Children’s Message

Raise your hand if you’ve ever used a phone book. . . At the top of each page in phone books, it gives the first name on the page and the last name on the page alphabetically so that you can find what you are looking for. Our phone number is on the “Vaughn-Vendel” page. I always liked the “Smith” pages—in our phone book in Rochester, there are 4 whole pages of just Smiths.

There’s another book that is organized like the phone book—it is called a concordance, and instead of telling you the phone number of everyone who lives in Rochester, this concordance tells you every place a word appears in the Bible. Some words, like “jumping” only appear once or twice. Other words are the “Smith” and “Jones” of the Bible—like “Love”. The concordance that I looked in listed 586 entries for “love”.

The most central messages of the Bible center around Love—In Deuteronomy 6, God told us , “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” In Leviticus 19, we are told to , “Love your neighbor as yourself”. Last week, we were shown a wonderful message of love in the youth musical, “10th and Luke” which reminded us that anyone who shows Christ’s love is our neighbor. Today’s gospel reading shares these words of Jesus to his disciples, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

Later in the service, 6 of the youth of the church will be received into membership as part of the commissioning class. Our affirmation of faith today uses parts of all of their faith statements, and in nearly every line, they mention love. The Love of God, the Love of the church, and all the ways that we, as God’s people share and spread that love.

Let’s Pray: Loving God,
Help us to live out the challenges
Given to us in scripture:
To love the Lord with all our hearts
To love our neighbors as ourselves
And to love one another as Christ loves us. Amen.