Summer Fun: 39 Clues to You -- Week 4

Sometimes other people's decisions aren't the same as ours. We don't understand why they make the choices they do.

When you're a kid, it's easy to think that if other people don't think exactly like you, then their decision is wrong. How many times have you heard kids argue about what the best TV show is or what the best pizza topping is? And how many times have those discussions degenerated into an "I'm right, you're wrong" argument?

This week's 39 Clues focused on helping kids understand that even though we might make different decisions about the things we like and don't like, that doesn't make those decisions wrong. It just makes them different.

Our verse for the week was Romans 12:12 "Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ." All the parts of our body don't do the same thing. They have different functions and they are intended to do different things. We are just like body parts. God intended for us all to follow Jesus, but He has different roles for each of us to play in His plan. If we try to be just like someone else, then we aren't fulfilling that role.

We had 39 Clues on Monday night this week to fit with everyone's camp and vacation schedules. We started with pizza. We had three four different types of pizza, and each of the girls got to choose their favorite kind. Before we ate, we looked at the pizza on everyone's plate. We talked about how sometimes we have choices to make that have a definite right or wrong answer. But we also often get to make choices just based on preferences.

I had the girls give me some examples of right and wrong choices. Then I asked them what kind of pizza they thought God wanted them to choose. They all laughed. We talked about how we each have preferences about certain things. Those preferences come from the way God wired us to be.

Because God wired each of us to have certain likes and dislikes, it makes God sad when we choose to ridicule others or be mean to others just because they like or don't like the same things we do. We are all part of one body, and your mouth doesn't go around making fun of your hands just because your hands are different. We shouldn't go around making fun of others just because they like or dislike different things than us.

Our featured child for the day was my oldest daughter's best friend. She loves reading and Tae Kwon Do. I gave each child some modeling clay and had them create a scene from their favorite book. Then each girl explained what their book was about. We talked about the differences in the books and I had every girl tell me whether they would read the others' books. We discovered that while we all liked different things to read, we all liked to read. I had my daughter's friend tell us the things that she likes about reading.

Then, we all went outside and had our featured girl show us some Tae Kwon Do moves. She's a high brown belt in Tae Kwon Do. She showed us some of the stuff that she can do and taught us some really simple kicks. She told us what she liked about Tae Kwon Do, and the other girls talked about whether it sounded like something they would like to do or not.

We finished up with a challenge to work together with someone else this week (like our body parts work together) to do something that is pleasing to God. We shared prayer requests and prayed together before some really tired girls headed home to bed.

Hopefully, this week, the girls will think about working together as part of one body and that will change the way they think about treating others as well.