Leader Guide

Video Leader Guide

Welcome (1 minute)

Welcome everyone! Today is the second lesson of our Superbook story, “Joseph and Pharaoh’s Dream.” I would like two people to tell me something about Joseph from the previous lesson.

Let’s spend some time now in praise and thankfulness to God for the good plans He has for our lives as we sing and do the motions to He Has a Plan.

Play Video 11: (Song) He Has a Plan (3 minutes)

Be sure to preview the song so you can sing along and do the motions with the children. They may clap and do freestyle movements during the animation sections.

He Has a Plan

SuperTruth and Discussion (1 minute)

Our SuperTruth today says: “God’s plans for me are good.” Let’s say our SuperTruth together. “God’s plans for me are good.”

How does that make you feel—to know that God has a plan for you, and that it is good?

Yes, knowing God’s plans for me are good helps me to trust God, even in the difficult times in my life.

Introduce Condensed Bible Story (1 minute)

If all children watched the Bible story video in the previous lesson, you may skip it here and go straight to the Bible Background Video.

In our previous lesson, does anyone remember why Chris was timing all of his chores and activities? He had a plan to make it to the soccer game in time.

For the children who haven’t seen our Bible story yet, we are going to watch a short version of “Joseph and Pharaoh’s Dream” to see God’s good plan for Joseph. For those of us who have seen the full video, watch for events in the story that probably didn’t go according to Joseph’s plan for his own life.   

Play Video 4: Condensed Bible Story (10.5 minutes)

Condensed Bible Story

Superbook takes Chris, Joy and Gizmo to meet Joseph, who is sold into slavery by his brothers, then rises from prisoner to governor of Egypt. The children learn to trust God’s plans instead of their own.

Discussion (1 minute)

Do you think it is hard sometimes to accept that God’s plan for our lives is different than our plans?

How do you think it would feel to be Joseph and see your brothers for the first time after all they did to him?

Introduce Bible Background Video (1 minute)

Now let’s watch our Bible Background Video and learn more about what the world was like during Joseph’s time. When Gizmo asks a question in the video, wait for him to suggest some answers, then call out the one you think is right!

Play Video 5: Bible Background (8.5 minutes)

Bible Background

Play Video 10B: SuperVerse Graphic 2

Graphic loops 2.5 minutes without audio; turn off or freeze video after children repeat verse.

SuperVerse Graphic 2

SuperVerse (1 minute)

Let’s say our SuperVerse together. Jeremiah 29:11:

"For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

That’s exciting, isn’t it? God has wonderful plans and a great purpose for your life!

Children will have more time to learn the SuperVerse in Small Group.

Prayer and Send-Off (1 minute)

Let’s pray: Dear God, Joseph kept his faith in You even through trials and hard times. Help us to always trust in Your plan, even when things don’t go as we think they should.

Let’s go to our Small Groups, where you will play a game about how Joseph was reunited with his brothers after many years. Are you ready to see what the game is about? Go have some fun!

Teachers take children to Small Group classes for Grades 1–3 and 4–6. If the combined group is small, all children may stay together for Small Group time.

Game

Who can tell me what our SuperTruth is for today? “God’s plans for me are good.”

Great! Does that mean that we will never have any problems and everything will always go smoothly for us?

No, but if we trust God and allow Him to work His plan in our lives, it will be for our good! Things looked bad when Joseph was thrown into a pit and sold as a slave, far from his family; yet God worked everything together for good—for Joseph, for his family, and for the nation of Egypt. And eventually, God brought Joseph and his brothers back together again.

How many brothers were there in Joseph’s family? Twelve.

Yes, their father, Jacob, had twelve sons. How many can you name? Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher.

Optional: If you have extra time, you may teach the song, “The Sons of Jacob,” listing Joseph’s brothers, which is downloadable from the website. A PDF is also included in the Additional Activities for this lesson.

Divide the class into teams of 3 or 4 children each, depending on class size. Teams do not need to be even. Have teams form single-file lines behind the starting mark, leaving a few feet between the teams. Begin the game. All teams send one player to the pile to choose a card that is face-down in the pile, look at it, quickly walk back to their team, and place the card face-up on a table or the floor. The next player then goes to the pile, chooses a card and looks at it to decide if the team has it or not. If the team already has that card, the player should put it back in the pile, face-down, then choose a different card and quickly go back to the team. Once every person on the team has gone, the first player takes another turn, etc., until all 12 cards have been collected. Each team should work together to put the cards in order, from 1 to 12, as quickly as possible while they are being collected. The first team to assemble all 12 cards wins. Continue playing until all teams have collected all 12 cards. 

Teaching

Who remembers our SuperTruth? “God’s plans for me are good.”

Isn’t it exciting to know that God created you, He knows you, and He has a wonderful plan for you? 

God had a good plan for Joseph even though Joseph may not have thought it seemed like a very good plan at the time! Can you remember some times in Joseph’s life when he may have wondered if his dreams would come to pass? When Joseph was thrown into the pit, sold as a slave, put in prison, forgotten by the cup-bearer.

Lay the rope out straight on the floor. Do you remember the rope we used to illustrate Joseph’s life in our last lesson? We will use it again today to look at God’s plan for us! Was God’s plan for Joseph a straight line like this? No!

It sure wasn’t; it looked more like this with all the ups and downs, high and low points in Joseph’s life. Lay the rope on the floor in a wave pattern with ups and downs—highs and lows.

Lay the rope in a straight line. When we create our own plans, do we like to include difficult tasks, hard times, ups and downs, and twists and turns? No!

That’s right; we want it to be a straight line like this rope, right? If your plan is to become a professional soccer player, would you put in your plan to spend five years in a junior league before you went to the pros? No!

Would you put in a delay of a year for an injury? No!

You wouldn’t put those things in your plan on purpose! We usually want to get there as fast as we can, without any low points, obstacles or difficulties. Yet things often happen that we didn’t plan for, like we saw with Chris on his way to the soccer match last week.

Lay the rope in a wave pattern again. Joseph found himself in places and situations that he didn’t expect or understand or choose. Did he respond by complaining or becoming angry or bitter? No.

Joseph responded with patience and obedience, so God could use Him for a bigger plan than Joseph could imagine.

Have a volunteer read Romans 8:28:

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.

You see, we often think of good things associated only with the high points on the curves of the rope, not with the low points. But, with God, just because we are in a difficult situation or a valley, that does not mean the plan isn’t good! God works His good plan for us in all situations. God’s plans for us are good, yet we must choose to follow them patiently and with a desire to please Him, even when we are uncomfortable or in a hard place. And it is in those times that we should pray, and listen to God’s Spirit in our hearts, and be open to God’s purpose in that situation. When we are having a hard time, we should look around and ask God, is there someone we can help while we are here—someone who needs God’s kindness, goodness, mercy, and forgiveness? Or is there a job that we can do while we are in this difficult situation? Can we look past our own desires and wishes to accomplish God’s will and plan? God may have put us in that very spot to show someone His love or to do an important task.

Have a volunteer read 1 Corinthians 2:9–10:

That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him.” But it was to us that God revealed these things by His Spirit. For His Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets.

God has wonderful things planned for us, and He will reveal them to us at the proper time by His Spirit.  

Lay the rope in a straight line. It would be much easier if the plan for us looked like this, wouldn’t it? However, we would miss opportunities to grow spiritually and learn to trust God in deeper ways.

Lay the rope in a wave pattern. We must be patient and trust God and His will for us—even when our lives look something like this! When we trust the Lord, He will use these things for our good.

Discipleship Challenge/Practical Application

It is time for our Discipleship Challenge! Did any of you think about ways you could trust God and please Him when you were in a hard situation? What happened when you did?

Distribute a Trust Necklace Pattern and gold ribbon to each child who did not receive them in Lesson 1.

Let’s continue with our challenge, looking for opportunities to trust God and respond in ways that would be pleasing to Him. The next time we meet, I will ask how it went. 

SuperVerse

Have the girls stand beside each other in one line, and the boys stand beside each other in another line, with the two lines facing each other, about 6 feet apart. All children should be able to see the board.

To learn our SuperVerse from Jeremiah 29:11, let’s have the girls say the first sentence, and then the boys say the second sentence.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” 

Good job! Now let’s do the same thing, but shout the words!

Okay, let’s switch parts and have the boys shout the first sentence, then the girls shout the second.

Once you feel the children know the verse, have them turn their backs to the board and try to say or shout the words without looking.

Do you know that God knows everything about each one of you, inside and out? Do you know that He loves you unconditionally now while you are on Earth and forever when you live in heaven with Him? Think about that for a moment. How does that make you feel?

Have you ever wondered what you were on Earth to do; what your purpose in life is? In our verse, God says,

“I know the plans I have for you.”

God doesn’t say “Oh, you are too young; I will come up with a plan when you are older.” NO! He had a plan for you from the beginning of time. And this is really exciting—His plans for us are all good! God’s plans give us hope and a bright future when we follow Him!

Does this mean that there won’t be any difficulties or disappointments along the way? No, we will all experience them as long as we are on Earth. But if we stay on the right path, as Joseph did, we will discover that God is working out a good plan and we are part of it! How can we know God’s plan? Read God’s Word; pray; ask the Holy Spirit for understanding, wisdom and direction; talk with our parents, pastors, and Christian leaders.

Now let’s shout the SuperVerse—all together!

Prayer

Have the children find places to sit down where they can pray alone.

As we just learned in our SuperVerse, God has good plans for each of us. If we trust Him through good and bad times, He will work out His plans for our good and His bigger purpose. It is not always easy to trust God when things seem to go wrong. That is why we need to take time every day to be alone with God and ask Him to give us the power of His Holy Spirit. He will give us His strength, patience and courage to follow His path and complete His plan. The Bible tells us that Jesus took time away from the crowds and His disciples to spend time alone with God. Jesus was the Son of God—so if He needed to pray, do you think we should, too? Yes!

Let’s take a few minutes now to pray with God, alone. Are there some things you don’t understand in your life? Do you need some direction and wisdom? Maybe things are going well and you just want to thank God. Take time right now to close your eyes and bow your head before God.

Give children time to pray alone and then close with prayer. 

Dear God, thank You that You have a wonderful plan for each of our lives. Help us to follow Your ways and trust Your plan. We praise You that we can always trust You to do what is best for us. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Coin Game

In Genesis 42, Joseph sent the brothers on their way with sacks of grain they had purchased. However, Joseph ordered his servant to secretly put each of the brother’s money back in their sacks of grain. Joseph wanted to see if they would keep the money or return it—to test their honesty and integrity. Joseph needed to see if his brothers had changed. When the brothers returned home, they found the money in their grain sacks and were terrified. They thought Joseph would believe they stole the money. When the brothers returned to Egypt to buy more grain, they brought double the money with them to give to Joseph.

Today, we are going to play a game with two teams to see who can find the coins in their grain sacks first. The player who finds the three coins first receives one point for their team.

Divide the children into two equal teams—Team 1 and Team 2. Have teams stand on opposite sides of the tarp and bags, about 6–10 feet away. Hand three coins each to the helpers. One helper will always hide coins in the “1” bags. The other helper will always hide coins in the “2” bags. Each team will always have three coins in their bags but it is up to the helper to distribute the coins differently in each round so children don’t know where they are located—all coins in one bag, one coin in three bags, etc. Have the teams turn their backs to the bags and not look as the helpers hide the coins before each round. A player from each team will walk quickly to the three bags labeled for their team. They will search and dig through the bags to find all three coins. The bag contents cannot be dumped out! Once a player finds all three coins, they must shout the SuperTruth, and their team gets a point. The round ends, and the children turn their backs to the bags while the helpers secretly hide the coins again. After everyone has played, the team with the most points wins.

Optional: to add more difficulty, you may blindfold players before they search through the bags.

Object Lesson

Stand behind the starting line—rope—to begin and then progress along the path, stopping abruptly at each obstacle as if surprised that it halted your journey. Read the sheet inside the bag and do the presentation below until you reach the finish line—crepe paper, then break through the paper in dramatic fashion. Reset the finish line for the lesson.

We have been discussing Joseph and how he trusted God to complete His plan for Joseph’s life. Can you remember what Joseph’s dreams were and how they were fulfilled?

Do you think it was easy for Joseph to trust God through all the things that seemed to go wrong?

No, but Joseph didn’t complain or give up.

Here is the rope that we have been using to represent our journey. Right now, it represents the starting line for God’s plan for us. Now, usually when we begin something it is pretty exciting, right? However, as we move along, we may encounter difficulties or obstacles that we didn’t expect, some of them similar to what Joseph experienced.

1. Stop at Bag #1 and read the paper. Jealousy! Who was jealous of Joseph? His brothers.

Yes, when we live for God and walk out His plan for us, others may not understand God’s blessings in our lives—such as hope, peace, love, and joy—and they may become jealous. This is a wonderful opportunity for us to share that God is the source and they can experience these blessings, too! Now, we have a choice. Do we overcome the obstacle or do we become discouraged and give up?

Yes, let’s continue!

2. Stop at Bag #2 and read the paper. Tired! Have you ever become so tired that you wanted to give up? Does it ever seem like things take a lot longer than we expected?

Yes, we all have felt that way. Joseph must have grown tired at times, although we never read about him complaining or quitting. Surely, he could not have imagined the number of years it would take for his dreams to be fulfilled! God is the source of our strength. When we read His word and pray, He will renew our strength and encourage us to continue. God’s timing may be different than ours because His plan involves many people and events, like in Joseph’s life. So, do we overcome the obstacle of being tired or do we become discouraged and give up?

Yes, let’s continue!

3. Stop at Bag #3 and read the paper. Failure! Have you ever felt like a failure? Perhaps you didn’t do as well as you wanted to in an activity at school, in sports, in a relationship, or playing an instrument. None of us can do everything well. We all have different gifts and talents from God. Sometimes, when we try things for the very first time, we don’t do very well and feel we failed. We cannot let these things stop us when we are following God’s plan. We need to seek God and ask Him for His help and understanding. If we have failed by disobeying God’s Word, He is ready and willing to forgive us so we can continue on our journey without feeling guilty and ashamed! Now, do we overcome the obstacle of failure or do we become discouraged and give up?

Yes, let’s continue!

4. Stop at Bag #4 and read the paper. Gossip and lies. Has anyone ever spread gossip about you or accused you of something you didn’t do?

Joseph was falsely accused and thrown into prison when he didn’t deserve it! This must have been very discouraging to Joseph, but he did not give up! We must take these things to God in prayer and believe what He says about us—not what others say! We can also talk to our parents or other adults we trust if we feel that others are spreading untrue things about us. Do we overcome this obstacle with God’s help and trust His good plan for us, or do we become discouraged and give up?

Yes, we overcome!

Have the child read Philippians 1:6:

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue His work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.

Go right up to the finish line as if you’re going to cross it, then abruptly stop.

What if we allowed ourselves to get so discouraged that we stopped before we got to the finish line? Would God’s plan be completed? No!

That’s right, God’s plans for us are good and we need to trust Him to accomplish His plan from beginning until the end. If we decide to stop, we will miss out on something wonderful!

God has a good plan and a good work for each one of us. We can count on God to finish what He began in us. Even though we may face obstacles, God’s plan for us is good. We must trust Him and finish the journey, no matter what happens along the way!

Have all the children join you, then together walk quickly through the finish line to break the paper.

Musical Activity

Does anyone know the name of Joseph’s father? Jacob.

Jacob is also called Israel. How many sons did he have? Twelve.

Yes, Jacob had 12 sons, and each one became a tribe of Israel.

Point to each name on the board and have children say the names aloud with you to help with the pronunciation before they learn the song.

Let’s learn their names by singing a song, “The Sons of Jacob.”