the gospel in a styrofoam plate

We started explaining the concept of SIN to Lucy when she was about 3 years old.  We did it by telling her that when she chooses to do something wrong sin gets her heart dirty and that we didn't want her to have a dirty heart.

That explanation got more elaborate over the years as she grew in her knowledge of God's Word but the "dirty heart" concept has always stayed with her.

We taught her that we are called to guard our hearts and that became our little phrase when we were out in public and she wasn't behaving.  "Lucy, guard your heart".  Somehow that always takes her back to a little picture we drew of her and her heart with the devil on one side encouraging her to do wrong and an angel or God on another side doing the opposite.  This was just a visual to help her be aware there is an enemy who roots for her to sin.

My Sunday school teaching partner showed me a neat way to share with little ones the gospel of Christ in a simple, hands-on way and I wanted to share because I think it really brings the point across.

You will need:
1.  a styrofoam plate
2.  a black and a red sharpie
3.  and a black dry/erase marker.

You start by drawing a heart with the red sharpie. Then you explain how sin dirties their heart and you draw little black marks inside the heart with the dry/erase marker.

Then you present the gospel and explain that the punishment for sin is death but God loved us so much that he sent His only son, Jesus, to pay the price for our sin with his own death.  (John 3:16)

Thanks to Him, we can have life and when we repent from our sin and choose to ask Him to come live in our hearts He wipes our heart clean and gives us a fresh start.  He is the only One who can do this.  At this point you grab a wet wipe and wipe clean the little black marks in the heart. The stains come off easily.

A clean heart and all because of JESUS!

Then we explain that we ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).  No one is good enough.  At this point you use the black sharpie to fill the heart with black.

Then we go on to say that we can try and try to clean our hearts on our own (grab a wipe and have them try to wipe the black on the heart) but we can't do it because the only One who can do that is Jesus. 

It's really neat to see things click in their head as they try hard to wipe that heart clean, not being able to.

I can not tell you how plates have been invested :) in this exercise at our house.  The kids want to show every person who walks in the door what Jesus can do with their heart.