Children's message for May 29, 2005

Children’s Message
May 29, 2005
The Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:18-28)

I have been thinking about rules a lot lately. In the Children’s Ministry committee, we are thinking about rules for our classes for next year. At home, I am trying to teach my daughter who is only 1½ some rules. One thing I’ve realized is that the problem with rules is getting people to remember them.

Raise your hand if you have rules in your house. . . what about school?

Now most teachers in schools, and lots of parents at home post the rules. They put them on the bulletin board or refrigerator. Does that happen in your schools and homes? Even driving to work today, I saw rules posted on the road. Stop. Speed limit, 55 MPH. No parking.

OK, so what about the Bible. Are there rules in that? Probably the most well known are some that God gave to Moses—the ten. . . (hopefully kids will fill in with “commandments”) In addition to the ten commandments, God gave the people many other important rules that built on those commandments. Today, I want to share some rules with you from the book of Deuteronomy that are called the Shema.

The Shema tells us that we should love the Lord with all of our HEART and all of our SOUL and all of our MIGHT.

God wanted the people to remember these laws, and god gave them ideas of how to do it—
God said, write them on your doorposts
Tie them to your wrists and forehead
Teach them to your children
Talk about them all the time!!

And I thought, what a great idea! Maybe we would remember to love the Lord with all our heart and soul and might in a different way if it were on our doors or our wrists or our foreheads.

Now almost everywhere I go, I see people with those wonderful “live strong” bracelets that people wear to support cancer survivors. And now there are lots of others, and I thought, what if we wore bracelets with “Heart. . . Soul. . . Might” written on them? So, I have some not very fancy bracelets that I hope you’ll wear to remember the Shema. (Pass out bracelts--extra thick rubber bands on which I have written Heart, Soul and Might)

Let’s Pray:
Loving God,
Help us to love you
With all of our heart and soul and might
And help us
To remember your laws always.
Amen.

* * *
Many thanks to my colleague Rev. Rod Frohman for planting the seed for this children's sermon!

Please feel free to use or adapt this sermon. If you use it in print anywhere, please acknowledge me, Becky D'Angelo-Veitch, as the author. Thanks!

Pentecost Children's Message

Children’s Message
May 15, 2005—Pentecost
“Welcome!” Acts 2:1-18

Sometimes, at big airports, as you are leaving, they have signs on the wall with the word “welcome” on it. . . only, it isn’t just the word welcome like we know it, there are other words like willkomen, bienvenue, selam, karibu, failte--words that mean welcome in other languages.

Do you think that the people who put those signs up might have done it to make people feel welcomed by being able to read welcome in their own language? Raise your hand if this sign makes you feel welcome. (Hold up a sign with Bienvenue on it) How about this one? (Hold up a sign with Karibu) This one?? (hold up a sign that says welcome). Even if a sign might make one person feel welcome, for others, it is just words. It’s nice to see familiar words—I think it makes you feel at home, don’t you?? I think it is pretty cool that airports work so hard to make sure that as many people as possible feel welcome.

There is a great Bible story that made me think of all the different words for “welcome”. It is in the book of Acts, and it is the story of Pentecost. Maybe you remember the story. It was a time shortly after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Early believers were gathered, and the Holy Spirit blew through them like a wind. As they were filled with this spirit, they were suddenly and surprisingly able to speak in other languages, and the gathered people heard their own language being spoken.

I bet that those people who were gathered on that day felt welcomed and amazed because when they heard about God’s wonderful deeds--it was unexpectedly in their own languages. Just like someone visiting a new country, I bet those early Christians were unsure about what this whole new church was going to be like. But because of the Holy Spirit them they were amazingly able to hear in their own language.

* * *

I really liked the idea of this children's sermon, and I think it worked well to a point, but I never figured out how to get it to really hang together at the end. It worked pretty well when I did it, but it didn't quite hit the mark. Any thoughts on this one??

This children's sermon brought to you by. . .

So first off, I think it is kind of funny, that due to other things going on at church, I haven't been assigned to do a children's sermon since I started this blog.
(That is just an aside, now to the real post. . .)


THE CHILDREN'S SERMON AS COMMERCIAL
So since it has happened twice this week that someone has suggested using the children's message time as a commercial for some event at church, it seems as though I'd better use my space here to talk through why this bothers me so much.

Let me first say, that the people who asked me to do these "ad" children's sermons, are good, well grounded people who I both like and respect. All parties were very understanding when I said that I wasn't comfortable with using that time to "plug" an upcoming activity.

I do think that there are times when children's sermons are great opportunities to get information to the kids or to build excitement around a new project or program. It is when things are aimed more at talking to adults than kids that I start to get a little nervous about the use of this time.

I know that adults "listen in" on children's sermons. I'm glad that they do, and I am very grateful when people share that a sermon has been meaningful to them or spoken to them, but I am a wee bit protective about the three minutes when the kids are gathered up at the front steps. When I am preparing my children's sermons, I usually spend some time in silent prayer reflecting on the idea, "what do I want the kids to take away from this time?" Although sometimes it is program related ("I want them to be excited for our mid-week program to start"), more often, it is related to my hopes for how they will understand a story, how they will think about their faith in relation to others or how they can learn more about some aspect of their faith. It seems hard to accomplish these goals when we are simply "plugging" the next event.

So that is where I am now. We'll see what comes of these requests.

Anyone reading have any thoughts on this one?

(Actually--anyone reading?? :-))