Week 911 · about 45 minutes
Joel 1
Joel 1 · Memory verse Joel 1:16
Get the free weekly Sunday school and bedtime printable pack
For a parent or teacher. Children do not make accounts here. The pack is a week of printables, not a child profile.
Queues the lesson plan, this story’s coloring page (Joel 1), the matching word search and answer key (Joel 1 word search), the memory-verse tracer, and a parent slip.
Five-minute object lesson
Prop: a wooden spoon
Hold a wooden spoon. Read Joel 1 in about four minutes, stopping at Joel 1:16: “Isn’t the food cut off before our eyes; joy and gladness from the house of our God?” Ask, “What does this prop have to do with Joel 1?” Let two children answer, then say the memory verse together.
Story script
Joel 1 is a real chapter from the Old Testament. It starts, “Yahweh’s word that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.” That is not a motto invented for a poster. It is the first sentence a family hears when this page is opened at night.
Keep going a little further. The chapter also says, “Be confounded, you farmers! Wail, you vineyard keepers; for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished.” Joel 1 opens with these words: “Yahweh’s word that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.” The line to keep is Joel 1:16: “Isn’t the food cut off before our eyes; joy and gladness from the house of our God?” Carry the word “food” from that verse into the rest of the day.
The line worth learning out loud is Joel 1:16: “Isn’t the food cut off before our eyes; joy and gladness from the house of our God?” If the rest of the chapter feels crowded, hold that one sentence until the room is quiet.
What happens first in Joel 1? Then try this: Read “Isn’t the food cut off before our eyes; joy and gladness from the house of our God?” once more. What does it show you about God? You do not have to finish every verse. You can close the book after the memory verse and still have read the Bible together.
Group game
Walk the room as if you are moving through Joel 1. Every time you freeze, a child says one word from Joel 1:16. The last child says the whole verse.
Craft
On a US Letter sheet, draw one picture from Joel 1 and write Joel 1:16 under it. Send it home as tonight’s reminder, not as a decoration contest.
Memory verse
Joel 1:16
“Isn’t the food cut off before our eyes; joy and gladness from the house of our God?”
Take-home prayer
Father, thank you for Joel 1. Help us remember Joel 1:16 when we wake up, and teach us to notice you in an ordinary night. Amen.