Scripture: Matthew 25: 1-13 (for All Saints text click here)

Preparation: another adult or youth to participate

Faith+Open: Gather the children with you. Welcome them and have your volunteer adult enter walking up either with or after the children. Have the volunteer plop down and look bored.

Faith+Share: 
Dialogue follows:
Leader: “Hey____ what’s wrong? What are you doing?”
2nd person: “I’m waiting”
Leader: “What are you waiting for?”
2nd Person: “Jesus. Isn’t that what our story is about?”
Leader: “Well, kind of.  Jesus says that he will come back one day but we don’t know when so it could be a long time from now. But we know that God is with us always now. You know, when I have to wait I like to do something to pass the time. It makes the time that I am waiting seem productive.”
2nd Person: “Like what?”
Leader: “Well, Jesus says that we will have to wait for him to come back but we should be sure to tell other people about him and help people while we wait.”
2nd Person:  “Oh. That’s a good idea, it’s better than just sitting here and doing nothing. Very boring.” Leader: “Right! We shouldn’t be bored so God has things for us to do while we wait. Let’s see what could we do while we wait for Jesus?”
2nd person: Name some missions and ministries of your congregation. Ask the children what they could do while they wait for Jesus. “Jesus loves us very much and wants us to share that love! What a fun thing to do while we wait!”

Faith+Prayer:
God we wait for you and we also live for you. Teach us to see you today in our world and to reach out to those who need to know your love. Amen

Faith+Blessing: Remember God is with us always.  Make sign of cross together saying:
God in my head
God in my heart
God on my left
God on my right

Extension Ideas: 
1. Do a service project like making cards for those who have lost loved ones this year.
2. Read one of the stories from Children’s Literature for November 6

Preparation: Ten commandments written into the categories of Love God and Love Neighbor and index cards or pieces of paper rolled up with the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 written on them)

Faith+Open: Gather children with you. Have you heard of the ten commandments? Can you tell me what they are? Respond as appropriate, if they know them Yay! If not, respond encouragingly that there are two commands they can learn (or maybe three, I’m partial to Honor father and mother 🙂

Faith+Share: Good, we know that there are ten commandments given to Moses and actually there are a lot more than 10 in the Bible. There are 613! So we are going to learn them today… pause… just kidding! What rules do you have at home or school? Do you think there is one that is the most important? yay, it might be hard to decide what is most important. Jesus was asked by some leaders who knew all the 613 laws very well which one was the most important. And they might have been surprised because he had an answer for them. He said, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul and mind and Love your neighbor as yourself. If you think about it,(show ten commandments divided into these categories) when we talk about how to live as Christians these two commands cover all the other commandments. Go briefly through list. 

When Jesus said to love God and neighbor he was not actually saying something new. He was telling them what scripture said in Deuteronomy and in Leviticus. In fact this was such important part about being Jewish that it has a special name, the Shema. Have them repeat the word Shema. Read Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and explain that this tells us to love God and live in God’s word all the time, everyday and everywhere. Show them a mezuzah or the rolled up paper. The Shema would be in the mezuzah which would go on the doorposts of people’s homes so that would remember that God’s word was on their hearts at home and whenever they left home. Hand out the index cards or scrolls that you have prepared and encourage the children to take them home and put them on their table or by their door or in a special place. Tell them to try to read and say the Shema as a family every day this week.

Faith+Prayer and Blessing: 
God, you love us all the time. Thank you for the gift of your words and your love for us. Help us to show our love for you and our love for others by the way we act and live. In the name of the Father, Son, + and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Extension Ideas: 
1. Have kids repeat the Shema or parts of it.
2. Make mezuzahs or scrolls together instead of handing them out
3. use chart paper and have the kids come up with which category each commandment goes into
4. Teach them the song “Love the Lord your God”  Here is a link to a youtube so you can hear the music

Lyrics:
Love the lord your God
With all your heart and
All your soul
And all your mind
And love all humankind
As you would love
Yourself and…

Love the lord your God
With all your heart
And all your
Soul and mind
And love all humankind

We’ve got Christian
Lives to live
We’ve got Jesus’
Love to give
We’ve got
Nothing to hide
Because in God we abide

Love the lord your God
With all your heart
And all your soul
And all your mind
And love all humankind
As you would love
Yourself and…

Love the lord your God
With all your heart
And all your
Soul and mind
And love all humankind

We’ve got Christian
Lives to live
We’ve got Jesus’
Love to give
We’ve got
Nothing to hide
Because in God we abide  LOVE

~LB

Preparation: cross or heart stickers–enough for each child to have 5

Faith+Open: Invite the children to come for children’s time. Begin by showing them a party hat and talking about the last birthday party for a friend that you went to. Read “The Wedding Banquet” parable from the Spark Bible (Augsburg Fortress) or another children’s Bible.

 Faith+Share: How many of you have been to a special party? When you go to a special party how do you dress? How do you act? Are you on good behavior? Why? (Accept all answers. If they need prompting talk how when we are at a friend’s house or a family members house (like grandma and grandpa) 

We want our friends and family to know by how we act that we love them and care about them. Our story from the Bible this morning tells us that God wants everyone to be in God’s family. God invites everyone all over the world to God’s party! That is really special. We are all included because God loves us. How do you think we should act being a part of God’s family? Just as we may put on nice clothes for a party for a friend, some people wear a cross either as a necklace, bracelet, pin or even ring so that God’s love can been seen by everyone.  God puts love in our hearts to share with everyone so that everyone knows that we are in God’s family and they are too!  How can we show God’s love and that everyone is invited into God’s family? (We can be nice to friends and siblings, we can help people, we can tell them about Jesus and God’s love, write cards to neighbors, collect food for the hungry, etc.) I have some cross stickers that I want you to give to friends and family members to share God’s love with them. When you give them a sticker you can tell them that God loves them and so do you! (Have enough stickers so that each child can have one of their own and three or four to give away.)

 Faith+Close: Prayer: Dear loving God, you want all of your children to be included in your love. Help us to share your love with everyone we meet. Your love is like a joyous party that we all can come to! Thank you for the best gift of all your Son Jesus! Amen

 ~BW

Summary: The parable of the labors in the field could be summed up by saying “that’s not fair,” a familiar phrase in households with children. They will understand the idea of something not being fair so we emphasize living in God’s grace means that mercy trumps being fair in the kingdom of God. 

Preparation: a small something to give away (i.e., candy, small crosses, pencils)

Faith+Open: Gather the children with you. Have the line up from oldest to youngest (or tallest to shortest if that is easier. You can also do a just a few kids if you have too many to do it with all of them) and spend some time examining them in this order making sure it’s right.

Faith+Share: “Let’s see here. We have the oldest/tallest here at this end of the line and the youngest/shortest here at this end of the line. I have here these (candy or small crosses or some small giveaway) to give out but who should go first?” If you don’t get kids vying to go first right away then prompt them a bit by asking should oldest go first? Or tallest? Or those who got up her first?, etc.

“Do you have line leaders at school? And what is the line leaders job? So they go first for the day? Hhmmm. Well if this is my line leader then it means the kid at the very end is very last right?” (You may want to have the kids sit at this point, but stay in their line)

“Well we heard/will hear this gospel story from Jesus that there were workers in a field and some worked from the beginning of the day and some didn’t work until the end of the day but they all got paid the same. Do you know what the workers who got their first said? Yep, they said, ‘That’s not Fair!’ we worked longer and harder and we should get more. But they were given what they were promised, it was just the same as what the workers who came later were promised. Have you ever had something be not fair? So we know what it feels like think that we didn’t get treated the same. BUT Jesus tells this story to teach us about GRACE. See the workers who were hired later still had families to bring home food to and the landowner did not want anyone to go hungry so they were all paid the same. Jesus says that God is like this. God gives us what we need and loves us all so much that we don’t get what we deserve, we get GRACE. Jesus said the last will be first and the first last! This might sound unfair to let the last go first but with God we are all included and we are all a part of God’s GRACE and we are all God’s Children.”
“We are going to say a prayer of thanks and then I will hand these out. Can you guess which way I will hand them out? The last shall be first!”

Faith+Prayer: God, you give us grace and love. Thank you for your love for us and for all people. Help us to remember that no matter whether we are first or last we are your children. Amen

~LB

Faith+Open: Gather children with you and a copy of the 10 commandments with you. Show them what you have and explain what it is.

Faith+Share: I am going to tell you a commandment and I want you to tell me if it’s about loving God or loving people. Read all or some of the commandments and have them respond with God or People. The commandments are there for us to know that loving God and loving people are the most important ways we live together. Now, we may know this is important but let me see… raise your hand if you ever have a disagreement with someone during the day. Think of all the people you see in a day and if you ever have times that you don’t get along…. I can tell you that I am remember that my brother and I argued probably a lot when we were kids. And we would often go and run and tell our mom–how many of you do that? We wanted her to pick one person to be right, but you know, she never really did–even when I KNEW that of course I was right! Instead she wanted us to work out. Do you ever hear those words to ‘work it out’?   Today our Gospel story Jesus tells us how to work things out with other people. It’s not always easy but first we need to tell the person why what they are doing is not okay with us. Then if that doesn’t work we can go get help to work it out. And you know what–we are asked to do this with love. Wow. That’s hard. I remember one time my brother and I had to hold hands while we were arguing, that sure made us want to figure it out quickly! Jesus asks us to work things out and to remember that the other person is a loved child of God just like we are–and Jesus promises to be with us even when we are angry or in a fight with someone else. You can take anytime in your life and Jesus promises to be there with you and with the other person. 

Faith+Prayer: God, we don’t always like everybody. We don’t always get along. Be with us when we argue and help us to remember to love. Thank you for your promise to be with us all of the time. Amen

Faith+Blessing: Make the sign of the cross together and say
God in my head
God in my heart
God on left
God on my right

Make the sign a second time together saying
God in my highs
God in my lows
God with me today
God with me wherever I go

***idea for using the 10 commandments is modified from Worshiping with Children

Extended resources: Worshiping with Children Year A Proper 18 has some excellent ideas and refers to two books that would work well to read for children’s sermon instead of using the 10 commandments.