A God on Whom to call

Children’s Message
Sunday, October 23, 2005
North Presbyterian Church

Good morning everyone. Some of you might know me, but most of you probably do not. I am, among other things, a child of this church. I came to this church with my family when I was three, and in some way or another, I have spent the better part of the last 30 or so years involved in this congregation. I am a church educator at a church in Rochester now. I am really excited to be here with you all today.

Since this is the Children’s story time, I have one to share with you:

One of my favorite fall rituals is going to the cornfield maze. Raise your hand if you have ever been out to a cornfield maze. Well, let me tell you how the one that my family likes to go to works: They take a big cornfield and clear out a maze-like path. You have a map with lots of blank spaces, and as you go through the maze, you find clues and pieces of the map to help you get to the end. There are twists and turns. Sometimes, you know where you’re going. Sometimes, you’re completely lost. Sometimes you think you know where you’re going, and you slowly realize that you’re lost, and sometimes when you think you are hopelessly lost, you turn a corner, find a piece of the map, and realize that you are going to be OK after all. And the best part of the maze is this—you will get out somehow. It might take you 45 minutes, it might take you 5 hours, but you will get out. And while you are lost, if you do get afraid, and feel hopeless and don’t know what to do, you can call for help. At the maze I go to, everyone gets these flags to hold, and if you feel like you need some help, you just wave your flag around, and up high on a scaffold, there is someone watching what is going on in the maze, and she will help you. Now, if you wave your flag, a big helicopter doesn’t come by and pluck you out—you are given some hints to help you find your own way out. And if that doesn’t work you can always ask for more help. And in many ways, it reminds me of prayer. Now I hope you don’t only pray when you are lost or afraid or feel hopeless, but I do hope that when you do feel that way, you remember to pray, you remember that God is always watching over you, and while God will not pluck you out of a bad situation, praying and spending time with God might give you hope, and help you find your way out.

Let’s pray (Children repeat each line after me):
Loving God
Thank you for hearing us when we call you
Please watch over us
This week and always.
Amen.

Sunday, October 16, 2005--Katrina School Kits

So I have another challenge for you, but before I give it to you, we need to have a little celebration. For your last challenge, the “French” quarter drive, you did really well. We collected over a thousand quarters, and those quarters, plus some dollars gave us a grand total of $378 to give towards hurricane relief. Great job, everyone!!

So you already know about your next challenge if you read your October Children’s Ministry newsletter. What kind of kits are we putting together for the kids who were affected by hurricane Katrina? Call it out if you know it—yes, school kits. Now when we did health kits for the Tsunami last year, we asked you all to bring in completed kits, but this year, we want to make the kits together, so we assigned each class an item to bring in, then in two weeks, we will gather together in the celebration center after church to make a big assembly line and pack up the kits.

Raise your hand if you are in the nursery. We’d like you all to bring in erasers
Pre-school classes or 4th grade—scissors
Kindergarten—Pencil sharpeners
1st grade—pencils
2nd grade—construction paper
3rd grade—150-200 sheet pads of notebook paper
5th grade—box of 24 crayons
6th grade—making bags
And if there are any people who like to sew, stop by the 6th grade classroom or find me in coffee hour and we will get you the specs to make the bags to hold all the supplies for the school kits. Members of the congregation are more than welcome to join the children in this project, too!

There is a well loved hymn that has these words as the refrain, “they will know we are Christians by our love.” Will you all help to show that love with our heath kits?

Let’s Pray:
Loving God
Help us to be
your loving hands and hearts in the world.
Be with those people
Who we are hoping to help.
Amen.

Children’s Sermon--Scripture Sleuth

When I was in 7th grade, my French teacher gave our class an extra credit project: we had to look for French writing on things, like food packaging, brochures, newspapers, wherever we could find it. For every item that we brought in, we would get two points of extra credit. And you know something, to this day, when I see French writing, I first off, try to see what little bit I can still read, but I also think, “that could’ve gotten me two points!” I think my teacher’s point was to try to get us to notice what we were studying in the real world, and I am proof that it worked, even almost 20 years later!

So how does my 7th grade French class fit in with you all at church? I’ll tell you how—I want you to be on the look out, but not for French words, I want you to be my Scripture Sleuths. I want you to keep your eyes open when you are looking at books, or the newspaper or comics or magazines. You will almost certainly need help from your parents or teenage or adult friends and family members. I want you, my scripture sleuths to keep your eyes peeled for mentions of scripture references, and I want you to find out where in the bible they are and bring them in to share with us. I have kept my eyes open, and here’s what I found in the last few weeks:
§ In a catalog, I found this ad for a “Moses Basket” baby carrier. I bet the got the name for that baby carrier from the story of Moses in the bulrushes!
§ In the D&C, I found a listing for the “Loaves and Fishes” personal chef service. I wonder if that chef could feed 5,000 people from 5 loaves and two fishes like Jesus did in that familiar Bible story!
§ In Newsweek, I found this article that says we could resume “Idol Worship” do you think God meant Paula Abdul in the ten commandments??
§ Another article in the D&C just after that rainstorm a few weeks ago talks about people who performed “good Samaritan” duty, just like the main character in that wonderful parable.
§ This one was just in the paper on Friday. Seeing all those people who had to leave Texas last week made me think of the Exodus, too.
§ My favorite is the write up of gourmet sea salts called, “Lot’s Wyfe”. It makes a lot of sense, but only if you know that in Genesis, there was a man named Lot whose wife was turned into a pillar of salt!
Now these are just a few that I found in the last few weeks—I bet that you can find a lot more! And when you do, bring in a copy of what you’ve found with a scripture reference to go with it, and I will put them on the big bulletin board in the education building.

So what do you think, sleuths, are you up to the challenge?

Let’s pray:
Loving God
Help us to search for your word
And be with us this week
In all that we do.
Amen.