Fifty Years ago on the fifteenth of September men
threw a bomb into the basement of the Sixteenth Street Baptist church in
Birmingham, Alabama during the church school hour. Four young African American girls were
killed. 17 others were injured. The girls were to participate in a Youth
Sunday service built around the theme of forgiveness that day. Congregations in Birmingham are working
together to remember this event and use it to take further steps toward more
justice among the races. They invite
congregations in other cities to do the same.
Amazingly, the lectionary texts for this day deal with repentance and
forgiveness so there are many connections.
Go to 50th Anniversary of Birmingham, Alabama Church Bombing for my ideas about how to recall this event with children and
links to lots of worship resources being gathered by the Birmingham churches.
These texts use and lead
worship leaders to use a wide variety of sin and forgiveness words – sin,
repent/ance, mercy, forgive/ness, pardon, grace, saved. It is tempting to enrich the service by using
as many as possible. If you do, remember
that many of them are unfamiliar to children.
So, select one or two familiar ones to explore in some depth or spend
time introducing them as a group.
N Write
one or two on big posters to display during the whole service. Before the call to worship, introduce the
word/s with brief definitions. Give
children stickers or marking pens with which to note in their bulletin
every time they hear, sing or pray the word/s.
N Select
two or three words to present as a word family defining each word and
telling how it is related to the others.
For example, SIN is all the bad stuff we do. REPENTANCE is deciding to stop doing that
stuff. And, FORGIVENESS is God saying,
“I’m glad you can see what you did wrong and are going to be different. I’ll help you on that.”
N Use
the word discipline rather than punishment to describe God’s response to
sin and sinners. Children hear
punishment as getting back at the sinner or revenge. With help they can hear discipline as helping
sinners change their ways.
REPENTANCE is a key word today.
The usual understanding of repentance (especially among children) is that
you say you are sorry and God or a person you have hurt forgives you, i.e. says
that it’s OK. In today’s stories
repenting is more than that. It is changing
your ways. Paul changes from killing
Christians to being one of the biggest leaders of the Christians. David asks God to help him change his ways,
“create in me a clean heart.” God
decides not to abandon the Hebrew slaves in the desert, but to help them become
the people God called them to be. Jesus
eats with “known sinners” because he believes they might change and calls on
the Pharisees to do likewise. Even
children have trouble believing they or anyone can change. “That is just the way she is.” He’ll always….” “I’ll never be … I’m just too….”
N Use your bodies in a prayer of
confession and call to repentance. While a worship leader prays aloud the prayer
below, all members of the congregation stand to pray with their bodies. Each time the worship leader prays “Great
God, we are sinners,” everyone faces the back of the sanctuary. Each time the worship leader prays “Turn us
around,” everyone turns to face the front of the church.
OLPNMOLPNMOLPNMOLPNMOLPNMOLP
Prayer of
Confession and Call to Repentance
Great
God, we are sinners. We get everything
wrong. It is like we are facing the
wrong way, dreaming the wrong dreams, working toward the wrong goals.
Turn
us around so that we face you, dream your dreams, work toward your goals.
Great
God we are sinners. Too often we are
selfish grabbing the most food, the prettiest clothes, and the coolest games
for ourselves.
Turn
us around. Teach us to share what we have.
Give us generous hearts.
Great
God, too often we think only of ourselves.
We think about we want, what we like, what we think.
Turn
us around. Teach us to see all the
people around us. Help us recognize what
people in our families and our friends want and need and hope. Help us learn to take care of them and their
needs.
Great
God, too often we hate. We hate people
who are not like us. We hate people who
make our lives even a little harder. We
hate people who get in our way. We hate
people we just do not like.
Turn
us around. Teach us that people who are
not just like us are your children and worthy of our friendship. Show us how to make friends with those who do
not agree with us.
Great
God, we are sinners. We know it. We admit it and want to change.
Turn
us around to face you, to become your children, to be part of your
kingdom.
We
bring our confessions of sin to you and ask for your help in turning around in
Jesus’ name. AMEN.
OLPNMOLPNMOLPNMOLPNMOLPNMOLP
Maybe the best song for today
is the second verse of “Jesus Loves Me.”
Jesus
loves me when I’m good,
When
I do the things I should.
Jesus
love me when I’m bad,
Even
though it makes him sad.
Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
With all the other texts
about sin and forgiveness today, leave this grim judgment one out. Children are simply scared by it. Also, because they take it literally, they
often misinterpret it as God’s response to (or the natural consequences of)
environmental sin. It is not. It is an indictment of national sins.
Psalm 14
Given the choice of this
general psalm and David’s story-based confession in Psalm 51, choose Psalm 51
for the children. If you do read this
psalm remember that to children “there is no God” translates “I’ll get away
with it” or “It won’t matter” and that people who say those things are fools. God knows and God cares.
Exodus 32:7-14
If you are exploring repentance
today, this story becomes proof that even God repents or changes God’s mind. When the people break Commandment #2 (Don’t
worship idols) almost immediately after agreeing to keep it, God is really
angry. Moses talks God out of abandoning
the people as hopeless sinners. The fact
that Moses would argue with God about this and that God would change the plan
in response to Moses both impresses children and gives them the confidence to
talk to God honestly about anything. God
can take whatever they have to say. God
will listen. God may even change the
plan.
The
story of Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane that did not get God to change the plan is
a good balance to Moses’ story. It
proves that this is not a promise that God will change the plan to suit us every
time we ask.
Psalm 51:1-10
N ”Create in me a clean heart, O
God…” is a basic prayer
that most Christians pray frequently in their lives. David prayed it after he had stolen Bathsheba
from her husband and had him murdered.
Paul might have prayed it after he realized how wrong he had been about
Jesus and the Christians. And, we need
to pray at different times for different reasons. Most children have little grasp of their own
sinfulness. They know they do the
occasional bad thing, but are not overwhelmed by it. Insist to them that this is a prayer they
will need, practice saying it together and briefly explore its meaning.
N Remember that
children hear the poetic images in Psalm 51 literally. So, “create in
me a clean heart” sounds like “cut me open, take out my heart, scrub it down,
and then stick it back in me.” Ouch! Point this out and then
explore what it really means. Describe how dirty and yucky we feel when
know we have done things that are wrong and that have hurt other people.
We feel so rotten that we want to hide. Then describe how clean and fresh
and new we feel when we admit what we have done and do whatever we can to fix
the hurt we have caused.
N Use verses 1-4 and 10 as the prayer of confession for the day. Before praying them, with the congregation (or
children) identify all the sin words (sin, iniquity, transgression, and evil)
in verses 1-4. Have each word printed on a piece of poster board and
display it in turn. Briefly tell that David who first prayed this prayer
had just had a man murdered so that he could marry his wife – that IS… list
each of the words for sin!. Note that most of us have not done
anything that bad. Then, list specific examples of sin of which your worshipers
might be guilty (lying to get out of trouble, saying mean words to or about
someone, making another person’s life really unhappy by the way you treat him
or her, being greedy, selfish, etc.) Finally, read and explain verse 10. Only, then invite the congregation to pray the
prayer with you.
N The prayers of confession generally come early in
worship. It would be possible to pray them this week without comment at
that time. Then, pray them again
after a sermon in which their
meaning has been explored in detail. During the sermon you might walk
through that part of the liturgy explaining the sequence of confession,
assurance, response, and passing the peace. You might even practice sung
or spoken responses. Repeating the whole process after this explanation
will give it more meaning today and help worshipers of all ages participate in
it more fully in the future.
1 Timothy 1:12-17
N A little vocabulary thing: Children will
understand you if you speak of Paul “killing Christians” rather than
“persecuting the church.”
N To make sense of this text,
you have to know the story of Paul’s conversion (Acts 9:1-22). Just before the epistle reading invite the
children forward to hear you tell that story in your own words, then tell
children that the epistle is the beginning of letter written by Paul years
later.
N If you are focusing on God’s
acceptance of all sinners, tell the story of Paul’s conversion paying extra
attention to Ananias’ role and his willingness to believe that Paul
could be OK. “God, are you sure you have
the right man? I mean, this is
Saul. Saul, who is rounding up
Christians and putting them in jail. Are
you sure you want me to bring him into my Christian home and heal him and
introduce him to other Christians?”…”OK, I’ll give it a try.”
Luke 15:1-10
N To get the feel of 100 sheep, count
worshipers. If there are more than 100 worshipers
present, gather 100 people at the front of the sanctuary. If the choir is in the front, start counting
them then counting people coming forward from the congregation until you have
100. Or, count people in their
pews. If there are fewer than 100 in the
sanctuary, count the whole crowd and figure how many more you would need to
make 100. However you do this, enjoy how
many 100 is. Then wonder aloud what it
would be like if you had to move around all day as group. Imagine how easy it would be for one of you
to be left behind. Then send everyone
back to their seats or simply announce that Jesus told a story about a shepherd
who had 100 sheep. Read it.
N Remember several things about
being lost from a child’s point of view. First, lost is being physically abandoned and
alone. Being lost in sin is a metaphor
that requires explanation. Second, fear of
being lost (as in abandoned) is one of the deepest and most common fears of
childhood - and most of life. (Ever have
dreams about being lost in an airport running to catch a plane?) Third, when children are lost they assume
that it is the adults around them who have wandered away from them. They were doing reasonable to them activities
and suddenly find themselves abandoned.
“I was looking at all the candy bars and mom was gone!” “I decided to go back to the car while you
shopped, but I couldn’t find it.” So
children assume the lost sheep was an innocent victim rather than a willful
strayer – UNLESS you suggest the second possibility to them with examples of a
sheep intentionally ignoring the shepherd’s call in order to chase a butterfly
or eat more of a great patch of grass.
N The first decision worship
leaders must make is who are the lost. Most often readers assume that they are the
lost ones sought out by God and celebrate God’s persistence in finding them. But, Jesus told these stories to the Pharisees
who were unhappy that Jesus was eating with known lost sinners. His message to them is that God is more
interested in the lost than in them – and they should be too.
N To make Jesus’ point about
reaching out to “the sinners,” read John Jewell’s story about church
officer dressing as homeless man and sitting near door on Sunday
morning then becoming part of the dialog sermon. Or, reenact it with one of your
officers. Find it at The Man Who Slept on the Church Porch .
N Explore the idea that God cares for
everyone, not just me and the people I like, but people I think are “sinners.” How
many people are at your school? (Probably
no one will know this, so move to the next question.) How many in your class? (Some will know or be willing to take a guess
at this.) Then do some math to see if
there are ten classes at your school and ???? in each class, there must be
about ???? children in your school. That
is a lot of people! Add to that all the
teachers, principles, cafeteria workers, custodians, bus drivers. That is really a lot of people. Now, I want to tell you something about every
one of those people. Jesus says God
knows and loves every one of those people.
That of course includes each of you.
Nice, isn’t it? No matter how
good or bad the day is going, God knows YOU and keeps an eye on YOU and loves YOU. That makes us feel safe and kind of
special. But try this, think of the
meanest kid in the school. God knows
THAT KID and keeps an eye on THAT KID and loves THAT KID just as much as God
loves you. Think of the hardest teacher
you ever had. God knows THAT TEACHER and
keeps an eye on THAT TEACHER and loves THAT TEACHER just as much as God loves
you. Amazing, isn’t it? God loves the smarty pants kids, the stuck up
kids, the grumpy adults, the pests, (add terms that are used in your area)... Amazing!
And you know what else? God wants
us to know them and keep an eye on them and even LOVE them too. Actually, God is counting on us to be God’s partners
in this. God thinks we are all one big
family and wants us to be happy together.
Close with a prayer for all the people in our schools.
N Classic children’s picture books about
being lost and being forgiven.
N Celebrate Jesus the Good
Shepherd who comes after one lost sheep by singing your congregation’s favorite
musical version of the Twenty-third Psalm.
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