Here is the devotion page for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, October 19, 2014
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Tag Archives: Time after Pentecost
Children’s Sermon Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, Matthew 21:33-46, October 5, 2014
Prepare: This might require a little planning! You need something that you can put together quickly, and that you can substitute a “wrong” piece for an important part. For example it could be a little Lego model that has an obvious color scheme, but bring one piece that is really the wrong color, but is absolutely needed to finish the model.
I will use a different example below, and you are welcome to use that idea, too, it just takes a little more time to set up. For the example below, you need to make a small wooden cross that should be held together with a small piece of dowel rod. The one that I have is three pieces, a base, and upright and a cross piece, with a hole in the upright and cross piece. Instead of a dowel rod bring a piece of string and tangle it around the three pieces that you have. (You will see how the Lego version works)
Here are couple pictures of what I put together:
For the Worship Station you will need enough small, unpolished, unremarkable stones for everyone in your congregation. They should be small enough to fit easily in a child’s hand or in a pants pocket. You will also need crayons or markers and a big sheet of white paper (maybe more depending on the size of your congregation).
As the children gather, tell them that you are going to build something today, and that you hope you have all the right pieces. Ask them if they like to build things.
Let’s build something! OK, I brought the pieces with me in this bag. I thought it would be fun to make a new cross for our Sunday School room. Wait – what’s this string doing in here? Oh man, it’s wrapped around everything! I’m going to have to untangle this from everything before we can go on, wait a second. . . OK, now let’s just get rid of this string (toss it behind you or somewhere away from you), there, now we can build! This is the base that it will stand on, and this piece goes into the base like this. Then there is a hole in the upright and this cross piece, and I just need a little wood rod to go through it . . . it’s here somewhere . . . hmmm . . . I don’t see it. I really wanted to show you how the cross looks, but I don’t have anything to hold it together. Wait! I could tie it together! Where did that piece of string go? There! Almost right. I sure am glad we had that string, even if I thought it was annoying at first.
This reminds me of our Bible story. Well, Jesus did it again. Someone asked a question and he told a story! As usual, the story isn’t really about what we think it’s about. The story is really about rejection. Do you know what that means? (Wait and see) Right, kind of like what I did with the string. I got rid of the string because I thought that it was useless, and more in the way than anything. As it turns out, the string was just the thing that I needed to make everything work. Jesus is talking to the leaders of the community that he is in and tells them that the people they reject are very people that God looks to for leadership. He tells them that the people who think they are in charge of everything are not always the people that God will give authority to.
Have a basket or bowl filled with little stones. By the basket, have them sign that invites them to reflect on a time when they rejected someone, how did it make them feel? Take a stone to remind you to give people a second chance or a third chance.
Have another station with the paper and crayons, and invite people to write a word or two about how they feel when they are accepted and loved.
They should keep the stone with them this week. Hang the paper in the a prominent place in the church for a week or two.
Gracious God, we need your love and acceptance in our lives. Help us to rest in your love, and to be loving and accepting to the people around us. Amen.
Know that God loves and accepts you.
Weekly Devotion page for October 5, 2014
Here is the devotion page for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, October 5, 2014
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Weekly Devotion page for September 28, 2014
Here is the devotion page for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 28, 2014
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Weekly Devotion Page for September 7, 2014
Here is the devotion page for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 7, 2014
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Children’s Sermon Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Matthew 16:13-20, August 24, 2014
Prepare: You will need a large(ish) flat rock that will be stable and not rock back and forth, like a flagstone; and a box with some marbles in it. The box should be big enough to put the stone in (or the stone should be small enough to fit in the box!)
For the worship station, try to have several more flat rocks available. Flagstone is great for this! Have several colorful permanent markers out, too.
As the children gather, set the stone out on the floor (someplace where it will not scratch the floor because the children will be asked to push on it! Maybe on carpet or bring a blanket if you have wood or tile floor.) Keep the marbles hidden in the box for now. Ask the children if any of them have a nickname, something special that their parents or a good friend calls them.
In the Gospel story that we hear today Jesus gives one of his friends a nickname, and it is such a good nickname that we sometimes forget his real name! Jesus gives his friend Simon the nickname Peter, which means rock. Have a rock right here! What can you tell me about this rock?
(You may need to encourage some answers here. Things like, “Does it move around, or is it steady?” “Do you think that it is breakable?” etc. You want them to see the rock as strong and stable.)
You could probably stand on that rock and feel pretty sure that you won’t fall over. Now, what if I do this? I am going to put this rock in this box that has some marbles in the bottom. What happens now? Is it still stable? Do you still think that it would be ok to stand on?
When Jesus gives Simon the name Peter he does it because he wants to build a church on Peter! Not a building, but a community of people. Jesus wants Peter to be strong and steady for the people who follow Jesus. Jesus knows that this is a good choice because Peter has figured out who Jesus is. Peter knows that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. Other people say that Jesus is an ancient prophet who has come back to life, or that Jesus is trying to be John the Baptist – and that is kind of like the marbles under our rock. It makes everything a little less stable. Peter, however, knows who Jesus is, and doesn’t have any marbles under him to throw him off. He is steady as a rock!
Have an area set up with the rocks and markers. Invite people to write the name of a person who is/was a rock in their faith formation. It is not one name per rock, each rock should be covered in names! Start with the all the rocks spread out, as they fill with names stack them together to make a cross, or a fish, or some other symbol of the Christian faith.
Living God, we praise you for the people who have been rocks in our life. You have blessed us with people who build up our faith on a sure foundation. Teach us to be that sure foundation for people in our lives. Amen
Be a rock for God’s church today and always!
~GB
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Weekly Devotion Page for August 3, 2014
Here is the devotion page for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, August 3, 2014
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Children’s Sermon Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Matthew 14:13-21, August 3, 2014
Prepare: You will need several pieces of paper cut to look like loaves of bread and some crayons that you are willing to break in half or even smaller. For the Worship Station you will need a jar with enough pennies for every person who comes to worship to take one, and another jar or basket to collect them again. You can also have snack sized bags for them to take home the extra crayon pieces.
The pieces of paper will turn into a prayer, ideally they should be part of the Prayers of the Church or prayers of intercession.
As the children gather, set aside about one crayon for every 2 or 3 children. You want to set it up so that they need to break the crayons in order to do what you are asking them to do.
I love the story that we get to hear today! Jesus does something unbelievable! He feeds thousands of people with nothing! Well, they had a couple of fish and 5 pieces of bread, but that’s all. Let’s think about that for a minute, 2 fish and five pieces of bread. How many of us are here? (take a quick head count) Would that be enough food for us? Maybe we should modernize this a little. Let’s say that they had 2 sandwiches and an extra piece of bread . . . I think that we would all be still be a little hungry if that is all we had to share between us. But Jesus is able to make that be more than enough – in fact, there was more leftover than they started with!
This is a story about sharing what we have and ending up with more than we thought there could be, so I want you to think about a place where people need more of something. If could be people who need more food, or more clean water or more safe places to sleep or more love, you get the idea. I am going to give each of you a loaf shaped piece of paper and you can write or draw a prayer on it and we will use it later in the worship service. There is only one problem, I only have enough crayons for half of you, and we need to all work on this at the same time . . . what should we do? Let’s break them into pieces and see if we have enough then!
Quickly draw or write your prayers and put them in the basket and them you are welcome to take home the crayons that you used in one of these bags.
Give what time you can – then pray to wrap up.
For the worship station, invite people to add their penny (or more if they want) to the basket. Estimate how many pennies you will collect and how much money that will be, then make a few signs that talk about what can be done with that money. For example – a church that worships 450 to 500 people on a weekend could buy 2 or 3 meals at a rescue mission like the Denver Rescue Mission. You could buy 4 or 5 chicks through something like Heifer International, or contribute to a water project. Find several examples of how pooling a small resource from all the people gathered can make a big change in the community around you or in the world. Invite people to pray about their donation as they make it.
God of abundance, just like Jesus created more than enough out of way to little, stir up more than enough love and hope in us so that we can share your loving word with all the word. Amen.
May God give you more than enough love, more than enough peace and more than enough grace.
~GB
Permission to use for nonprofit. When printing give credit to Faith Formation Journeys. Intellectual property rights apply.
Children’s Sermon July 13, 2014 Pentecost 5A, Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Preparation: Bring in one vegetable seed and some examples of the food that it makes – for example, bring in one corn kernel and an ear of corn. Even better if it is a seeds that could be planted and then grow!
For the worship station – you will need some butcher paper, a black marker, some tape and some colored sticky dots.
If you are not too pressed for time, I always think that it is fun to quickly retell this story and have the children act it out. Don’t read it, just retell it! Have someone be the sower, have some children be the seeds, you will need some birds, too! All of the children can join together at the end when the seed grows and returns a good crop. Then you can wrap up by going through a little bit of Jesus explanation.
If this is going to be too long you can just briefly tell retell the four places the seeds fall and jump right to the explanation below.
Wow! That was really fun, but do you know what it all means? Yeah, neither did the disciples! So Jesus took a little time to explain it. He said that sometimes, when we tell people about our faith that they might say mean things, or that we are silly for believing in any of that stuff. That is like the seeds on the path that got eaten by the birds. Or, maybe we hear about Jesus but we really just want to play with our iPads, or phones, or we get caught up in playing sports or acting in plays or whatever, and we think those things are more important than God. That is like the seeds that land in the thorns and get choked by weeds and can’t grow. Or maybe we get really excited about something at church, but it doesn’t really turn out the way we hoped, so we just decide not to go back to church anymore. That is like the seeds in the rocky soil that don’t have good roots and just fall over.
But then there is the good soil, and it returns a hundredfold, or maybe sixty or thirty . . . ok, wait, what does that mean? Well, I brought in a seed to see if we can figure this out. OK, here is a corn kernel. It really doesn’t look like much, does it? And it is not very expensive, either. I could pretty easily scatter a handful of these in my garden and just hope that one or two would grow and I would probably have at least a few corn plants. Then, each of those corn plants would grow (I hope!) several ears of corn, like this! How many kernel are on this? More than one, that’s for sure, maybe there are 50 or even a hundred, just like the story says, and this is just one ear of corn! All this from a tiny, inexpensive seed.
Jesus is saying that our faith, and the faith we share with others can be like that, too! Some of it might not grow, for all kinds of reasons, but if even the littlest part of our faith takes root in ourselves or in someone else it will grow beyond anything that we can imagine.
God of Creation, we praise and thank you for sowing seeds of faith in us. Help us to continue to scatter the seeds of our faith knowing that faith will not always grow, but that when it does it will be amazing! Amen.
+Go and be Good Soil and a faith sower +
The general idea is to create something big out of little pieces, so this could take many different forms! I will go through the example of making sticker flowers with round colored stickers, but if could be a whole congregation Lego project, or a kick off for a summer food drive, or school supply drive.
For the flowers, tear off a big sheet of butcher paper or art paper. If can be whatever color you want (green would match the season!) Then draw a couple of flower stems, make them big, and add leaves and a block circle at the top that will be the center of the flower. Invite people to stick a dot on the paper to help build a large colorful flower around the circle at the top of the stems.
Before they put the dot on the paper, ask them to think about what keeps their faith from growing? Then have them categorize it as P (path), W (weeds), or R (rocks) and write that letter on the dot.
Some examples might help people decide – for Path it might be things like the way other Christians behave, or hearing that believing in God is silly or stupid. For the Weeds think of things like money worries, sports teams, clubs, video games. For rocks think of disappointments and missed expectations.
Weekly Devotion Page for July 13, 2014
Here is the devotion page for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, July 13, 2014
Just click on the picture to download the PDF file!
We have started a new format for our inserts (starting with Pentecost, June 8, 2014). To learn more about this format read this – Keeping up with what God is Doing,
Did you miss a week? Go to the Weekly Devotion page to download past weeks!