In this children’s church lesson, kids discover the context of Pentecost as they explore the Holy Spirit’s power. These activities come from DIG IN Sunday School and Children’s Church curriculum.
Children’s Lesson About Pentecost
You’ll Need:
- Bible (try this kid-friendly version!)
Begin the Lesson
Say: Today we’ll explore how the Holy Spirit gives us power. The Holy Spirit is God, with us today. The Holy Spirit is the special helper Jesus promised to us.
Ask:
- Tell about something you use that needs power to work. Where does it get its power?
Have kids turn to a partner to share. Then ask a few kids to share with everyone.
Say: You probably have to charge your device with electricity or put in batteries to make it work. But that’s not how the Holy Spirit gives us power! Let’s see what happened when the first Christians got power from the Holy Spirit.
RELATED: Pentecost Sunday School Lesson About the Holy Spirit, Our Helper
Grow Stronger
Say: Sometimes when we think about power, we think about strong, muscly people. As we learn the Bible story, we’ll do some exercises that will help us grow strong and powerful.
Open your Bible to Acts 2, and show kids the words.
Say: This story starts on a special day called Pentecost. In Bible times, it was sort of like a celebration or holiday.
Read Acts 2:1-2.
Say: A mighty windstorm! Let’s get blown all about by doing 10 jumping jacks! Lead kids in doing jumping jacks.
Say: When the Holy Spirit came, even the wind was powerful. The Holy Spirit gives us power. But there was more!
Read Acts 2:3.
Say: Wow, the Holy Spirit’s power made it look like there was fire sitting on everyone’s heads. Let’s do shoulder presses that help us picture power on our heads.
Lead kids in doing modified shoulder presses. They’ll hold out their arms in a bicep flex pose, then bring their fists together right above their heads. Repeat several times.
Say: So far we’ve seen wind and fire—pretty powerful things. But the real power was just about to happen.
The Holy Spirit Gives Us Power
Read Acts 2:4.
Say: Wow! Everyone could speak different languages—ones they’d never known before—because the Holy Spirit gives us power. Let’s use Spanish to count to 10 as we do 10 sit-ups.
Lead kids in doing sit-ups, counting to 10 in Spanish: uno (OOH-no), dos (dose), tres (trace), quatro (KWA-trow), cinco (SINK-oh), seis (sayse), siete (see-YET-ay), ocho (OH-cho), nueve (new-EH-vay), diez (dee-ES).
Say: Great job! You might wonder why the Holy Spirit gave people power to speak new languages. Well, let’s find out why!
You see, all the wind and fire and shouting got people’s attention. So people from everywhere came running to see what was happening.
Lead kids in running in place.
Say: When everyone arrived, they needed to hear the good news about Jesus and about how the Holy Spirit gives us power. But people were from so many different cities and countries, and they spoke a lot of languages! Because of the Holy Spirit’s power in Jesus’ friends, they were able to tell everyone the good news—no matter where they were from.
Ask:
- What’s the difference between the power your body might have from the exercises we did and the power the Holy Spirit gives?
Say: We don’t need strong muscles to follow Jesus. And we might not need another language to tell about Jesus, but we might need help finding the words to say in our own language. The Holy Spirit gives us power to share all about the good news of Jesus.
