Introduction

• Ask the children to imagine this: You are home one night, asleep in your bed. You awaken because you smell smoke. You call out to your Dad and Mum and they tell you to hurry and get out of the house. Dad says, “You have time to take two things out of your room.” Of course, this is an imaginary story. In real life, you wouldn’t stop to get anything. You would just want to get away from danger as fast as you could. But let’s imagine you get to choose two things and everything else is going to burn up. What would you choose? (Let the children share their answers.)
• A lot of things would be good to choose from. But if you were only allowed to choose two things you would probably choose the two things that are most important to you. In today’s story, we are going to learn about two sisters. One chose to do a good thing and the other chose to do something more important.

Bible Story

• Today we will learn what the word “worship” means. Does anyone have an idea about how we worship God (through songs, reading the Bible, praying, etc)?
• Worship is something we do to show God that we honour, respect, and love Him. However, we can easily worship God for the wrong reasons if we’re not careful!
• A character in today’s Bible story will teach us about true worship and the reasons we worship God.
• The children to stand up when someone in the story is choosing a good thing. They should sit down when someone in the story is not choosing a good thing. When Jesus is speaking the children should put their hands by their ears to show they are really listening well.
• As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. (Martha was choosing a good thing- stand up)
• She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. (Mary was choosing a good thing- keep standing)
• But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” (Sit down, Martha was not choosing a good thing.)
• “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (put your hands behind your ears because Jesus is speaking.)
• Now, Mary and Martha both chose good things in the story. Who wants to guess which chose the BEST thing? There’s another time when Jesus was at a meal given in his honour, Mary expressed her devotion to the Lord by breaking open an expensive jar of fragrant oil, anointing Jesus’ feet with it, and wiping them with her hair. Some objected, but Jesus commended Mary for her actions.
•  There are many ways we can worship God: singing worship songs, listening to a Bible lesson, praying, serving God and others, etc. But Mary teaches us that having the right heart about worship is what’s important.
•  We don’t worship God to show off, get what we want, or to be noticed. We worship God to honour Him and tell Him that He is greater and more wonderful than anything else on earth!
•  So, the next time we worship and praise God, we can remind our hearts to be ready to honour Him.

Questions

1. Where is Jesus? (Martha and Mary’s house.)
2. What does Mary do? (She worships Jesus by sitting at His feet and listening to Him.)
3. What does Martha do? (Distracts herself by getting ready for Jesus to stay.)
4. Why does Martha get frustrated? (Because she feels like Mary should help her.)
5. What does Jesus say to Martha? (That the best thing to do is worship Him instead of worrying about other things.)
6. What does Mary teach us about worshipping God? (That we need to be still, be ready to listen, and seek nearness with Him.)
7. What does Martha teach us about worshipping God? (That worship is less about actions and more about opening our hearts up to hear His word.)
8. What else does Mary do for Jesus? (She pours expensive perfume on His feet and wipes it with her hair.)
9. What do we learn from this act of worship? (That true worship means loving Jesus more than any expensive possession we own and even being willing to give it up for Him.)

Prayer

Dear Jesus, help us to remember that you are the most important thing in our lives. Don’t let us get so busy with other things that we forget to spend time with you. Amen.