Being impressive or obedient – which one are you?

A collage representing parental involvement with their kids Adults! Join your 1st – 6th graders on our movie adventure. It gives you an “easy in” for continuing the learning at home! Asking questions such as the one in this post’s title!

Here are some questions for the family dinner table. (Or wherever your family is gathered together.) You can ask these questions even if you missed the video showings. (For other sets of discussion questions on our summer movie series, view here.)

If desired, print out this family discussion guide here. (Spread this out over several days.)

Have some family discussion…

Pass around a Bible. The person holding the Bible gets to be the one who shares their glads and sads. (Or perhaps you call them peaks and pits?)
Take a look at the Table of Contents of your Bible. Find 1st Samuel. Does your Bible have a topical index – perhaps a Concordance – at the back? Look up Samuel and do some research!
Let’s see if we can quickly figure out the important characters in the book of 1st Samuel. What would be a way to do that? How about checking out the headings! (if your Bible has them.) Look at the heading at chapter 1; it probably mentions Samuel! It’s expected that a book by the name of “Samuel” means that he is an important character! Headings at chapters 9 and 16 give us other clues of who is in here.

Puppet 8 year old Michael-the boy in the car seat

Samuel was a prophet. Michael, the boy in his car seat who introduces every video, says some funny things; I wonder what he would have to say about prophets? (He would probably think they were a type of candy bar! Isn’t it good to know it’s okay to get confused about words?) What do you know about prophets?
A prophet is someone that God uses to deliver messages; a prophet is God’s messenger. What message was God trying to tell King Saul? Here is a short video to see the answer:

(If you are reading this in an email click here to view the video).
Read together 1 Samuel 13:13-14. God was trying to tell King Saul that he should serve only God. But Saul served God “halfway.” King Saul wasn’t always good at doing what God wanted him to do… when it came to following God, he was a failure! How good are we today at hearing God’s messages? Do we pay attention to God all the time? (To be honest, I’d say no!) How can we take better care at paying attention to God?
Read 1 Samuel 13:13-14. Samuel was telling Saul that because he hadn’t obeyed God he would be replaced… with someone who was a “man after God’s own heart.” What do you suppose it means to be a “person after God’s own heart?” (Lots of possible answers but I’ll bet that one of them includes someone who wholeheartedly serves God!)
In the video we watched above, Sunday school Lady says, “God doesn’t want us to be impressive, he wants us to be obedient.” What do you suppose she meant by that? How are we sometimes guilty of trying to be “impressive” rather than obedient to God?
God does replace King Saul with King David. What stories do you know about David? Read 1 Samuel 16:1-13b, about God sending Samuel out to find and “anoint” David. [Note: We’ll be studying this story in September 2014!] What does “anoint” mean? (Anointing is the process of pouring oil on someone, or something, as part of a ceremony that marks that person, or thing. for a special task.)