"Penny of Time" Adventure: Family Evening with a Service Lesson

 

Since we are pretty constantly talking about service, I don't use the topic very often during our weekly family evenings.  We call them (Family Home Evening).

 

This week, I felt like we needed to do another scriptural lesson on service.  I used David Bowman's book Who's Your Hero?  He uses Alma 17-20.

 

If you want to use the Bible, The Good Samaritan is a great one for this activity.

 

If you don't want to use scriptures, then I suggest using:  One Smile

 

You don't need Bowman's book to do this, but I found it to be super helpful.  The book puts into short story format the story of a man, Ammon a missionary, who served another man, King Lamoni, and gained his trust.  Included in the story are also examples of how kids can serve in order to emulate Ammon's example.

 

We also used the following scriptures:

Matthew 25:40

John 13:34-35

Deuteronomy 22:4

 

At the end, there are several activities suggested.

 

In the story, Ammon took care of the King Lamoni's sheep.  The activity we used was to do "Sheep"-ret Service.  Of course, we love the phrase SECRET SERVICE.  With the page of clipart provided in the book, we wrote a name on the back of the cards.  (the book has a more specific idea of the activity--I did it a different way)  Each family member was named as well as some "wild" cards that you could decide the recipient for yourself.

 

I picked the card with my 4 year old's name:  My service was that he could plan a whole morning doing all the things he wanted to do.  We ended up going to the mall, going to the park, eating pizza, and getting a treat.

 

Dad picked the card for Mom:  He took care of all the dished for 3 days! YAY!

 

The 6 year old got the card for Dad:  He is taking care of the trash.  (usually Dad's chore)

 

The 4 year old got the card for the 6 year old:  He is making him a card and buying him flowers.

 

There were two wild cards.  One needs to stay a secret.  The second one my 6 year old picked.

 

He decided to serve our Bishop, a leader in our church.  After we talked about all the things that the Bishop does, my 6 year old decided to go clean the church.  And, both of my boys have, since then, cleaned the church.

 

(the sheep cards for our "sheep"-ret service activity.)

 

 

We had a great time doing this as a Family Home Evening.  I love that we are exploring more scriptures with the topic of service!