The Thankful Chapel

I am so excited to share this month’s chapel lesson with you!

Thanksgiving is always one of my favorite times of year. I think expressing gratitude is a critical aspect of the life of a believer, so I love that we have an entire holiday dedicated to celebrating this!

For this lesson I decided to focus on the story in the Bible from Luke 17 about the 10 lepers.

I started the chapel by telling the children that I had something in my bag. I had put a silly turkey-shaped hat inside that I had bought in the Target Dollar Bins a few years ago.

For a few minutes I let the turkey poke his head out of the bag while I made goofy gobbling noises.

Eventually I pulled the turkey hat out of my bag and put it on. The kids thought this was quite funny.

Next I asked them if they knew what holiday was coming up and what that holiday has to do with turkeys. Then I asked them if Thanksgiving was only about turkeys.

They shouted “No! It’s about being thankful!”

I used that as a springboard into our lesson. I told them that we were going to put on a play that would tell us about a story from the Bible that would teach us about being thankful.

For this play you will need the following…

A few rolls of toilet paper
A sign that says The Priest
A large image of Jesus
12 volunteers

First, appoint someone to be Jesus. Give them the picture of Jesus to hold. Tell them that anytime you say “Jesus” while narrating the play, then they must say, “Son of God!”

Next appoint someone to be the Priest. Anytime you read “The Priest” then that person has to say, “I am the priest!”

Finally, you will need 10 kids to play the 10 sick men. They will need to get wrapped up in toilet paper because they have so many booboos. Anytime you say, “The ten men” then they all need to cry out, “We are SO sick!” Make sure they do this with a lot of theatrical exuberance.

Also make sure you pick one of the ten sick men to be your special helper at the end of the story.

Now that everyone’s ready, here is the story…

*The stars indicate when the volunteers say their lines.

A long time ago there were ten men*.

These ten men* were very sick.

They had booboos all over their bodies.

The ten men* were very sad.

One day, the ten men* saw Jesus*.

They cried out to him, “Jesus*! Heal us! Take our booboos away!”

And Jesus* said to them, “Go see the priest*!”

So the ten men* began walking to see the priest*.

As they were walking, the ten men* suddenly noticed that their booboos were going away!

In fact, they were not sick anymore!

They all let out a big cheer and ran off to the priest*.

Except for one man.

This one man turned back and ran to Jesus*.

He threw himself at Jesus’* feet and said, “Thank you so much!”

And Jesus* said, “Didn’t I heal ten men? What happened to the other 9? Rise and go! Your faith has made you well!”

I had the children act out the story as I read. For example, when the ten men were healed they all got to take their toilet paper off and cheer loudly.

I also made sure that my one special helper ran out from the other ten and threw herself down in front of Jesus and said THANK YOU at the top of her lungs.

After the play, the volunteers went to sit down and I reviewed the story with the rest of the group.