SIT or STAND Thanksgiving Game

Start the SIT or STAND PowerPoint and say, We are going to play a game where everyone gets to play! I’m going to show you some situations on the screen, and if you should be thankful, stand up. If you wouldn’t be thankful, sit down.

It’s best if you prep ahead of time and know the questions, because you can lead from one to the next. Use your tone of voice to suggest thankfulness or unthankfulness, but don’t say whether it was right or wrong to stand or sit, just acknowledge, “a lot of you are thankful” or “I see many of you aren’t thankful.” At the end of the PowerPoint it is revealed that God says to be thankful in ALL circumstances.

Talk about what this means. (The slides will help.)

Point out that this doesn’t mean we are thankful FOR bad things that happen, but thankful IN those situations knowing that God is in control. You can also talk about Jeremiah 29:11 which talks about the good plan God has for our life, or use James 1:3-4 that talks about considering trials joy as they will lead to perseverance and making us mature and complete. You may even want to mention in I Corinthians 1:3-4 where Paul talks about how we can encourage others who are going through what we have gone through.

Challenge kids to not just be thankful for the obvious things, but even for the hard things and even hard people in our lives, because God is using those things to make us a better person!