The Hand Gospel Presentation

Way back when I was in high school we learned many different gospel presentations, and the one that at the time was the most complicated and I had the hardest time learning was the hand gospel presentation. Fast forward a few decades, and it is probably my very favorite gospel presentation and I used it every year in my Sunday School class as part of the introduction of our memory verse unit.

I call it a memory verse unit, but really it was more of a shift what skill we were working on learning. Summertime meant we worked on memorizing the same 12 verses every year, but I digress from the hand gospel presentation.

Hand Gospel presentation for Sunday School

(I don’t think there are any affiliate links in here because it literally needs only one prop)

The start of the presentation

I’m including a video of this because part of my struggle with learning the hand gospel presentation was following along with the pictures at the time. I made my kids take the pictures, so it’s fabulous quality.

Actually, since I’m asking The Artist, it probably is fairly decent quality.

Important points for the start of the presentation:

Right hand represents God, this is only because if you take this into some cultures there is a cultural thought the left hand is bad (clearly being left-handed I do not believe this)
Left hand represents man
hands joined together to represent relationship

Three things to know about God:

God is perfect, He never did sinned, Leviticus 11:45
God is powerful, He made the whole world, Genesis 1:1
God is personal, He wants a relationship with us John 3:16

Sin is anything:

we do
say or
think that breaks God’s law

This is where I give examples and make sure to point out it includes everything from calling your sibling a name to murder, all of those sins are examples of breaking God’s law.

We made a bad choice

We chose to sin, and because of that we were separated from God.

This is where you need something to represent sin. Since I’m usually doing this for young kids I like to borrow a kid’s shoe because shoes are stinky and yucky and gross, just like sin.

When I was talking with a couple of missionaries they commented where they worked, using a shoe would be too big of a distraction because everyone would be thinking of where the shoe had been, and some other thoughts to go with that.

The big points here:

Everyone has sinned, Romans 3:23
The consequence of sin is death, Romans 6:23
We cannot do enough good things to fix our relationship with God

This is where you can give examples of good works we try to do, giving money to a homeless person, being nice to our brother, or helping at school.

God made a better choice

Honestly, not how I would phrase it, but I thought it made a great heading. Okay, it’s just kinda cheesy, and I’m in a mood as I write this.

hand gospel presentation Jesus took our sin

As you tell this part take the sin from man and put it on Jesus.

God sent His son Jesus to live a perfect life, and die on the cross:

Jesus was perfect and never sinned
He died on a cross
He was buried and rose again on the third day

We can be friends with God again

Now because of what Jesus did we can be friends with God again, now to do that we have to do the ABC’s:

Admit you are a sinner
Believe Jesus died on the cross for your sins, was buried, and rose again on the third day
Choose to accept the free gift of salvation from God

That last part is important to emphasize, I like to give the example of giving a present to someone, until they take the present and open it they do not have it, it is in no man’s land, it is offered, but not taken.

Now when you do that three things happen:

All our sins, past, present, and future are forgiven, 1 John 1:9
God will never leave you, Hebrews 13:5b
You will have a home in heaven when you die someday

Now we have three things to do to grow in God

Are you ready, it will be super hard to keep track of:

Go to church, you can hear great teaching about God
Read your Bible, learn more for yourself
Pray, talk to God about your day, and tell Him your good news and where you need help

You’ll notice the hand gospel presentation has lots of sets of three

Actually, most of my gospel presentations work in sets of three. That’s for a couple of reasons, I’ll say three reasons, because it amuses me.

I use the same points over and over again
We remember in sets of three, you see three in stories over and over again
Sets of three are easily repeated by others, it is a great way to help people remember it if you have them repeat it back to you

Hand Gospel Presentation Video

I put together this rather terrible video at the last minute so I can share this gospel presentation with y’all.

More great Bible lessons

I love to create Bible lessons, so I’ve got more than a few things you can do: