Tag Archives: Epiphany

Children's Sermons

Children’s Sermon – 7th Sunday after Epiphany – Matthew 5:38-48

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Prepare: The only thing you need is someone who is willing to let you hold their arms down.  It could be a child, youth or adult, but they need to be willing to play along (and not freaked out by having their arms held down!),

 Invite the children to gather as you normally do, but once they are all there make a grumpy face.  Kind of go back and forth between normal and grumpy a few times and see if you can get one of the kids to ask what you are doing.

 Yeah . . . I’m practicing my grumpy face.  See, I was reading the Gospel today and Jesus is talking about how we should love our enemies.  Jesus actually says that we should love people who  want to be mean to us and it made me grumpy!  Then I noticed something a little strange, my face got really tired of being grumpy.  I took a lot of effort to stay grumpy, like way more work than just being happy and content with the world.  But here’s the worst part – after I worked on being grumpy for a while, I noticed that it got easier.  So I started thinking about being grumpy, and it’s a lot of work to being with – harder than being happy or loving, but if you work at if for a while it gets easy and might even be a habit!

Let me show you what I mean, I need a volunteer (this would be where you need to have someone who’s arms you can hold down.  Alternatively, you could have the person use a door frame or even just the wall if that is a better option for you.) OK, this person here is going to work really, really hard at lifting her arms up to the side, and I am going to hold her arms in place.  (Hold the volunteers arms to their sides, or have them push out on a door frame).  Push really hard!  We are going to work at this for about 30 seconds.  Then, when I say so, I want you to just let your arms hang at your side. (If they do this right, their arms will *float* up away from their side because the muscles are now used to pushing out and up!)

See, first she tried really hard, and now it’s just a habit for her muscles to want to lift her arms!  So, if you practice being grumpy, like I was doing, eventually that is just what you act like all the time!  Jesus wants us to love our enemies because all people deserve love, even if we don’t like them.  And if we work hard at being loving then that becomes a habit, too!

 Jesus loves you even when you feel grumpy!

 Good and loving God, we know that we are called to love everyone, but it just so hard! Fill us with your love and give us the strength to share that love even with people who are hard to love. Amen

 For the worship station, simply invite people to repeat the arm experiment for themselves.  Give a little space for people to talk, reflect and giggle at the silly ways our bodies do things.

Children's Sermons

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

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

20130822-223454.jpg 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.

FaithCross 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)

20130822-224425.jpgJesus, word of God speak to me through your word in the
Bible and through your love. Amen

20130822-223908.jpg You are given the word of God in love +

FaithCross_Worship 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.

Children's Sermons

Children’s Sermon Seventh Sunday After Epiphany, Year A, Matthew 5:38-48, February 23, 2014

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Prepare:  Find a picture of Baljeet and Buford from “Phineas and Ferb” (and if you have not watched any “Phineas and Ferb” go watch some!)

20130822-223454.jpg  As the children gather have your picture of Buford and Baljeet out for them to look at.  Some of them will probably know these two characters, so ask them to describe their relationship.

FaithCross  Yeah, Baljeet and Buford!  Buford is a bully and Baljeet is his usual target, right?  Buford picks on him all the time.  So, I imagine that Baljeet is always plotting a way to get back at Buford, right?  Baljeet is smart and has a good reason to find some way to embarrass or hurt Buford.  He probably has secret plans and is building a Doofenshmirtz-style ‘Inator (if this doesn’t make sense – go watch the show!), like an anti-bullyinator.

That’s not true though, is it?  Baljeet and Buford actually care about each other.  Buford protects Baljeet, and Baljeet stands up for Buford when people say mean things about him.  They have even saved each other’s lives several times!  Isn’t that a little strange?  Buford is a bully!  Why would Baljeet stand up for him?

I think that Baljeet and Buford have gotten to know each other, and understand how the other person feels.  They know what really hurts the other person, and they know how to help each other feel better.  This is something that is easy in a cartoon, but how well can we do that?

Alright, this next part is just in your head, don’t say anything out loud!  I want you to just think about someone that you might call an enemy.  This is probably someone who is hard for you to love, right?  What do you think would happen if you acted with love around them?  I don’t mean that you should try to give them a hug right away or anything, but what if you treated them like a friend?  What if you got to know them and let them get to know you?  It’s harder to really not like someone when work hard to understand them better.  You might never be good friends, like Baljeet and Buford, but maybe you can find ways to be more caring.

Let’s listen to what Jesus has to say about this, too.  (Either read the Gospel text here – or re-read Matthew 5:42-48 if it has already been read).

20130822-223749.jpg    God of love and kindness, give us the courage to act with love even when we want to be mean and cruel to others.  Help us to love everyone we meet with the same love that you give to us.  Amen

20130822-223908.jpg  May God’s Word shine a light into your life today and always.

~GB

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