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The Card Nobody Counted

Game · Upper elementary · 20 min

Grace Community Church
POWERED BY KIDOLOGY
 Grace Community Church
GAME · Ages 9–11 · 25-37 MIN · Matthew 18:21-35

The Card Nobody Counted

BIG IDEA
God has forgiven us a debt so huge we never even counted it — and that is why we let go of the small ones other people owe us.
SUPPLIES · 8 ITEMS
Large whiteboard or poster board 13 index cards
Markers Tape
Paper and a pen for each team One small index card per child
A pencil per child A Bible
HOW TO PLAY YOUR NOTES
SET UP
Set Up the Board
DO Write 12 small, silly offenses on index cards, each with a number attached — for example: 'Kevin ate my last chip — 4', 'Sister used my towel without asking — 2', 'Got picked last for kickball on purpose — 7', 'Borrowed my pencil and it came back chewed — 3'. Tape all 12 to the front of the board, spaced out so they're easy to read from across the room.
DO On a 13th card, write a debt with no clean number — something like 'Everything I owe everyone else — nobody knows'. Tape this card to the BACK of the board, where no one can see it until you lift the board around.
DO Have something ready to cover the front of the board — a sheet, a second poster, or simply turn it to face the wall until you're ready to reveal it.
1
3-5 min
Twelve Cards, Thirty Seconds
DO Split the room into two or three teams. Reveal the front of the board with all 12 cards showing.
SAY You have thirty seconds. Study every card on this board — what happened, and the number next to it. Go.
DO After 30 seconds, cover the board.
SAY Time's up. Board's covered — no peeking.
2
5-8 min
Total Up What You're Owed
DO Give each team paper and a pen.
SAY Write down every card you can remember — what happened, and the number. Then add up all your numbers. You've got two minutes.
DO Call time after two minutes. Go team by team and have them read their list and their total out loud. Cheer for whoever remembered the most and has the highest total — make it a real competition.
3
1-2 min
Predict: Did We Get Them All?
SAY Before I show you the board again — is there anything on it that nobody counted? Anything we missed?
DO Let them argue it out. Some will insist they got everything. Some will want to recheck their lists. Don't let anyone go look behind the board yet — just let the disagreement sit for a moment.
4
2-3 min
The Card Behind the Board
DO Lift the board and turn it around so everyone can see the 13th card taped to the back.
SAY Nobody wrote this one down. Not one team even looked for it.
DO Let the groan happen — some kids will feel cheated, that's fine, it's the point landing.
SAY We were really, really good at counting what other people owed us. Twelve little debts, and we nailed almost all of them. But not one of us thought to check what we owed. That's not an accident — that's just how people work. Let's see what Jesus says about that.
5
5-8 min
Jesus Tells It First
DO Open a Bible to Matthew 18.
SAY Peter comes to Jesus with a question. He asks, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I don't tell you until seven times, but, until seventy times seven." (Matthew 18:21-22, WEB)
SAY Peter thought seven was generous. Jesus basically says: stop counting.
DO Explain that Jesus then tells a story to explain why. Retell it in your own words, not as a quotation: a king decides to settle accounts, and a servant is brought to him who owes ten thousand talents — an amount so enormous the servant could never earn or save enough to pay it back in his whole lifetime. The servant begs for more time. The king does something the servant never asked for and never earned:
SAY "The lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt." (Matthew 18:27, WEB)
SAY The debt is just gone. The servant didn't pay a cent of it. He didn't deserve it and he didn't earn it — the king just forgave it.
DO Continue the retelling: that same servant leaves, finds someone who owes HIM a hundred denarii — real money, a real debt, not a made-up one — and has him thrown in jail over it. When the king hears what happened, he's furious.
SAY That servant had just been forgiven the biggest debt anyone in the story could imagine, and minutes later he forgot all about it. The small debt was real — the guy really did owe him money. But he'd just been forgiven something a thousand times bigger, and he acted like it never happened.
6
3-5 min
One Name, One Sentence, By Wednesday
DO Give each child a small card and a pencil.
SAY On the back of this card, write down one real thing someone actually owes you — something someone did that still bugs you. Nobody's going to read it. Nobody's going to collect it. This is just between you and God.
DO Give them a minute of quiet to write.
SAY Now decide one thing. Are you going to tell that person, "I'm not bringing that up again"? Or are you going to stop telling other people the story about it? Pick one, and write down what day you're going to do it — before Wednesday.
SAY God forgave us a debt we never could have paid, before we did one thing to deserve it. That's why we can let the small ones go.
DO Let kids either put the card in a pocket to keep, or drop it in a bin on their way out — either is fine, the decision was already made when they wrote it down.
THE PASSAGE · Matthew 18:21-35
Peter asks Jesus how many times he has to forgive someone — seven times seems generous to him. Jesus tells him seventy times seven, then tells a story: a servant owes a king an amount so large he could never repay it in a hundred lifetimes, and the king forgives the whole thing on the spot, no payment plan, nothing earned. That same servant walks out and grabs a man who owes him pocket change, and has him thrown in jail for it. When the king hears, he is furious — not because the debt was fake, but because the servant had just been forgiven everything and forgot it in minutes.
TALK ABOUT IT · PICK ONE OR TWO
YOUNGER
Which is easier — forgiving something small, like a friend cutting in line, or something that actually hurt your feelings? Why do you think that is?
OLDER
Why do you think it's so easy to remember exactly what someone owes us, but so hard to remember what we owe other people?
The servant had just been forgiven a debt he could never repay in his whole life, and then he grabbed a guy over pocket change. Why do you think he did that?
Is forgiving someone the same thing as forgetting it happened? What's the difference?
BEFORE YOU TEACH IT
Please review and adapt all generated content before use.
Grace Community Church · GAME · The Card Nobody Counted KIDOLOGY.ORG

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