CREATION EXPLORATION
• Find something in nature that is an illustration of God’s love or character.
• Go on a bug safari. Turn over a decaying log and see how many bugs live underneath.
• Watch a small creature for several minutes and learn what you can about its life. See what it does, what it eats, where it goes, and how it moves.
• Have a nature alphabet walk. Find something that begins with A (ant, acorn, apple) and then something that begins with B (bee, butterfly, branch, bone), and so on.
• Give each person the same page of a paint chart or a handful of paint-chart chips. If you don’t have those, cut a strip from a magazine photo that has a range of colors. See how many natural things you can find that match these colors exactly.
• Feel God’s world with your bare feet. Walk on different safe surfaces, such as grass, moss, leaves, mud, stones, and sand, and then wash each other’s feet.
• Go on a scavenger hunt. Make a list of natural objects you can easily find in your area and take a small bag to put them in. You can look for specific things, or try using broader categories such as something edible, something soft, something heart-shaped, something mentioned in the Bible, etc. Be sure to tear off only tiny parts of leaves or petals so you don’t stop the plant from growing and making seeds.
COMPUTER CHALLENGES
• Download the app at SabbathIdeas.org.
• Create a Bible quiz game using Kahoot: kahoot.it/.
• Watch inspiring videos on ignitermedia.com.
• Facetime or Zoom a lonely person or an old friend.
• Make short, inspirational video clips to upload.
• Go Geocaching: geocaching.com. Leave inspiring little gifts in the “treasure boxes.”
• Create a Bible puzzle or word search for your family to do.
CREATIVE CRAFTING
• Design, write, and decorate encouraging message cards with Bible verses. Make a stack of them to slip into newspapers, library books, or other places where people will find them.
• Use air-drying clay and make candle lanterns to remind your family that they are lights in the world. Or make items from a Bible story or something that illustrates God’s love.
• Draw some beautiful pictures or take photographs to illustrate a Bible verse or a song for your church service.
• Make a Bible verse scrapbook. Let each person choose a Bible verse to print or write by hand, and then decorate the verse with craft materials. Each person can make their own Bible verse scrapbook, and you will learn Bible verses while you do this.
• Make thank-you cards or appreciation cards. Then send a few to people who have helped your family.
• Search the internet for animated Lego Bible stories and find out how to make your own with a video camera or phone.
• Write and decorate a beautiful Bible verse on the pavement or in a park using outdoor chalk. Inspire people passing by.
• Make small gifts to encourage others, such as simple dried lavender bags, Bible verses written with permanent markers on wood slices, etc.
• Find and photograph Christian symbols around your town, such as crosses (look for cross patterns in things that are not specifically crosses), hearts, etc.
• Make a sand, clay, or paper sculpture of a Bible story.
COMPASSIONATE KINDNESS
• Learn sign language from online videos and then sign some Bible verses.
• Find a way to take someone with a disability into a beautiful natural place using a wheelchair, an accessible taxi, etc.
• Sing at a nursing home or visit an elderly person and sing to them.
• Visit a blind person. Read to them and take small gifts they can experience with their other senses, such as food and flowers.
• Deliver home-baked cakes and cookies to a police station or nurses’ station in a hospital. Bless those who need to care for others on Sabbath.
• Take a small seasonal gift to each of your neighbors’ homes and ask if there is anything you can do to help or anything they would like you to pray about.
• Have a clean-up party at the local park, beach, or beauty spot. Get the right equipment to clean up safely.
MUSICAL MOMENTS
• Get together with friends or church members to sing and play whatever instruments you have.
• Come up with your own actions to your favorite songs.
• Make your own musical instruments from items you have in your home.
• Organize a flash mob in a public place and sing a Christian song; make it intergenerational.
• Create your own music videos or recordings and share them on Facebook or other social media.
• Learn a new children’s Bible or praise song from the internet. Explore Paul Field’s songs for children: paulfield.bandcamp.com/album/pass-it-on-fit-for-life.
BIBLE BONANZA
• Play Bible Search. Start reading a Bible verse or chapter and see who can be the first to find a designated word.
• Write each book of the Bible on a wooden clothespin. Make several sets and see who can be the fastest to put them in the correct order around a pizza pan or the sides of a cardboard box.
• Rewrite a psalm in modern language or a Bible story as if it were taking place today.
• Imagine you are a person in the Bible; then tell or write your life story.
• Use practical props, such as a bottle of water, a stick, and a feast of food, and lay them out in the order they appear in a Bible passage such as Psalm 23.
• Make Bible story objects out of modeling clay and see if people can guess what they are and which story they are from.
• Buy a colorful play parachute and learn how to use it to tell Bible stories, sing, pray, etc. Then take it into a park and let other people join you. For ideas, see www.throughtheroof.org/shop2/parachute-bible-stories/.
• Create your own Bible game together.
