Opening

• Have the children describe several objects presented to them including a phone, an orange, a toy, the class, a fellow child in the class, a few children can come to the front a tell something brief about the object presented to them e.g how is it used, why is it important.
• The objective of the activity is to have the children use descriptive words like the colour, size, shape etc of the presented objects.
• Now have some selected children/pictures of some motions that the children can describe what they see in the image.

Bible Story

• Valued behaviours speak of Who we want to become as believers in Jesus Christ who worship together at ICC Nairobi.
• Authentic Relationships is one of our Valued behaviours. The two words mean,

Authentic means genuine and is synonymous with the words real and original
Relationships mean the way two or more people are connected it is synonymous with link and association.

• Describing authentic relationships will be our focus in this month’s lessons.
• Having Authentic Relationships means to be a community of believers connected with God, with each other and overflowing with His love as a testimony within and to the world.
• Jesus was sent to earth to be a true representation of the kind of relationship that God would want us to have with Him. When Jesus lived on earth what are some of the things that He did? He healed sick people, He prayed, He read scriptures, He loved people and provided for their needs.
• As Jesus prepared to go to the cross He took some time to pray, in John 17 we get to see and listen to His prayers. Jesus prays for Himself, His disciples and for all of us who get to believe in Him.

• Jesus prays that we will have authentic relationships. The key areas He prays about are:
  • To be one just like Jesus and God are one
  • That believers will be in Jesus
  • That as believers live together in love and unity others will come to believe in Jesus

• Jesus affirms that when we love each other we are being true disciples and that is what having authentic relationships is about. It is about us loving God and loving each other as examples to the world that Jesus loves all people.

• Jesus prays confirming that He has given us His glory, whatever Jesus was able to do, we are also able to do. He had an authentic (genuine) relationship with God, we also can have such a relationship.

• When we believe in Jesus we all become connected. Ours is to make authentic relationships with other believers in our communities by living in love and unity.

Questions

1. What does authentic mean? Genuine, real

2. What does a relationship mean? Connection, link

3. Who are the people that Jesus prayed for in John 17? Himself, the Disciples and all Believers

4. How do we have authentic relationships? Living like Jesus in love and unity