The wide gate and the narrow gate pop up craft (Matthew 7: 13-14)

 “You can enter true life only through the narrow gate. The gate to hell is very wide, and there is plenty of room on the road that leads there. Many people go that way. But the gate that opens the way to true life is narrow. And the road that leads there is hard to follow. Only a few people find it.  Matthew 7:13-4

In our journey through the sermon on the mount, we have reached this passage which is quite a tough one!

To warm up we're going to play two games:

1) Limbo dancing- the child who manages to do the lowest limbo move is the prize winner.

2) Marbles- Children have the choice to roll their marble through a wide gap (easy) or a narrow gap (hard).  After all the children have had a go, give a prize to anyone who managed to get their marble through the narrow gap, to emphasise the fact that the people who met the toughest challenge were the ones who won the prizes in the end.  

Our children tend to respond quite well to visual teaching styles so this is what I've come up with this week to take the discussion further...

Print off the sheet (click here)

 Fold the sheet in half with the picture on the outside (you will see a vague line when you print out the sheet!) Cut along the two side edges of each brown rectangle.

 Next, open up the sheet and fold along the middle again, but this time with the picture on the inside.  Carefully fold the brown rectangles to the inside of the paper so that the outside looks like this and when you open the paper...

 The brown 'gates' pop up!

 Talk to the children about the Matthew passage and show them that the road to the wide gate has plenty of room to travel on, but the road to the narrow gate is much more twisted and hard to follow.  This is the gate that leads to the wide open spaces, though, and the wide gate leads only to a pit.

Talk about the things that following the different paths might involve and get the children  to write or draw them on the paths.  Then think about the rewards of going through the narrow gate.  What does it lead to?  Again, get the children to draw or write their responses.