📖 Unit 1: The Church Is Born
An 8-week Acts curriculum for elementary kids covering Pentecost, the early church, and the first persecution.
The Ascension and the Wait
Acts 1
Jesus appears to his disciples for forty days after the resurrection and then ascends into a cloud while they watch. Two angels tell them he will come back the same way, and the disciples return to Jerusalem to wait and pray for the Holy Spirit he promised.
View LessonThe Day of Pentecost
Acts 2:1-41
On the Jewish feast of Pentecost the Holy Spirit falls on the disciples like a rushing wind and tongues of fire, and they speak in languages they never learned. Peter preaches to the crowd and three thousand people believe and are baptized in a single day.
View LessonThe Early Church and Fellowship
Acts 2:42-47
The new believers devote themselves to the apostles' teaching, breaking bread together, prayer, and sharing everything they have. Their generosity and joy attract more people every day, and the church grows not by a program but by love.
View LessonLame Man Healed at the Gate
Acts 3
Peter and John pass a man who has been lame since birth begging at the Beautiful Gate, and Peter looks at him and says, 'Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you.' The man leaps to his feet, walks, and enters the temple praising God.
View LessonBoldness Before the Council
Acts 4:1-31
The Sanhedrin arrests Peter and John and demands to know by what power they healed the lame man, and Peter boldly declares that it is by the name of Jesus, the cornerstone they rejected. The council is astonished because they are ordinary, uneducated men who have been with Jesus.
View LessonAnanias and Sapphira: The Danger of Lying to God
Acts 5:1-11
Ananias and Sapphira sell property and secretly keep part of the money while pretending to give it all to the church, and God strikes them both dead on the spot. This sobering story shows kids that God takes honesty seriously and that pretending to be something we are not is a form of lying to God.
View LessonSeven Servants and Stephen's Witness
Acts 6-7
The apostles choose seven men full of the Spirit to oversee the distribution of food, freeing the apostles to focus on prayer and the Word. Stephen, one of the seven, begins performing miracles and is brought before the Sanhedrin where his face shines like an angel's.
View LessonThe First Martyr and the Great Scattering
Acts 7:54-8:3
Stephen preaches a powerful sermon through Israel's whole history, and the council stones him to death as Saul watches approvingly. Stephen prays for his killers as he dies, mirroring Jesus on the cross, and the resulting persecution scatters the believers and spreads the gospel everywhere.
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