Needed: You will want to have a picture of Martin Luther King, Jr. to show the children.
Gather your students and ask them: Do any of you know what holiday is tomorrow?
Tomorrow is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
Do any of you know who Martin Luther King, Jr. was? What can you tell me about him?
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an African American pastor who saw that white people in our country were not treating other people fairly due to the fact that their skin was a different color.
Have you ever seen someone make fun of someone or treat someone badly because their skin was a different color?
In the time of Martin Luther King, Jr., African Americans were treated badly when whites did not let them go to the same schools as them, or to the same restaurants as them.
Do you think God cares about the color of our skin?
God loves everyone equally and thinks it is good for us to have different skin colors. That is why God made us to have different skin colors.
As a pastor, Martin Luther King, Jr. knew that God loved everyone and that it was not okay to treat people badly or make fun of them because of the color of their skin.
He once gave a very famous speech which was titled “I have a dream.” In that speech, he talked about how he dreamed of a day when everyone was treated the same, regardless of their skin color or what other differences they might have. He said he dreamed of a time when all people were ‘Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are finally free!
What do you think he meant when he said he dreamed of a day when everyone would be free? What did you think people needed to be freed from?
Martin Luther King, Jr. knew that people should be free from being treated badly or unfairly by other people. As a pastor, he also knew that people must be free from sin. “
(Read, or have your students read, John 8: 34-36).
Sin is the main reason people treat others unfairly. It is wrong to treat people badly, but if we trust Jesus to forgive our sins, then He will free us from doing those wrong things and teach us how to do the right things. When Jesus frees us from our sins, he will teach us how to love other people and how to treat other people as God does.
Can you think of a way that you can show God’s love to someone who has a different skin color than you?
Let us pray for that.
Sample Prayer: Father God, we thank you for sending Jesus to forgive our sins, and we thank you for people like Martin Luther King, Jr., who remind us that you love everyone equally. Help us to love others as you love them. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.