Family Guide: Generosity
At Bridgetown, our goal is that every person – adult and child – would be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus did. But these things don’t just happen overnight; they take time, intention, and repetition. So, with this in mind, we will be releasing a Family Guide during each teaching series to help you engage a particular Practice from the life and teaching of Jesus together. Since these Guides are aimed at kids of multiple ages, please skip or adapt anything that does not feel age appropriate. These Guides are written conversationally, so feel free to read through them. Italicized words are notes to parents and bolded words are questions to take some time with.
Have you ever heard the word “generosity”? What do you think it means to be “generous” or show “generosity” to someone?
Parents: Pause here for your child(ren) to share their answers.
“Generosity” is when we share the things that God has given us with others. And God has given us so much! We can be generous by sharing our money or other resources with someone in need, but we can also be generous by sharing our time, energy, and attention with others as an act of love. We can be generous to people we love—like our classmates and our neighbors—and to strangers. Have you ever had the chance to be generous? Have you ever received someone else’s generosity?
Parents: Pause here for each person to share their answers.
Imagine you are at school. You reach inside your backpack and you realize, oh no: you’ve forgotten your lunch. You don’t have any money with you to buy lunch, either. Your classmate sits down next to you and asks what’s wrong. When you explain that you don’t have any lunch to eat, they open up their bag and say, “Here! Eat half of my sandwich! And I brought extra carrots today. Would you like some?”. Imagine how this would make you feel. Your friend showed you love and took care of you by being generous.
All through the Bible, Jesus teaches and shows his followers about how important it is to love others. Jesus set an example of the many ways we can love others, including by being generous. One day, someone asked Jesus about what the Bible really means when it commands us to love our neighbors. Jesus, as he often did, replied not with rules but with a story. Let’s explore that story together now to see how it can teach us about generosity.
Parents: Pull out a Bible and read Luke 10v30-37. After reading the story, work through these questions together:
What did the hurt man in this story need? (He needed help! He needed medical care and a safe place to stay while his body healed.)
Who showed him generosity? (The Samaritan)
In what ways was the Samaritan generous to the hurt man?
How do you think the hurt man felt when the Samaritan helped him? How would you have felt?
When he finished the story, Jesus told his friends to go and show others love, just like the Samaritan did. Whether we’re helping someone in an emergency situation or bringing joy to a friend through a surprise, there are all kinds of ways we can be generous. What are some ways we can show generosity to others?
Just like the Samaritan in Jesus’ story, we get to show love to others through generosity. Being generous tells someone: “You are important and worthy of love”. There are so many ways we can do this—we can let other kids play with our toys or books, we can give money to people in need, we can cook food for people, we can help a neighbor with yard work, and so much more!
There are times generosity feels really easy, but other times it can be really hard. Sometimes it means we choose to share things that we might not want to share. When each of us thinks about being generous to others, how does that make us feel? What might be something easy for us to share? What might be something hard for us to share?
Parents: Pause here for each person to share answers.
It’s ok if generosity feels a little hard or scary. Jesus knows that sometimes we get worried that we might not have enough, which can make it hard to share. When his friends were anxious about not having enough, Jesus told them to look at the birds. That sounds kind of silly, huh? But Jesus pointed out that God always provides food for them. And God loves US even more than the birds, so we never need to worry about having enough. (Matthew 6v26-27) In fact, because God first loved us generously, we get to love others generously too. When we are generous, we are loving others and we are loving God.
Let’s end by talking about specific ways we can show God’s love to others through generosity. Remember that there are so many ways to be generous. Some require sharing money or resources, but Jesus shows us that sharing our time, energy, and attention is just as important.
Practicing Generosity is like practicing riding a bike or playing piano or dribbling a basketball or speaking a new language – we learn it best when we start slow and simple. So rather than doing something really big to start, it can be helpful to pick something simple that we can accomplish in the next week.
Here is a list of three ideas for us to explore that are simple. Let’s discuss them and pick one to try this week!
Idea #1: Give something we have to someone who needs it. – One of the ways we could practice Generosity is by sharing with someone in need. We could donate warm winter clothes to people who don’t have a place to live. We could give a gift to someone who is feeling down or share a meal with someone. We could ask an organization that serves others in our city how we can support the work they are doing. After we give this thing away, we can spend time praying together and thanking God that He always gives us what we need.
Idea #2: Share our time with others. – Another idea is to be generous with our time by hosting or serving someone. We could invite someone from church or school or work over for dinner. We could visit an elderly neighbor and talk with them. We could sign up to help serve dinner at a local shelter. We feel the most loved when we feel the most known, so our goal is to show love by seeing others, listening to them, and learning about them.
Idea #3: Make something for someone. – Have you ever received a homemade gift from someone? Sometimes a homemade gift is even more special than an expensive gift, because we made it with our own hands, time, and creativity. We could draw pictures or write kind words to someone. We could make a painted rock for our neighbor’s garden or a Christmas ornament for a family member.
Which of these three do we want to commit to?
Parents: Write down the idea your family chooses and any specifics you decide on and put it up where the whole family can see it!
Whether on a car ride from church or at dinner later this month or some other time, let’s decide when we want to bring this up again and think about how we can continue to grow in generosity. And, finally, let’s end by praying together that God would help us to be generous and love others like Jesus does.