Elementary Message: Having a Hard Heart
Teach kids that God wants us to have soft hearts toward him. Use this elementary message to explore what hard hearts look like.
Prepare for the Elementary Lesson
You’ll Need:
Tip: Find out if any of your kids have a severe egg allergy that would make it unsafe for them to handle an egg. If so, you could place cotton balls inside of plastic Easter eggs and carefully decorate with permanent markers to modify the activity’s supplies.
Easy Prep:
Store hard-boiled eggs in a cooler or a bowl full of cold water and ice cubes so the eggs don’t spoil.
Lead the Elementary Message
Experience Hard Hearts
Give every child an egg, and allow kids to decorate the outside of the shells.
As they work, ask: How does the outside of the egg feel?
Once kids finish decorating the eggs, read aloud Psalm 95:6-9.
Say: God wants our hearts to be soft toward him. But they can sometimes be hard.
Ask: What are some things that might happen to make people’s hearts hard?
Say: When our hearts get hard, they’re closed toward God.
Experience Soft Hearts
Have kids crack their eggs. Once they’ve peeled away the shell, ask them to feel the inside of the egg.
Ask: Describe what the inside of the egg feels like.
Say: When our hearts are hard, God can crack away the hard outer shell to reveal something soft on the inside.
Ask: What helps to make your heart soft toward God?
Pray with kids and ask God to make each of their hearts soft like the inside of the egg, not hard like its shell. Then let kids use wipes to clean their hands and eat their egg as a snack if they want.
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