Scripture: Luke 16:19-31
Learning Objectives:
- Students will learn God expects us to obey Him while we are alive.
- Students will learn God expects us to treat everyone with respect, regardless of their social stays or any other factor.
- Students will learn there are no second chances after death and those who are determined not to obey God wouldn’t be convinced even if someone came back from the dead and warned them.
- Students will learn about using food creatively and not wasting it while also creating a low waste cookbook for people in impoverished areas.
Guiding Question: How can being careful and smart with how we eat be used to influence and help others?
Materials: White paper, 3 hole punch, yarn,
Procedure: Review the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus from the scripture above. Emphasize the importance of treating all people kindly and serving them no matter who they are or what their background is. Remind students that God wants us to live that way and Jesus showed that as He served and spent time with many different kinds of people. Explain that the Rich Man could have easily fed Lazarus with his scraps of food and not been wasteful.
Ask the students how they think they could feed others and help others feed themselves. Explain that we can be less wasteful by using the food we have and being careful with what we choose to eat. Tell the students that there are many impoverished people who have access to limited food and would benefit from knowing how to get the most out of their food and have little to no waste when cooking.
Introduce the service project. Explain to the students that they are going to make low waste cookbooks to provide those who live in impoverished areas. This will help educate those who have limited access to food on how to make the most of their meals. Have the students research low waste recipes for the cookbook. Make sure the students are mindful of the recipes they find – the recipes should not have pricey food that impoverished people are not able to purchase and/or do not have access too.
Suggestions for cookbook:
- Using chopped broccoli stems in stir fry recipe
- Banana bread recipe using less ripe bananas
- Cook and freeze black beans for future use – include simple black bean recipes
- Recipes using frozen vegetables
Additional Questions: How can living frugally lead to serving others more?
Supplemental Activity: Have students make a list of the things they spend money on the most. Talk with the students about where they could cut back on spending money and how they could use that money to serve others. Have the students pick a charity or ministry that they would like to support through donation or purchasing something they need. For the next month, have students save money and live simply in order to serve others.