Category: Children’s Sermon

500th Birthday of the Reformation! Bring a color sheet (page 40) from the resources by NC Lutherans. We’re worshipping with First Congregational (UCC) and Pascack Reformed Church.

So for those who don’t know me, I’m Pastor Marc and I’m the pastor here at this church. I am so happy that all of you are here today. And today is a very special day. We’re doing something we don’t usually do – and all of us are here together, at this church, today. Most Sundays, we’re at our own churches. Some of us are at Pascack Reformed in Park Ridge. Others at First Congregational, United Church of Christ, in Park Ridge. And others are here, at Christ Lutheran Church. We are all part of 3 different church communities – with different traditions and stories and background. But we’re all here – together – to celebrate something that happened a long time ago – that is part of all our histories and where we come from. We’re basically having a party – and like every good party, we have special music and after church we’ll have food and time to talk to each other. But one thing I like to have at a good party is decorations – more than the amazing decorations than we have already. So let’s make a few simple ones.

Pass out clipboards with the page 40 coloring sheet (all the different communities the ELCA is partners with) and crayons.

This is a coloring sheet and I hope everyone got one…good! Now, let’s start coloring – and while we color, let’s talk about it. What do you see on the page? Accept answers. It’s also full of symbols (describe the symbols). Do any of the symbols look familiar to you? Have Pastor Mark and Pastor Larissa share which ones look familiar to them too. Everyone keeps coloring! And there are words in the middle of it – Get someone to read them.

The words are from a letter that tradition says a man named Paul wrote almost 2 thousands years ago. That’s a lot time ago. But these are words from our bible, from our scripture, and this verse describes a little bit about why we are gathered here together. All of us are unique and different from each other. We are part of 3 different churches. We have 3 different traditions that inspire us and help us know God. We all have like different things, have different favorite colors, and come from different families. We are not the same. But I believe that God doesn’t want us to all be the same. God likes that we are different. God likes that we use different colors to color different parts of our coloring sheets. God values you – and can’t wait to see you grow up and, everyday, discover just how much God loves you.

So on this Sunday, when we celebrate this special party about a guy who, 500 years ago, wanted all of us to know the gifts God give us and how God loves us unconditionally, we celebrate what makes us different and special but also what makes us neighbors and friends – Point to the Cross. Jesus is what makes us who we are – and draws us together – and shows us how God loves us. Because all of us are part of God’s people – and belong to God’s holy, diverse, and amazing family.

Thank you for being up here and I hope you have a blessed week!

Each week, I share a reflection for all children of God. The written manuscript serves as a springboard for what I do. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship on Reformation Sunday, 10/29/2017.

There’s a baptism at 10:30 am. Focus on the baptism candle.

I’m so happy you’re here today!

So today at the 10:30 am we’re going to have a baptism! I’m really excited about it. God loves us always and a baptism is one of the ways we know God does. Little —- is going to be carried up here to the front and in front of family and friends and the entire church, God is going to make a promise to be with —- always. And this is a gift because the creator of the entire universe, of all the stars and planets and blackholes and all creatures and animals and other people is going to say to give little —– a gift of love that will never end, no matter what. And this gift of love is a promise – a promise from God to help us grow in faith and love towards God and each other.

Part of the baptism involves this….what is it? A candle. A candle! Right! Let’s talk about the candle for a bit. Is it small or big? Is it as big as the altar candles? Is it as big as a birthday candles on a cake? Accept all answer. Get the kids to talk about the candle a lot.

There are only a few times when I use candles at home. When there is a birthday, and we need a special cake or cupcake, we need candles on the cake to represent the party. We put the candles on the cake, sometimes having enough candles to represent how old someone is, light then and then what? Sing a song and watch the person blow out the candles. And when a person blows out a candles, we tell them to do what? Make a wish! We usually tell people not to tell their wish – but sometimes I wish for a special present, or for something fun to happen, or I wish that my family and friends have a fun time or are taken care or etc. What other wishes could you make? Accept answers.

Well, this candle is like a birthday candle because it has a wish attached to it too. But instead of a wish that we ask after we blow the candle out – this wish, this prayer we make, this promise God makes to us, is made once we light the candle. Because scripture tells us that Jesus is like a candle in a darkened room or a flashlight in the middle of a night. When we have a hard decision to make, Jesus promises to help us. When we are confused or worried or don’t know what to do, Jesus promises to the help us. When we have a choice to make between what will only help us and what will help other people, Jesus promises to show us what God wants. This candle is a candle that marks our baptism. It’s a birthday candle that celebrates the day God, in a very public place, tells the entire world that we are loved. This candle will be for —- a sign that Jesus will always light his way. And that’s a wish, a prayer, and a promise that we can never blow out.

Thank you for being up here and I hope you have a blessed week!

Each week, I share a reflection for all children of God. The written manuscript serves as a springboard for what I do. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship on the 20th Sunday After Pentecost, 10/22/2017.

Bring Pete the Cat: Pete’s Big Lunch.

I’m so happy you’re here today!

So I want to start with a question: what’s your favorite meal of the day? Accept answers. My favorite is…lunch. I love lunch. It’s in the middle of the day. You get to eat all kinds of foods. I love sandwiches, burgers, and more. Lunch is great! And you know who also like’s lunch? Pete the Cat.

We’re not going to read all of this story but there’s a special story about Pete…and his big lunch. Walk through the story. Pete gets hungry because it’s lunch time and he does what I do at lunch time: open the fridge, stare at it, and wonder what I’m going to eat. Pete wants a sandwich so he starts pulling things out. Go through the weird things Pete pulls out. There’s a whole apple. A whole fish. A box of crackers. A jar of mayo. A can of beans. A pickle. All sorts of stuff! This sandwich is whacky and weird and Pete knows it’s going to be delicious. But once he’s done – he’s got a problem. It’s too big for him to eat by himself. So Pete thinks and thinks and thinks…and what do you think he does? How can he get help eating this sandwich? He calls his friends and invites them. Pete invites all his friends to help share his big lunch.

Jesus is going to tell a story today and part of that story involves someone who throws a big party – a big party with lots and lots of food. Like Pete’s lunch, there’s more food than one person could eat in one sitting. The person who is throwing his party is going to invite people who are like him – people who can afford to have a big party with lots of guests. But those guests don’t come. So the host invites everyone – regardless of who they are, what money they make, or if they are friends or not. The host invites everyone to this party – to this place to eat and share a meal – and the host does that because the host can. The host has something amazing to share and invites all different kinds of people to share in it.

Jesus invites us to imagine that his love and his care for us is like being invited to a big party or being invited to some place with a big lunch. Jesus invites us to realize that all of us, regardless of how old we are or what we know or how many times we go to church or if we took a bath last night or whatever – Jesus invites all of us to be with him. And he does this not because we’re perfect or wonderful or get everything right. Jesus invites all of us to his party because that’s just who Jesus is. You right now are part of Jesus’ party. You, right now, get to share in Jesus’ love and hope. You, right now, are part of Jesus’ family and are in his party. And that invitation – changes everything.

Thank you for being up here and I hope you have a blessed week!

Each week, I share a reflection for all children of God. The written manuscript serves as a springboard for what I do. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship on the 19th Sunday After Pentecost, 10/15/2017.

Bring the light bug that needs batteries..
This is from Dollar Store Children’s Sermons. Click that link and watch it!

I’m so happy you’re here today!

So I brought something with me today. What does it look like? A bug. And it has things in the back. What do those look like? Stars. Right., stars. So this is a bug with stars in the back. And look! There are some buttons. Before we touch the buttons to see if they work, do you have a guess what this toy does? Accept guesses. Let’s hit the buttons and see what happens.

Nothing happens.

Nothing happen! Huh. I wonder why. Maybe something is missing. What does it need? Accept answers. Oh wait! This part on the bottom says it needs …what? Batteries! So let’s open it up and seee….no batteries! That’s why it doesn’t work. It needs batteries to do what it’s supposed to do.

In the story about Jesus today, Jesus is going to use a fancy word to describe himself. He’s going to call himself a cornerstone. A cornerstone is a. If stone used for a building. It’s part of its foundation. It’s there so you can build the rest of the building on top of it. Without the cornerstone, without this foundation, the building struggles to stand tall. It might fall over. And even if it doesn’t, it still going to be weak. The cornerstone is necessary to make everything work the way it’s supposed to.

Jesus is our cornerstone. Jesus, his life, his death, his resurrection, and his promise to be with us, right now, is the cornerstone to our life. It’s how we know God’s ideas do how we love and care for each other, how we treat each other, and how we stay close to God even when it’s hard to do that. When we have Jesus, and we keep focused on Jesus, we have what our faith needs to grow and be strong. Jesus is, in many ways, our batteries for life. Put batteries in. Turn on. See it shine. And because Jesus is near you, that let’s you shine and love and help and be the people God wants you to be.

Thank you for being up here and I hope you have a blessed week!

Each week, I share a reflection for all children of God. The written manuscript serves as a springboard for what I do. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship on the 18th Sunday After Pentecost, 10/08/2017.

Bring a Banana Bunch.
This is just from Dollar Store Children’s Sermons. Click that link and watch it!

I’m so happy you’re here today!

So I brought something with me today. What is it? A bunch of bananas. Right bananas. I bought these on Friday during my weekly trip to Costco. They were pretty green when I got them so I left them out to turn yellow. I don’t eat bananas a lot but my kids enjoy them. Do you like them? Yes. No. Accept answers.

Let’s pretend today that we love bananas. Like love them. Like need to eat them every day or it feels like something was missing in our day. So we love, love, love bananas!

Now let’s look at these bananas. Now we all know they’re bananas because this is what they look like. But are they all the same? No! Some are different sizes. Describe the bananas and he they are different. Different sizes, colors, shapes, and some will make us fill more full than the others. Each one of these bananas is different! But they’re all bananas and we love bananas so after we eat just one, no matter its size or shape or color, we’re going to feel happy, and whole, and satisfied.

Jesus tells a story today that reminded me about these bananas. In the story, someone has a large field and needs people to spend the day picking food off it. Some people start at the beginning of the day, some start after lunch, and some start right before dinner time. All the workers work a different amount. Some worked all day and some worked for only an hour. But the person who owns the field pays everyone the same generous amount. And the owner pays them all the same, regardless of who did what, because the owner wants to be generous. And that generosity is a picture of God’s love for us. No matter who we are, how tall we are, how old we are, or what we do – God keeps loving us. God keeps helping us. God keeps being with us. God’s love is generous and God keeps giving that love to us, showing us how we’re supposed to love the people around us. So like these bananas, it doesn’t matter who we are or what we look like, God keeps loving us because that’s just what God does.

Thank you for being up here and I hope you have a blessed week!

Each week, I share a reflection for all children of God. The written manuscript serves as a springboard for what I do. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship on the 16th Sunday After Pentecost, 9/24/2017.

Bring 52 marbles in a bag.
This is just from Dollar Store Children’s Sermons. Click that link and watch it!

I’m so happy you’re here today!

So I want to talk today a little about the story we’re going to hear about Jesus today and we’re going to use this: a bag of marbles. There’s a lot of marbles in here and we’re going to pretend that each marble counts as one time when we forgive someone. So this is a bag full of forgiveness marbles.

Now Peter, one of Jesus’ friends, asks Jesus “how many times am I supposed to forgive someone? If Someone breaks a promise to me or my trust, and it hurts, as long as I’m safe – should I forgive the other person more than once? Should I forgive them like…7 times?” So we have this bag of forgiveness – so let’s count out 7 marbles. Have the kids count out with you seven marbles. Phew! We did it. 7 is something we can do.

But Jesus doesn’t tell Peter to forgive someone 7 times. He says forgive them 77 times. 77! That’s a big number! So okay….let’s see if we can use this bag of marbles to count out 77 times forgiving someone. Count the marbles. As you go higher, get tired and talk about it being hard. And then…run out. Oh my gosh. We’re out of forgiveness. And we didn’t make it to 77! So what can we do? What can we do when we run out of forgiveness? Ask kids. Accept answers. What we need is God’s help. God invites us to forgive and love like Jesus does and that’s usually more than we can do. So we ask God to help us love and love and love. Because God and Jesus forgives us all the time. That isn’t hard for God. But it’s sometimes hard for us. When a friend breaks a promise, that’s hard. There are sometimes things that happen to us that we might not be able to forgive right away or for awhile. So we ask God to help us forgive like God does. To help us be safe so we can forgive those who might hurt us and also ask God to help those we might have hurt. And we ask by saying our prayers and praying – something I do all the time and something we’ll do later in this worship service. We ask help God always to help us love like God loves – so that this world can be a kinder, gentler, and more forgiving place.

Thank you for being up here and I hope you have a blessed week!

Each week, I share a reflection for all children of God. The written manuscript serves as a springboard for what I do. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship on the 15th Sunday After Pentecost, 9/17/2017.

Bring a cardigan.

I’m so happy you’re here today!

I hope you all had a good week last week. How many started school? What grades did you start? Accept answers. Mention we’ll bless bags, students, and teachers at the end of worship. A new school, new grades, new friends – that’s a lot of change!

And I noticed there’s something else that’s changing: the weather! It’s cooler outside, especially at night. I sometimes wake up cold because I haven’t put my fall blankets on my bed yet. I have to wear different things to stay warm when the weather gets colder. What’s something you wear? Jacket. Hoodie. Sweater. Another thing we can wear is this – a cardigan!

Now there’s someone famous who loves to wear cardigans and his name was Mr. Rodgers. You might have seen him on tv – or hear about his neighborhood or maybe where Daniel Tiger lives. Now Mr. Rodgers told me something that I would like to tell you. And it’s something important and helpful when we see something that might confuse, scare, or worry us. Right now, there’s a hurricane about to hit Florida. There was a big flood in Texas. And tomorrow, people will remember something awful that happened on September 11th. When someing big and scary happens, it can make us scared. It can cause us to worry. And it can sometimes make us wonder where God is when bad things happen.

But Mr. Rodgers says, and it’s something he learned from his mom, when we see something scary and awful. Look for the helpers. Look for the people trying to help. Look for the people rescuing people in boats, making sure popped are safe, giving people shelter and making sure people are fed. Look for the helpers because they helpers are there. And the helpers show us how God is there and how God is loving us. Always look for the helpers – and, when we are scared or put in a scary situation, know that God is helping us be the helper God calls us to be.

So keep Texas, Florida, and all places that are scared and worried, keep those people and places in your prayers today and this week. And look for the helpers – you’ll see them.

Thank you for being up here and I hope you have a blessed week!

Each week, I share a reflection for all children of God. The written manuscript serves as a springboard for what I do. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship on the 14th Sunday After Pentecost, 9/10/2017.

Bring little rocks and a sharpie that you can write things on.

I’m so happy you’re here today!

We’re still talking about the liturgy this week – the different things we don on Sunday morning that make up our church service. Last week, we talked about the puzzle of the Creed – words that we say because they show us who Jesus is and why Jesus matters. We don’t always necessarily believe all of it, or maybe there are parts that we don’t understand or that confuses us, and all that. But we share it because it helps us realize who Jesus is. So after the Creed, we do something else. We say a lot of prayers. And to talk about that – I’ve got these. Show rocks.

So what are they? Rocks! These are small rocks I found outside. What do these rocks look like? Small. Round. Gray. Blue. Do they look like special rocks? Nope. Just boring rocks. These are totally just everyday rocks. You can find these kinds of rocks everywhere.

Now rocks are fun because we can do a lot with them. We can make a wall with them, play with them, take them to a lake and trip to skip them over the water. Rocks are hard, they can be heavy, they can be strong – but they can also, over time, be worn down by water and wind and more. I like playing with rocks and I like being careful with rocks too. But I think rocks are important today because of a story we’re going to hear. Jesus is going to tell his friend Peter that he is a “rock.” Jesus tells him that because Peter is going to be someone who tells Jesus’ story, love like Jesus does, and be a leader. So Peter will need to make decisions, and keep talking about Jesus even when he doesn’t want to or he’s tired or maybe he’s not feeling very faithful. Jesus tells Peter to be a rock, a strong foundation, and a leader so that people can hear how much God loves them.

And one way we share that love is by prayer. Prayer is something very active. It’s something we do. And it’s something God tells us to do. So we say a lot of prayers. We pray for the church, for the government, for creation, and for all sorts of people. We pray for those who are sick or happy, tired or scared, and those who have no one to pray for them. We pray because Jesus tells Peter to be a rock – and Jesus tells us to be a rock – and being with Jesus means we pray. And we pray even when we don’t want to.

So let’s write our own prayers. On each rock, we’re going to write a name of someone or something to pray for. Write the prayers. Hand the rocks to the kids. Now this is your prayer rock. I want you, later today, to take this rock out and pray the name or word on it. It reminds us that Jesus calls us to pray – because prayer is how we are strong, like a rock, with Jesus. So make sure to go back to the pews and give these rocks to your parents. They’ll keep them safe until later!

Thank you for being up here and I hope you have a blessed week!

Each week, I share a reflection for all children of God. The written manuscript serves as a springboard for what I do. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship on the 12th Sunday After Pentecost, 8/27/2017.

Bring a puzzle. Show the VBS 2017 video.

I’m so happy you’re here today!

We’re back to talking about the liturgy this week – the different things we do on Sunday morning that make up our church service. We’ve talked about a lot so far – why we preach, sing, shake hands, and confess our sins and ask God for forgiveness. Today we’re going to talk about this thing we do right after my sermon and right after we sing a song together. And that’s….the Creed.

Creed is a funny word. Can we say that word together? Creed. There are three different creeds that we could use in church but usually we only use 2. The one we’re using today is the shorter one and it’s called the Apostles’ Creed. We call it the Apostles’ creed because legend says that the apostles, Jesus’ friends, put the Creed together. And how did they do that? By thinking about this – show a puzzle.

This is a puzzle that has a few pieces still to put together. And that’s house puzzles work – we look at the picture and try to use different pieces to put it together. Do the puzzle with the kids for a bit.

Look! Here’s our finished puzzle. Each piece was needed to show the rest. And that’s how this creed works. The creed is made up of different part of Jesus’ story and why Jesus’ story matters. Each piece is important because, without it, we won’t know fully how God loves us. We recite it each week because it helps remind us just how much Jesus loves us and why Jesus is important. And we also recite it because, sometimes, there are different parts of the puzzle that don’t make a lot of sense to us, or parts we don’t understand. Or parts that we don’t necessary think are true that day. The creed isn’t here as a test – as if we have to understand or get or fully believe every single part to call ourselves a Christian. The Creed matters for us because it’s a complete picture of who Jesus is. And when we don’t understand pieces of the puzzles, we know that the person next to us might get it. And we might understand the pieces of the puzzle that the person next to us doesn’t get. The creed helps remind us that we are all, as a community, growing closer to Jesus. All of us, together, are needed to figure out who God wants us to be. The creed is, then, what we as a community, teach and share, the fullness of Jesus’ story. The creed is a picture of Jesus and faith that helps us see Jesus – and live out the Christian faith.

So, in honor of the creed and how it’s a statement that shows what this community teaches, we’re going to show a short slideshow about how we taught, and sang, and ate, and played this Jesus thing out in last week’s VBS.

Thank you for being up here and I hope you have a blessed week!

Each week, I share a reflection for all children of God. The written manuscript serves as a springboard for what I do. This is from Christ Lutheran Church’s Worship on the 11th Sunday After Pentecost, 8/20/2017.