Object Lesson on Gifts and Talents - Chess & Checkers

Use this object lesson on gifts and talents to teach kids how each of us has a special purpose.

Object Needed: Chess & Checker Set

Big Idea: God is using your special gifts and talents for a purpose.

We've included the text for this object lesson below and we even recorded a video to help give you ideas for how to teach it.  Enjoy watching!

Gifts and Talents Object Lesson Script

What's the difference between playing checkers and chess? In checkers all the pieces are the same. They look the same they move the same. They travel in the same direction. They take things one step, or one jump at a time. Some checkers get to be kings, but even the kings move one step, one jump, one diagonal direction at a time.

Chess is a little more complex. You have eight pawns who move one place at a time, in one direction, kind of like checkers. But then you have all these pieces in the back row: bishops who travel as far as they want on a diagonal, rooks who move from side to side, forward and back, Queens, who can move just about anywhere, and then there's the knight who kind of moves in an L, or is it a J?

A lot of people think the church should be like checkers. We should all think the same, act the same, pray the same, and worship the same. But that's not what the Bible teaches. Paul says in 1st Corinthians that the Church is more like a chess set. We all have our different abilities and our talents, but we all come together for the same purpose: to seek out the King of Kings.

Doesn't matter if you're a pawn, a bishop, a rook, a knight, or a queen. Whatever your talents are, you're a vital part of God's family. God has made you with a special purpose. Place those talents in God's hands and you'll be amazed at what He can do with all these different gifts.

Looking for more?  Be sure to view our entire collection of 52 Bible object lessons for kids and children's sermons.