the circle of chairs or boxes.

3 ChatAsk the children who won the battle. If they answer, ‘We did’, ask them what they did that made them win. Then ask them whether they think that this is a normal method for capturing a walled city! As it isn’t, ask them why they did it that way.Whatever the children’s initial answers, help them discover that God had told Joshua what to do, and that Joshua was obedient and did what God told him. Joshua wanted to serve a victorious God. Invite the children to suggest ways in which they too can serve God – by reading the Bible, praying, coming to the Xstream group, talking with other Christians and living God’s way, instead of their own way. Find out what they are good at or enjoy doing and help them see that it may be something they can do for God.

4 PrayerSuggest to the children that, if they want to, they can ask God to help them serve him and live his way.

96 Session 13 | Breaking the walls | Joshua 6 | Into the Bible

If you want to do a short series with your group, other sessions that work well with this one are:

Session 10 Power with you, Joshua 1

Session 11 Help for the spies, Joshua 2

Session 12 Across obstacles, Joshua 3

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Blue Compendium

Private prayerActivity time: 5–10 minutes Aim: to help the children respond to our victorious God1 Ask each child to fi nd a space

where they can sit quietly without distraction.

2 Read or ask confi dent readers to read Psalm 44:4,5 and Romans 8:31 to everyone.

3 Invite the children to thank God that he is a victorious God and to think about whether they want to serve him. Emphasise that this is a private prayer between them and God. Encourage them to tell God how they feel.

4 Say that if they want to serve God, they could ask for his help.

Recap the storyActivity time: 5–10 minutes Aim: to realise that Joshua’s victory was part of God’s plan for his peopleYou will need: diagram from page 991 Give each child a copy of the diagram

from page 99. Read Joshua 1:5 and challenge the children to think of a word beginning with ‘P’ that relates to the passage (promise) and write it on their sheet.

2 Read Joshua 1:6. Invite the children to work out the next ‘P’ word (plan).

3 Challenge the children to read Joshua 1:9 and to come up with a third ‘P’ word (power).

4 Point to the letter ‘P’, forming three words. Explain that God gave Joshua a promise; it was part of God’s plan for his people and God gave Joshua power. Say that God is a victorious God, so his promise, plan and power are for us too!

NamesActivity time: 5 minutes Aim: to consider how Jesus, like Joshua, was sent by God to bring victory to his peopleYou will need: Bible dictionaries or books of names1 Challenge the children to fi nd out

what the name ‘Joshua’ means by looking at the books. (It means ‘God saves’.)

2 Talk about how Joshua’s story helps us to realise that God saves his people. Ask: ‘Who, or what, did Joshua defeat?’

3 Then invite the children to look up the name ‘Jesus’. This is another form of the name ‘Joshua’, so it also means ‘God saves’!

4 Ask the children how Jesus helps us to know that God saves. Ask: ‘Who, or what, did Jesus defeat?’ Explain that Jesus defeated sin and death on the cross, and in doing so he saved us!

5 Pray together, thanking God for his victory over his enemies through Joshua, and through Jesus.

Challenge the children to complete the puzzles on the Xstream sheet on page 100.Show the second part of the Veggie Tales fi lm Josh and the Big Wall!Invite the children to write or draw prayer requests on sheets of paper, and then make these into a wall. Pray together, breaking your wall down as you give each one to God.

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Red Compendium

Photocopiable resource98

Look at these pictures and think about

the type of power that made them.

Whatpower?

Praise God for his victorious power!

Blue Compendium

© Scripture Union 2018

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Blue Compendium

© Scripture Union 2018

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Session 13

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Red Compendium

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Puzzletime

City of Jericho

God said, “With my help, you and your army will

defeat the king of Jericho and his army, and you

will capture the town. Here’s how to do it…”

Read Joshua 6:3–5 and write God’s

battle orders here.

1 March

2 Take

3 On the seventh day, march

4 while

5 The priests

6 and the people

7 The wall

8 and your soldiers

Now read Joshua 6:8–15,20 and tick off

the orders that were followed.

Why did Joshua’s army capture the city?

God said, “With my help, you and your army will

Battle orders

Now read Joshua 6:8–15,20 and tick off

the orders that were followed.

Why did Joshua’s army capture the city?

A-maze-ing!

It wasn’t very difficult!

Why not?

Can you find the way into the city of Jericho?

© Scripture Union 2018

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