Tag Archives: Bible

Faith + Alive January Remembrance of Baptism

December 2, 2015 bw Leave a comment

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.

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?

God 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.

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.+

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.

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. 7^th) donate the change to the ELCA World Hunger. www.elca.org

Children's Sermons

May your life teach about Jesus, Mark 8: 27-38, Children’s Sermon, Sept. 13th, 2015, Pentecost 16B

September 10, 2015 bw 1 Comment

Gather the children and have a children’s Bible with you or any Bible will do. Say, “How many of you know your ABC’S (you can sing the song if you like!)? How did you learn them? Singing the song everyday? Lot’s of practice? When I want to learn to do something well, like when I learned to play the violin, I practiced every day. I didn’t always feel like practicing and I didn’t like it when something was too hard at first, but I kept at it as I knew that was the only way to get better. “ Ask them, “ What do you know about Jesus?” Accept all answers. Ask them, “ How do you know those things about Jesus?” Accept all answers. Probably someone will say bible. Talk about how the Bible helps us to know a little bit about Jesus and God. “Does it tell us everything about God? NO! We also learn about God all day long in our daily lives from parents, siblings, friends, SS teachers, choir directors, youth directors, maybe even pastors! What do these people tell us or show us about Jesus?” Accept all answers. Say, “Yes, every day we learn a little more about Jesus from each other don’t we? When they forgive us, pray with us, even tell us things that we don’t understand sometimes! What if we have a day where we don’t feel like showing people the love of Jesus? Yeah, we all have days like that don’t we. Me too!

In our Mark story today, the disciples are learning that they don’t know everything about Jesus yet. Jesus was telling them some HARD things! Such as people would make fun of Jesus, hurt him, and he would die! No one wants to hear of their friend getting hurt and so Peter was upset! I would be too! But Jesus knew that Peter didn’t know everything about him or God. Peter was still learning just like us! We learn our whole lives and Jesus says that the point of our lives is to seek God and to show other people the love of God. Seems easy but it’s also really hard! When we have to learn something hard at school like spelling words or math facts what do we do? We practice them every day! Loving and following Jesus is no different we have to practice it every day! We don’t have to be perfect, just try. Loving Jesus doesn’t mean that we are perfect or that everything at school is perfect, or that we will have lots of friends or get straight A’s. Jesus says life with God is all about practicing to love God even when it’s hard or we don’t feel like it. That’s how much Jesus loves us!

Dear Jesus, we love to learn about you! Thank you for all of the ways that we learn about you all day long from our families, our friends and everyone who loves us. We want to teach other people about God’s love too! Thank you for being with us even when it’s hard. Amen.

Have a cross from you worship space or some other wooden and fairly free standing cross on a table or on the floor in a place where it is easily accessible. Have post-it notes and pens, markers, etc available for people to write the names of those who have taught them about Jesus in their lives. Place those post-it notes on the cross and offer a prayer in the worship service for the people in our lives who teach us about Jesus even when it’s hard and we don’t feel like hearing about Jesus. Have note cards available for people to write either 1) thank you notes to those who have taught them about Jesus or 2) a note to tell someone that Jesus love them, or both! (You could deliver these to an assisted living facility, a shelter, a police or fire station, etc.

+May your life teach about Jesus+

Children's Sermons

Children’s Sermon and Worship Station – Mark 1:21-28, February 1, 2015

January 29, 2015 gb Leave a comment

Preparation: print your favorite Bible verse, or a congregational memory verse on pieces of paper to hand out to the children.

Gather the children with you. Ask them, “what is the
word of God?” Take answers. The Bible is the word of God and one of
the messages it teaches us is the about God’s love and how we live out
God’s love. We also believe that Jesus is the word of God and that the
Holy Spirit keeps showing us God and God’s word as well.

In the Bible we can read about the many ways God has
shared love with us. Today we heard that God sends prophets or talks
through others to us and that Jesus is teaching in the synagogue.
Words from the Bible can help us to listen for God and hear God in our
every day lives as well. I have for each of you a verse written down
here on sheets of paper. Take the verse and read it or have your
parents read it to you many times this week. You can also write it
down in your own writing or a draw a picture of what it means to you.

Or if you have a favorite verse or ask your parents about a favorite
verse, write that down too or teach it to a friend. (if you use the
worship station you can tie this in at this time, see below)

Jesus, word of God speak to me through your word in the
Bible and through your love. Amen

You are given the word of God in love +

Have a large sheet of paper and Bibles on a table.
Ask people to write down a verse they know, remember, or that is
important to them. They can write the whole verse or just the
scripture reference. For the children, give them verses to write down
or have them ask their parents to share a verse. If you use memory
verses in your setting you can have the list of memory verses out for
reference as well. During this next week take the verses and put them
into wordle.net and create a wordle of the verses people wrote down.
Post this on your website, facebook, etc and/or have it printed out
for the next few Sundays.

Resources

Blessing of the Bibles

January 3, 2013 gb Leave a comment

Many of you may be giving Bibles soon or sometime this year to children or youth or adults! Here is a resource to help you out with Blessings the Bibles in worship

Blessing of the Bibles

This blessing was used at Bethel Lutheran Church in Aurora, CO. The congregation gave each family in their school a Spark Story Bible (Augsburg Fortress) as a beginning of the year gift. We had the church council and the school board present the Bibles at offering time and place them by the large cross that was present. An alternate idea is to place them on or by the altar. The pastor and the preschool director lead the congregation in the blessing that occurred after the offering time. A hand written card from families in the church highlighting their favorite Bible passage/story was placed in each Bible that the families received. Please feel free to use and modify to fit your context!

Invite Congregation to read the following blessing of the Bibles:

L: God from the beginning your Word spoke light into darkness and order into chaos. Your Word was on the hearts and doorposts of the Israelite people. You spoke through the prophets so that the Israelite people would remain faithful. You spoke loudest in the coming of your Son Jesus Christ. Jesus spoke words of healing, mercy and love. In his death on a cross he spoke without words but with actions. Then Paul, Peter and all of the apostles preached, wrote and acted on this Word of God for the sake of the entire world.

C: Called through our baptism to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, we now send these Bibles, the Word of God in scripture, out to the homes of the families of Bethel Christian School. We pray that the Word of God will bless their homes, families and communities. May these Bibles sow the seeds of God’s love and grace for all of God’s people and grow the kingdom of God. Amen

Let us walk with you on the journey of faith. Whether your feet are big or small, fresh or worn, running or crawling, God's love goes with you and you stand on holy ground.