Tag Archives: Time after Pentecost

Children’s Sermon – August 6, 2017 – Feeding the 5,000

August 1, 2017 gb Leave a comment

Prepare: Bring a single Communion wafer or a piece of the communion bread that you use in worship. Make sure that it’s not enough for the people gathered. This will work even better if you can move the children’s sermon to right before Communion.

Gather everyone together by announcing that you have food for everyone! Once the children gather with you start counting them with a look of concern on your face. If you are in your main worship space start counting the rest of the congregation, too.

Uh Oh . . . I don’t think that I have enough! All I have is this one communion wafer! I guess we could divide it up into little pieces , , ,

But, this does make me think of the Gospel story we hear today. It’s a story about Jesus feeding thousands of people with almost nothing. Jesus blesses just a few fish and a little bread and sends his disciples out to feed them. When they are done feeding them there are more leftovers than when they started! I don’t think that is going to happen with this one wafer today. I think that if we break this in half that just two people will get half a wafer. No one will be full, and there won’t be any leftovers.

The miracle for us today is not that this one little wafer could feed us all, but instead the love, mercy, and grace that we receive through Jesus. The food in the story gets passed from person to person and with each person who is fed there is more food! The Good News of Jesus’ love is the same. The more we pass the Good News, the more people who are fed with God’s word, the more Good News there is to spread around!

That’s our miracle today.

Good and gracious God, your Good News is a miracle to us. Teach us to tell the stories to the people around us. Teach us to live out the good news in our lives. Amen

You are filled with God’s love.

If you can put the Children’s time right before Communion you are all set! If not, try a blessing that get’s passed through the congregation. Here’s how it works. You bless two children. They each then bless two more people, who then blesses two more, and two more, etc. The blessing starts slow, but grows fast, and there are blessings left over at the end, way more than there were at the beginning!

Children's Sermons

Children’s Sermon for June 26, 2017 – Romans 6:1b-11

June 21, 2017 gb Leave a comment

Prepare: Bring a small LEGO set or some other toy that comes apart or needs to be solved. Have a cross handy, it could be one that is already in your worship space, or you could bring one that might have special meaning for you. For example, I wear the same cross every day as a reminder of my faith.

Have the toy out as people arrive. Ask them what makes LEGO toys so fun. Steer them toward the idea that they can be made into other things, or that a puzzle can be solved over and over. You get the idea!

Yes! LEGOs are often really fun because you can remake them! I think that the best part about LEGOs is that you can keep building them. Sometimes I even take them apart just to put them back together! I’m the same way with puzzles. I like to mess up my Rubix Cube just so I can solve it again.

I was thinking of this when I read the story from Romans today. It’s really that first sentence that made me think of it.

“Should we continue in sin so that grace may abound?”

OK – that’s really just a fancy way of saying, “Should I go do something bad just to give Jesus a chance to forgive me?”

NO! But it does sound like how I feel about LEGOs and puzzles, doesn’t it? Paul, the person who wrote this story, thinks about Jesus’ forgiveness a different way. We believe that Jesus died to give us freedom from our sins. It’s not that Jesus likes forgiving us, but rather that Jesus loves us. When someone I love does something to upset me, it’s not that I like to forgive them, but that I love them and want to keep the relationship strong – so I forgive!

It is the same with God. You are so loved that God would do anything to keep you close – even send Jesus to die.

Gracious God, we can never thank you enough for your love and forgiveness. Be always near us as we strive to live in loving and gracious ways. Amen

God loves you always.

Get a bunch of blank puzzle pieces for people to write short prayers on (Or use the back of an old puzzle). Invite them to take the pieces home as reminders that God always works to put us back together, and to keep us close.

Children's Sermons

Children’s Sermon & Worship Station – Nov. 13, 2016 – Luke 21:5-19

November 7, 2016 gb Leave a comment

Prepare: You will need something to distract you at least a couple times. Be creative! It can be someone coming into the room to ask you a question, or an alert on your phone. Or you could just pull a “Dori” and keep losing track of what you were saying! Just make sure you have something set up ahead of time.

This is the part of the children’s message where you need the distractions. Welcome the children as you usually do, but make sure you are interrupted/distracted in the middle. the distraction should be enough that you feel the need to start over. Do this a couple times to get the point across (and because it’s fun to be silly!)

Wait! I’m getting distracted! You know what’s weird about that? Not getting distracted is exactly what the Gospel story is about today!

I would add that the little distractions that just happened to me are nothing like what Jesus is describing, but they did keep me from talking to you, and that’s what I’m here for right now. The disciples waiting for something big from God, and they figured that Jesus – being who he was – would have some inside knowledge about it. And maybe he did, but he basically says, “Don’t worry about it!” All kinds of crazy things are going to happen in your life. People will be mean, people will be nice. Good things will happen and bad things will happen. But none of these things is the end of world.

You just need to do your best to stay focused on the good things that are coming, and be working to help everyone be part of the good that is to come.

Maybe it wasn’t a satisfying answer for the disciples, or for us either, but it is an encouragement to us to keep spreading God’s love to everyone we meet. No matter how distracted we get by what is going on around us.

Good and patient God, We get so caught up in the distractions of life. Forgive us for missing out on things that we should have done, and help us to keep our hearts and minds focused on your love and our love for each other. Amen.

God is focused on you!

You are going to make a distraction cover-up wall!

Find a bunch of stickers that say, “God Loves You,” or that have other Christian images on them. (Look for a Christian Book store or check Hobby Lobby). Then hang a long piece of art paper on the wall, or put it over a table, whichever works if you space.

Put out some pens, crayons, markers, etc, and invite people to write or draw the thing that most distracts them from being engaged with God’s love.

Have a container of stickers our so that they can cover the distraction with God’s love!