Children's message--The Word OF God

I am not doing the children's sermon this week, so I have plucked out an old one. This was the second children's sermon I gave at my current church. I gave it almost 4 years ago, but I still like the message. I like giving kids something to search for in the sermon, giving them a listening point, so if you decide to adapt this one, have fun looking for a little gem for the kids to link into. Although I don't do it as much as I would like to, I like to try to stimulate conversation in families. My dream would be for families to compare notes about worship in the car ride home, and talk about what they think about a particular idea or story well into their lunch each Sunday, so I do try to stimulate that type of conversation when I can.

Since we do not have a dedicated education hour, most of the time our children are not in worship for the majority of the service. On the day I gave this sermon, it happened to be a day when the older kids stayed in worship (which happens here on holiday weekends and in the summertime).

So anyway, here is a children's sermon. . .

Children's Sermon

The Word OF God

In worship, sometimes it is hard to follow things, isn't it? But it is OK to ask questions if you are confused, and it is a good idea to ask your parents or other adults about things after the service too.

I'd like to tell you a story. When I was a little girl, before the sermon, my minister used to say "Listen for the word of God". Only, it always sounded to me like he was saying "listen for the word God". Now, to Little Girl Becky, this meant, keep a count of how many times he said the word "God" in the sermon. I'd try my best to keep count--I kind of half expected someone to ask me how many I counted as I was leaving church!

Now, do you think that we really come to church to count words? Of course not! We come to church to try to listen for the word OF God--to hear parts of the Bible and to hear our ministers help us to understand how the Bible, the word OF God, can be meaningful in our lives.

Now, I will not ask you to count words today, but for those of you who are in worship today, I do want you to listen for something. In his sermon, Rev. Doll is going to tell a story about an Abbott (who is a very religious man) who goes to visit a very wise man who he calls a "Guru". There is something that we can learn from this story. I want you to listen very carefully and see if you can figure it out. And after church, be sure and talk with your parents or another adult about what we can learn from this story. And for those of you who are going to Sunday School, your parents and brothers and sisters will have to pay extra special attention to the sermon so that they can tell you about the story too!

Let's Pray:
Lord, thank you for bringing us here today. . .
To hear your word to us. . .
in worship or Sunday School.
Amen.


I hope that this children's sermons is be helpful to you, and if you do use it, I ask that you list my name only if it appears in written form anywhere.

Three strikes to an awful Children's Sermon

Over the years, we have all given and heard children's sermons that were just not on the mark. Sometimes you can put your finger on it, other times, you can't quite figure it out, but something was just wrong.

So here, I offer my big 3. The "no-nos" for writing (0r delivering) a children's sermon. I have made all of these blunders, but hope sincerely that in naming them, I will do my best to avoid them in the future, and perhaps others will too!

So here they are, in no particular order. . .


1) Preaching the "It looks like a monkey, but I know it is supposed to be Jesus" children's sermon
The wife of a former pastor I worked with, told me this great story about a children's sermon where the enthusiastic worship leader held up a stuffed monkey and asked the children what it was, and the response was (as I'm sure you can guess) "Well, it looks like a monkey, but I know it is supposed to be Jesus". So the warning we can get from this little story is --be creative with object lessons (and I might also add, use them sparingly). I think object lessons are great. Visuals--GOOD! Analogies--GOOD! Concrete examples that bring the scripture to an accessible place--GOOD!!! Jesus always being the monkey (or the box, or flower, or heart) BAD. When your kids can predict how your children's message will end each week, you need some new material. )As I write this, I cringe. I don't have a lot of Jesus monkeys, but do my sermons get old?? I should find a sounding board in my congregation to be sure) .

2) It's all about ME!
We all use stories from our lives for children's sermons--and most of the time, they help our kids see our humanity and our struggles, and to see that our faith is something that we are constantly thinking about. But. . . whenever we use ourselves or our stories in our sermons, we need to remember our goals and keep our message focused towards God. As I type this, it sounds so simple that I am thinking about deleting it, but I can think of so many times when I have read a sermon as I was searching for ideas and seen the "Its all about ME!" flaw, so I leave it in.

3) Kids say the darndest things!
A profound moment in my ministry was hearing this idea expressed at an APCE conference (I apologize that I cannot remember when, or who shared this wise thought),
"Do we give Children's Messages to help our children grow in their faith and understanding, or do we give Children's messages to be amused by their antics?"

Talk about a wow moment.

We have all been in this sanctuary--The worship leader asks an innocent question, a kid gives a funny answer and the congregation erupts in laughter. One of two things happens to that kid--
a)(S)he is mortified that his/her very sincere comment has been laughed at, and feels like a fool.
b)(S)he hears the laughter, thinks, "I am the next Jerry Seinfeld" and from that day forward works to find a response to give that will elicit the peals of laughter from the "audience" as often as possible.

We need to be aware of the answers that our questions might elicit. More importantly, I think, we need to ask ourselves why we ask questions. Do we really want to hear the answers, or do we want the answer that we have in our head. Sometimes, it is good to be interactive--to let the kids show you that they do in fact know what church season we are in, or the name of the short man who couldn't see Jesus. But other times, I wonder why we ask questions. I often make it a habit not to ask open ended questions. Most weeks I have at least 70 kids up front at children's message time. It would be choas to say the least if I had to listen to every kid share what they think. I do still do it from time to time, yet every time I do, I find myself feeling bad about having to stop a kid in the middle of a story that is too long, or not call on an earnest face waving his or her arm in front of me.

I used to start my children's sermons by saying "Good Morning!". One wonderful litle boy got into the habit of replying "Good morning Becky" in a very sing-song-y manner. After a few weeks other kids joined in, and in a month or so, it sounded like how you would imagine a classroom of third graders would greet their teachers in a cheesy movie set in the 1950s. So, out went the good morning, and we were able to come back to a more worshipful feel to the children's message. That is our goal, right?

Why I started this blog

So I decided to start blogging my Children's Messages.

To back track, here is who I am. . .
My name is Becky and I am a Christian Educator who works for a liberal Presbyterian Church. I have worked in CE for almost 10 years now (yikes!) and one of the joys and pains of my job is the Children's Message.

I love doing them. I like speaking in front of the congregation, I love finding that one link that will get the kids to understand the story, the angle that will make the story accessible.

I also hate doing them. Finding that idea, trying not to be trite. . . or cutesy. . . or blasphemous!

I have given some pretty good ones, and some pretty embarrassingly awful ones.

When I was new to the game, I looked through books and got some ideas, but not a lot of easy answers there. After living and working for the church in England for a year, I returned to find the internet on fire. "Great!", I thought, new opportunity--except--no editor, so lots of junk. I often read (and still do read) stuff and think, "I can do way better than that! This person thinks this Children's sermon is good??"

(Side-bar--this is risky stuff to write, since no doubt, someone will end up reading one of my sermons and think to themselves, "Holy crow--does she think that THIS children's sermon is any good????)

So, anyhow, my friend Sarah started blogging, and I found myself checking out her blog every few days and getting into it. At the same time, I once again struggled with finding a good children's sermon, and it struck me that perhaps I am not the only one with these struggles. Maybe others share my frustration. Maybe I should stop mentally criticizing others (who to their credit, at least put their stuff out there to be inspiration or fodder for others) and see if there could be some interesting sharing with other educators or pastors out there.

So that is what I think this blog will be about--my goal will be to publish at least one blog every week, hopefully a current children's sermon, but if I have not been asked to do the Children's sermon any given week, I will post an old one.

comments and dialogue are encouraged!

I hope that my children's sermons might be helpful to you, and if you do use it, I ask that you list my name only if it appears in written form anywhere.

So, this is the beginning. . .
Thanks for reading!

Children’s Message, Sunday April 17, 2005

Children's Message
Sunday, April 17, 2005
Earth Day

I have a confession to make: I am not going to give the children’s message that I thought I was going to give this morning. Do you want to hear what happened?

About 2 weeks ago, I was going through an old file in my office, looking for ideas for a bulletin board and some lessons I wanted to work on for Earth day this month. In that file, I found a note about a dogwood tree that had been planted outside of the parlor windows 15 years ago, in 1990, during a big Earth Day celebration.

I was so excited, I went right down to the parlor, and looked out the window and there I saw this lovely sturdy little tree. “That must be the tree!” I thought. “What a wonderful message to share with our kids”, I thought. . . except. . . it wasn’t the tree.

I talked on the phone with the person who was the educator here at the time and found out a sad fact. The tree that they planted on that Sunday 15 years ago had died. Why? No big reason, not any one person’s fault. Summer came. People were busy. Lots of folks were out of town. Some people didn’t think it was their job to water it, others thought that someone else was doing it, so in the end, the tree died.

This is not the story I wanted to tell you, but I think it is the story I have to tell you. Why do I have to? Because it is our job to take care of our earth, and that means, it is our job to continue to take care of it and nurture it every day.

We have been given the wonderful gift of God’s creation, but also the big responsibility of caring for God’s creation.

If we recycled yesterday, we did a good thing, but we have to recycle tomorrow and next week and next month and next year to fully care for what God has given us. Long and short of it is this: we are never done.

The good news is God’s love is a love of second chances. If you left the water on while you were brushing your teeth yesterday, you have the chance to conserve water and turn off the tap while you are brushing tonight.

At our church, the old tree died, but there is a lovely tree there now—because someone thought it was important to plant a tree, and more importantly, someone thought it was important to nurture and water and prune it after it was planted.

Let’s Pray (you may repeat after me. . . ):
God of creation
Thank you for trees and all that you created
Help us to care for
The things that you have entrusted us with.
Amen.

I hope that this children's sermons is be helpful to you. If you do use it, I ask that you list my name only if it appears in written form anywhere.