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Faith + Alive January Remembrance of Baptism

 

20130822-223520.jpg Gather your household. Have a candle (or everyone’s baptismal candles if you have them) and a bowl of water on a table.  Light the candle (or all of them) and say: “Come Holy Spirit.” Open in prayer: Dear Jesus, through your baptism we too are named as God’s beloved children. May our lights shine in the darkness to glorify our Father in heaven. Amen.

20130822-223633.jpg Read Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22. Or Pages 242-245 in the Spark Storybook Bible.

For Children: What do we use water for in our day? (Bath, clean dishes, clothes, drink, cook, etc.) We use water all day long and we also need it for our bodies to be healthy. God uses water and words of love to tell the whole world that we belong to God now and forever. When you were baptized we splashed water on you three times (can you count to three?) and said, “In the name of the Father, in the Son and in the Holy Spirit.” Then we lit a candle just like we did here to remember that Jesus is the light of the world and that we reflect Jesus’ light in the world too. How can you show Jesus’ love at school? At home? At soccer/ballet/piano etc.?

For Adults/youth: Do you know the story of your baptism? Or do you remember your baptism? These stories are more than just a nice memory with family, but mark the day that you parents/sponsors proclaimed that life in and with God and the people of God is important. Not just important but vital-life and death. Water has much power in our world: it can clean, erode, give life, cause death, have beauty and be destructive. God uses water to tell the story of love between God and his people from the beginning. This story is continued with Jesus. Baptism, living water, woman at the well, thirsting on the cross and water flowing from his pierced side. Water is powerful but so is God’s word, God’s story in our lives. This story begins at birth, is proclaimed through water in baptism, is nourished at the table with bread and wine and is shared with us in community.

For All: From whom did you first hear God’s story? Or who was a primary teller of the story in your life? With whom do you tell the story of God’s love? Who would you like to tell about what God is doing in your life? What difference does this story of God’s love make in your daily life?

20130822-223749.jpgGod of living water, we find ourselves rooted in your story of love. We are part of what you are doing in the world to show everyone that they are loved, forgiven and belong to you. We pray for your kingdom to come. Amen.

20130822-223908.jpg Dipping your fingers in the bowl of water, make the sign of the cross on one another and say:  +You are God’s beloved child. Go tell the story.+

FaithCross_Worship Remembering God’s story! Have the Luke reading printed off in large print and on a large piece of butcher paper (you will want blank space around the words). Invite people to bring in a copy of their baptism picture to place on the banner with the reading and/or draw an image or a symbol of baptism that is meaningful to them. Other options: invite people to write/draw where they experience God’s story in their lives or a prayer for where they could share God’s story.

At home:  With children: Have copies (not precious originals) of baptismal pictures. Using construction paper or plain paper, make a small story book of your baptismal day.

With adults/youth: Place a picture of your baptism or a symbol of baptism (dove, candle, sea shell) on your bathroom mirror and every morning remember that you are being made new to go and share God’s love.

FaithCross_ServeALT Take an old water bottle, decorate it with symbols of baptism. Place it where people in the household can place their spare change each day. At the end of Epiphany (Feb. 7th) donate the change to the ELCA World Hunger. www.elca.org

 

 

 

New life in Christ John 12: 20-33

ffjChildrenSermonHave some flower seeds, a tulip and tulip bulb, (or a poinsettia,) soil, small pots, and markers, etc. to decorate the pots if you desire as part of a worship station.

20130715-113716.jpg Have a tulip, a tulip bulb (or some other bulb flower) or the poinsettia. Gather the children around the tulip/poinsettia. If using the poinsettia ask the children when they last saw this plant. Christmas! The cool thing about poinsettia’s is that they “bloom” (red leaves) when it’s cold and actually need to stay in a dark closet with no light for much of the year. We bring them out in the fall when there is less sunlight and that is when they thrive. In the dark the poinsettias are renewing and getting ready to grow!

If using a tulip and bulb ask the children if they have every planted bulbs before. Does this bulb look like it could become a flower right now? No. It doesn’t. It just looks dead and pretty useless right now. But we plant the bulb in the fall about 6-8 inches underground so that no sunlight gets to them. All winter they stay a bulb in the ground, dead and not doing much. And then when the weather gets warmer and the ground unfreezes and becomes softer and warmer, the bulb begins to grow a stem. And a couple of weeks later you get these beautiful tulips that grow! This dead bulb will stay just the way it is unless we bury it in the dark and let it sit for a while. Beautiful things can come from the dark!

20130822-223633.jpg In our Bible story from John today Jesus talks about how new life can come from things that look dead and useless. In nature, tress, flowers and plants have parts of them that die, these become seeds that grow into new life. Jesus was trying to explain to his disciples that he too will die, but it’s not what they think. Jesus will die, they will be sad, but God will bring new life from Jesus’ death-like this flower. Jesus’ death and God raising him to life means that we have new life too! Each and every day God makes us new and we can grow like this flower to share God’s beauty and love with the whole world. When we die, we go to be with God in new life after we die. Jesus gathers us all up in this life and in the next and we are never alone! God brings life from EVERYTHING NO MATTER WHAT! Pretty cool, huh! We have new life and we are never alone.

FaithCross_Worship For a worship station have soil, (small cup for scooping the soil), small terra cotta pots, and seeds. Permanent markers are the best way to draw on the pots so warn parents and have supervision. Have people draw symbols of new life on their pot and then plant a seed. You can have them take them home for the plants to grow during the Easter season, or give them away to an assisted living facility, half-way house or other places where your congregation can share the good news of new life and community forever in Jesus.

20130822-224425.jpgGod, you bring new life from everything around us. You promise that we are with you always, even when we’re in the dark and can’t see the sunlight. Gather all your people so that the whole world will know your presence and love. Amen.

20130822-223908.jpg +Grow in God’s love+