The Gospel in Board Games: Battleship - Devo

Family Spiritual Practices

Week of August 18th, 2019

Our sermon series in the month of August is focusing on how to children’s board games that families play together to talk about the mission and message of Jesus Christ. To that end, our devotions throughout this month are going to be a little different. Instead of being a scripture, questions, and a prayer each day that are focused on adults, we are going to present one devotional practice for families to adapt and use throughout the whole week. 

Don’t have any kids in your home currently? Don’t worry! This is for you, too! This can be something that grandparents discuss with their grandchildren or that individuals can do as a spiritual practice on their own. 

A note: sometimes we forget that God gave us the gift of creativity. This week’s devotional also has a creative aspect to it in order to engage our whole brain and being. If you don’t think you’re very creative or crafty - that’s completely okay. But you may want to give it a try, just to see what new insights God may give you. 

Scripture for the week: Matthew 5: 38-48

At times it can be really hard to be nice to other people, especially when they aren’t nice to us. What makes it hard for you to be kind to some people at school?

  When Jesus was talking to his disciples, there were some people that they found it hard to like as well. But Jesus told them to do these different things to help them re-think how to treat people when they were mean to them. 

Jesus wasn’t saying to let people harm us. When someone is bullying us, we should tell adults we trust. But Jesus was also not telling his disciples that it was okay to fight back. Instead, he told them to be kind, even its hard.

Sometimes when we are in the midst of difficult situations it is really difficult to think of a different way to respond off of the top of our head. Instead, things can quickly get out of control. But it can be helpful to think of different ways to respond when we aren’t in the midst of everything. 

Write down as a family some different ways you can respond when people are being unkind. How can we share the love of Jesus in these situations? Do you think it will be hard or easy? Why?