"My Heart" Series Introduction and VBS

I believe one of the most important truths we could ever teach, is understanding our heart. Our entire life is directed by what is written on our hearts. Even though the “heart” is a conceptual concept, children can understand it. Even if they cannot grasp all the concepts with their minds, I believe they will catch it with their hearts. Because of its importance, this is a series of lessons that should be reviewed often.

(What you say to the kids is italicized in the lessons.)

Guard Your Heart Game

The “Guard Your Heart” Game is fun to play with this unit. It is also necessary to illustrate the concept of guarding our hearts and is referred to in some mini-lessons.

Materials:
1) a Very large felt-covered heart either mounted on the wall, or covering something stiff like cardboard.
2) Styrofoam balls wrapped in Velcro or Velcro balls.
3) People to be the Hard-hearted Pirates.
4) 4 Shields of Faith made of cardboard cut in the shape of a shield and covered in felt. Add twine handles so the kids can hold on to it easily.
5) 4 Breastplates of Righteousness made of felt for the kids to wear. (24x24” inch or so rectangle of felt with a hole cut for the neck is fine.)

Teaching Points From the Game:
1) Guard your heart because out of it flows the issues of life.
2) Guard your heart with the breastplate of righteousness and the shield of faith.

Rules:
Choose 4 guards to guard the big felt-covered heart on the stage. At random times during the night, music will cue the entry of the Hardhearted pirates who will attack the heart. They will throw Styrofoam balls wrapped in Velcro at the heart for a brief period of time (30 seconds or so).
The 4 guards will wear the felt breastplates of righteousness and be ready to grab their shields of faith. When the hardhearted pirates attack they will assume their positions in front of the heart to block any fiery darts (velcro balls) coming toward their heart. The guards must always be ready because they never know when the Hardhearted pirates will try to come damage the heart.
The object is to keep their hearts pure---free from any fiery darts (velcro balls).

Extra Little Goodies (VBS and Such)

The “My Heart” unit was originally written for a three-night vacation bible school called “Raiders of the Lost Heart.”

décor
The room was decorated with “Indianan Jones” series in mind and included ancient pillars, archaeological finds, treasure chest, spider webbs, sand, dirt, etc. We also decorated with a pirate theme, maps, ships, etc. It was one of the easiest and most cool Bible school we ever had.

Characters:
The main character was called “Tennessee Travis,” and he dressed in khakis, a white button up shirt, a leather, over-the-shoulder bag, hat and whip. He interacted with the kids throughout the nights as well as participated in skits.
Captain Tenderheart is a good pirate who gets treasure maps stolen from him. He looks like the hardhearted pirates, but is good teaching the kids that man looks on the outside, but God looks on the heart.
Hardhearted pirates are mean pirates who attack the heart in the Guard Your Heart game and steal treasure maps from Captain Tenderheart.

Memory Verse Maps:
Each night had a treasure map that corresponded with nightly theme. Day 1: Guard Your Heart. Day 2: Meditate Day and Night. Day 3: Don't be a meathead. Captain Tenderheart would do a pre-recorded video message about the theme which was a mini-lesson on the memory verse for each night. He teaches the kids that where their treasure is, that is where their heart is.

Then the VBS characters would do a skit (that was pre-recorded) where the hard-hearted pirates steal that night's map from Captain Tenderheart, but then Tennessee Travis rescues it and runs in the actual map to the kids. Travis unrolls the map and reads the map again (memory verse.)

Treasures from Tennessee Travis
Travis would pop in periodically throughout the night carrying a “treasure” in his leather pouch. We would draw a seat number, then that child would receive the treasure in his pouch.

The big event of the night: The Heart Zone.
We had what was called a heart zone that was a pit full of balloons and candy and a key hidden inside. Capitan Tenderheart would do a little monologue (pre-corded) thanking the kids and Tennessee Travis for rescuing the map. And because they rescued the map, he would tell them he hid a key in the heartzone. The key opened up a treasure chest that was on stage. We would choose four kids to enter the heart zone. With loud pumping music, they would search for the key while grabbing candy. The key unlocked the treasure chest on the stage which had a very large prize in it such as video game system or something like it.

The Small Group
The Small Groups were divided up into grades and called campfire chats. We made fires from cardboard and paint. They would sit around their “fires” and do their small groups as indicated in the lessons.

Filler activities:

1) Tennessee Twister
Tennessee Twister is a group warm-up activity. Suddenly, storm sounds would play and a tornado would appear on the big screen. The kids were instructed to hug as many people as they could until the storm stopped.

2)Secret Handshake
Periodically throughout the night, we would have them shake 3-5 people's hands with the handshake we created specifically for this VBS. This is possibly the best idea ever to keep up the momentum in a service to have a few extra seconds to prepare for the next thing on the agenda. This prevents "dead air," if you know what I mean.

3)Trash or Treasure
On the big screen, we would read off slides that had a description of a negative or positive thing that would indicate a way of thinking. The kids would shout out “Trash” if it was a negative way of thinking or “treasure” if it was a positive way of thinking. Of course we would reiterate that we only want to hide the treasures in our heart and keep out the trash.