God's Gift: A Bible Class Craft for High School Students

Finding Bible school crafts for young children is usually a really easy process; however, finding crafts for high school age kids, especially boys, is a whole different story. My husband recently started teaching the teenage class where we attend services. He wanted to make the class a little more hands on than most traditional high school classes are. So, he asked me to come up with a craft item that a teenage boy would not turn his nose up at and would also reinforce the lesson he was teaching.

He selected John 5:16-27 as the passage of study, and broke his lesson into three sections. The first topic was entitled "Our Favorite Gifts." He had the children talk about their favorite gifts, and he listed them on the white board before moving on to his second point, "Christ as the Ultimate Gift." After discussing the selected passage, my husband explained why each of us should cherish the gift of Christ's life. To help reinforce this main point we created acrostic bookmarks.

God's Gift Book Mark

Materials:
Card stock
Pencils
Sharpies, various colors
Thesaurus or Dictionary
Hole punch
Laminator or laminating sheets
Scissors
Waxed cotton cord, various colors

Before class, I created the basic construction of the bookmarks. That way the children could simply fill them out at the end of class. Always determine how much pre-work you need to do before class, and let the children complete whatever steps they need to.

Using a ruler and a pencil, divide a standard sheet of card stock roughly into four two-inch by eight-inch sections. You should start from one end of the paper and measure two-inches down from the top. The first line will be your guideline. Make sure that the guideline extends from one side of the paper to the next.

Measure two inches beneath the first guideline and repeat the process for each bookmark section. You should be able to make four complete bookmarks per sheet of paper. I saved the remaining piece of card stock for later use.

Mentally divide each bookmark into three sections. There should be a heading area, a body area and a closing area.

Using your pencil, write the words "GOD'S GIFT" in the heading section. I wrote GOD'S on the first heading line and then added GIFT directly below the word GOD. The best way to center a word on a piece of paper, without measuring every individual letter is to determine what area of the word is the center and write that section first, working outward. For example, I wrote OD and then added the G, ', and S.

EXAMPLE ONE:

GOD'S
GIFT

Leave roughly one-inch of space open beneath the word GIFT. Now working from top to bottom write the word CHRIST in acrostic fashion. It should appear like the following on the bookmark.

EXAMPLE TWO:

C
H
R
I
S
T

Have the students choose words that fit the theme God's Gift that start with each letter in the word Christ.

EXAMPLE THREE:

Clemency (forgiveness)
Heaven
Redemption
Illumination
Salvation
Truth

Beneath the Acrostic skip a small space and add a scripture reference. We chose to put Romans 5:6-11 on the bottom.

Once the words have been added, trace over the words with a sharpie or marker.

EXAMPLE FOUR:

GOD'S
GIFT

Clemency
Heaven
Redemption
Illumination
Salvation
Truth

ROMANS 5:6-11

On the top of my bookmark, I added the Star of David in the section between the heading and the first letter of Christ's name. To draw the Star of David, draw an isosceles triangle with the base line resting horizontal on the page. Add a second isosceles triangle that over laps the first. This time place the base line across the top section of the bottom triangle.

Punch a hole in the center top section of each bookmark before laminating. Once the bookmarks have been laminated, carefully cut them out. Make sure that there is at least a small edge of plastic around the bookmarks. This will prevent the bookmarks from coming apart.

Carefully cut the plastic away from the hole-punched area. Leave some plastic in tact to protect the bookmark. Cut a five-inch piece of cord for each bookmark. Fold the cord in half and place the center section through the hole. The center section should look like a loop. Thread the two ends over the top of the bookmark and through the center section of thread.