U The texts
for today are filled with and will lead worship leaders to use lots of words
about forgiving – grace, reconciliation, forgives, mercy, and more. Many of these words are unfamiliar or
generally used in other ways by children.
So watch your vocabulary.
“Forgive” is the basic word for children. It means “You hurt me but I love you
anyway.” The father in the parable makes
it clear that he loves his son no matter what the son does. Paul reminds the people at Corinth
that God forgives them. He also challenges them to forgive each other.
“Grace” is a forgiveness word that children hear often in
church, but which means different things at church than it does elsewhere. In most places grace is the ability to move
beautifully, a girl’s name or the prayer said at mealtime. At church grace is God’s never ending
love. It includes more than forgiveness,
but today keep the focus on never-ending love that forgives us, or keeps loving
us, even when we mess up.
“Reconciliation” or some form of the word appears repeatedly in the
epistle. Before reading it, introduce
the word to children saying all the forms of it they will hear. Define reconciliation as “putting something
broken back together.” Compare dropping
a jigsaw puzzle on the floor and putting the pieces together again, dropping a
toy breaking off a piece of it that can be glued back on so the toy can still
be used, and a group of children who are all mad each other forgiving each
other then playing happily together.
Use “mercy”
only if you use it in a regular Kyrie.
Translate the Kyrie from Latin or English, “God, please love us anyway even
when we mess up.” Practice saying or
singing your version of the Kyrie together and explain how it fits into the
liturgy of confession.
Take it
to another level by listening to Kyries from around the world and imagining all
God’s people praying this prayer together and then forgiving each other as God
forgives us.
U If you are
using hearts during Lent, write the forgiveness words on a big red heart poster
to introduce at the beginning of worship and display throughout worship. You might even give children small heart
stickers to add to their bulletins every time they hear, sing or pray one of
the words on the heart.
AMAZING GRACE
U If this
theme leads to singing “Amazing Grace” be aware that it is filled with words
and images children do not understand.
They do, however, hear the passion with which this song is sung by the
congregation and early recognize it as a very important song. Many sing it without understanding its words
for years. Rather than try to translate
the entire song, pick one phrase to explore before singing it. If you have already defined grace as God’s
never ending love even when we mess up, point to the word wretch. It is fun to say, but few children know what
it means. So, practice saying it, then
define a wretch as a person who does awful things all the time. Emphasize the difference in little sins that
do not matter and those that do. Talk
about the difference between calling a friend a bad name and being punished by
an adult who overhears you, but forgiven easily by the friend and calling a
friend a bad name, seeing the hurt in her eyes and maybe even seeing her crying
alone in a corner later. When you know
you have hurt your friend deeply, you feel very bad about it. You feel like a wretch. Then read the first line in the song again. Point
out that when we sing it we are telling God that we know we do awful things and
are thanking God for loving us anyway.
Now children are ready to sing the first line of the hymn with
understanding.
Joshua
5:9-12
U To follow
this story listeners need to know about manna, Passover and the trip to the
Promised Land. Since most children do
not, there is more background work than can be done in most worship
services. This would be an interesting story
to use with older children in a classroom setting to explore the fact that God
cares for us in different ways in different situations as needed.
Psalm 32
U Particularly
if you read from the NRSV, this psalm is filled with sin vocabulary that is
unfamiliar to children – transgressions, iniquity, etc. So, I’d use TEV when exploring it with
children.
U Single out
verses 3 and 5 to explore the important truth that as long as we insist that "I did
nothing wrong", "it wasn’t my fault", and so forth we are trapped. Nothing gets resolved and we feel
terrible. Only when we admit what we
did, apologize and work on fixing things does life get better. This is as hard a lesson for children to
learn and act on today as it was for the prodigal son to learn and act on.
When I did not confess my sins,
I was worn out from crying all day long.
Then I confessed my sins to you;
I did not conceal my wrongdoings.
I decided to confess them to you,
and you forgave all my sins.
TEV
2
Corinthians 5:16-21
U Saint Patrick’s Day is March 17 (next Sunday!). On that day all things Irish get special attention. So show the picture of the statue “Hands Across the Divide” that stands on a bridge between Protestant and Catholic areas of one Irish town. Without going into a lot of detail note that Protestant and Catholic Christians in Ireland have been fighting for hundreds of years. Both sides know that it does no good to keep the fight going, but it is hard to stop it. Lots of people have to do lots of little things every day to reach out in peace. Protestant and Catholic children sometimes go to camp or on trips together during the summer so that they get to know each other and make friends with their “enemies.” It is a brave thing to do because lots of people really do hate the people on the other side and anyone who tries to make friends with them. With this as background, reread verses 17-20 from the TEV challenging children to imagine what Irish Protestant and Catholic Christians think when they hear this AND what it says about how we treat people we think of as our enemies.
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U Saint Patrick’s Day is March 17 (next Sunday!). On that day all things Irish get special attention. So show the picture of the statue “Hands Across the Divide” that stands on a bridge between Protestant and Catholic areas of one Irish town. Without going into a lot of detail note that Protestant and Catholic Christians in Ireland have been fighting for hundreds of years. Both sides know that it does no good to keep the fight going, but it is hard to stop it. Lots of people have to do lots of little things every day to reach out in peace. Protestant and Catholic children sometimes go to camp or on trips together during the summer so that they get to know each other and make friends with their “enemies.” It is a brave thing to do because lots of people really do hate the people on the other side and anyone who tries to make friends with them. With this as background, reread verses 17-20 from the TEV challenging children to imagine what Irish Protestant and Catholic Christians think when they hear this AND what it says about how we treat people we think of as our enemies.
At the Vanderbilt site there is a second closer-up photo of this statue.
UK readers, remember this is written by an American and so probably grossly over simplifies and plain gets things wrong. I trust you to fix the story and use the statue as it was meant. All readers, go to Grannymar for the details about the story behind this statue.)
UK readers, remember this is written by an American and so probably grossly over simplifies and plain gets things wrong. I trust you to fix the story and use the statue as it was meant. All readers, go to Grannymar for the details about the story behind this statue.)
U The
Quarreling Book, by Charlotte
Zolotow, describes in the briefest of detail how unhappiness spreads as one
hurt results in another and then is resolved when first one then another person
repays their hurt with kindness until the day ends happily. The
book is available in most public libraries and reads in about 3 minutes.
U Especially
if you sing it several times, “Let There Be Peace on Earth and Let it
Begin with Me” is a great song for children to sing with the
congregation on this day.
U Unless you
use “sins” in the prayer, introduce the word you do use (trespasses or debts) defining
it as sin or as all the things we do to hurt God and each other.
U Create a
responsive prayer of confession in which a leader describes a variety
of ways we sin with the congregation responding to each one with the line from
the Lord’s Prayer. For example,
One: God, we are quick to hurt others with our
tongues. We call names. We tell lies about other people. We say mean and cruel words.
All: Forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors.
U As you
talk about this phrase, use simple hand motions. Turn one arm out to one side with hand turned
up while discussing “forgive us our….”
Turn the other arm out with that hand up while discussing “as we forgive
our.…” Then bring the two hands together
in prayer to note that when we pray this prayer we are telling God we are going
to work on getting along.
U Find or make a string of intertwined hearts. Display it enjoying its beauty. Then, link arms with each other to make a human chain remarking on its beauty. Wonder aloud what happens if someone in the chain calls the person next to her a name. Tell how hurt that person feels. Unlink the arms of two people in the chain. Point out that the whole chain rather than just the two people is messed up. Express sadness over the lost unity of the chain, then suggest that the chain can be put back together. Together think of ways to undo the damage of name calling, e.g. apologizing, doing something especially kind to the hurt person to show you meant the apology, doing something together so you will trust each other again, etc. With older children use this demonstration to introduce the word RECONCILIATION.
Luke 15:1-3,
11b-32
U This is a
long and fairly complex story. It is
familiar to most adults, but is new to many children. To help them follow the story, prepare
an older children’s class to pantomime it as it is read in worship. The three main characters can be supplemented
by household servants and friends in the far country. If needed, the three main characters could
be a mother or father and daughters. The
children watching will be helped by the pantomime to follow the story. The children in the pantomime will learn the
details of the story thoroughly during rehearsal and will take pride in their
worship leadership.
Children are as surprised as adults are by the story
of the Prodigal Son. “It is not fair!”
is heard from children every day. They
want life to be fair and are offended when it is not. This story says that it is better to be “loving” than
to be ”fair.” With children come
up with a list of “fair” ways the father could have treated the brother when he
came home. Then point out that the
father did not treat the son fairly but with love when the son came home. Decide whether the son would rather be
treated fairly or lovingly. Then ask
whether the older brother wanted the younger brother to be treated fairly or
lovingly. Note that it is easy to want
love for ourselves and fairness for other people. Jesus tells us this story to insist that God
treats all of us with love rather than fairness. (This is something that children will have to
think over in the coming days. It really
stretches them.)
U Remember that younger children especially have
trouble seeing themselves “in the shoes of” a character. So, instead of asking them to think like one
or another of the characters in the story.
Simply ask them what that character did or said or what they might say
or do if …. This is a subtle but
important difference.
U Compare
the journey of the younger son to Dorothy’s journey in The Wizard of Oz. When
the tornado blows her away, Dorothy is mad at almost everyone. By the time she returns she has new
understanding and greets people around her with love. (I found this connection in “The Text This
Week” and pass it on though I am not quite sure exactly how to use it. If you have an idea, please share it with
the rest of us.)
U Sing the
verse below of “Jesus Loves Me” for the younger brother and for us.
Jesus
loves me when I’m good,
when I
do the things I should.
Jesus
loves me when I’m bad,
even
though it makes him sad.
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