Idea for Children’s sermon:   

 

(1) Consider acting out the parable. Pick out the key actors and ask them to act the story out as you give a paraphrased account of the story.

 

--Another option:

 

(2) Have a long time member of the congregation (or older believer) come up front. Hand them a big box and explain to the children that this represents (or shows us) that this faithful order Christian has received a “big box” of the wonderful life and love of Jesus Christ. Then bring up another younger person who has only been a Christian for a short period of time. Ask the children what size box of Jesus’ love and life they should have. Hand them the same size box and explain how even new believers get the same huge amount of God’s love and life in Jesus Christ.

 

Object lesson items needed: Two large boxes the same size. In big letters write on each box, “The Love and Life of Jesus Christ.”

 

Full Children’s Sermon:

 

Good Morning Children! This morning I’m going to ask Mr. Jones to come up in front of the church with us. (Ask Mr. Jones to come forward.) He is a very special person because he is 80 years old. He has always been a believer in Jesus Christ and he has been a member of our church longer than anyone else has. I wonder how much of the life and love of Jesus Christ has been given to him. I’m going to pretend the life and love of Jesus Christ is like this big box. (Hand the box to Mr. Jones.) He has been a believer for a very long time and I think he should have large amount of God’s live and love in Jesus Christ. Now, I’m going to ask another person to come forward. Debbie, will you please come forward? Debbie is only 16 years old and she has only been a believer in Jesus for one year! Some of you might remember when she was baptized. Since Debbie is a brand new Christian, how much of the life and love of Jesus Christ does she get? Should she perhaps get a little amount like this small box here? (Hold it up besides Mr. Jones’ box.) That would make sense wouldn’t it? She hasn’t been following Jesus nearly as much as Mr. Jones here. However, do you know what is amazing? The bible says that a new Christian believer like Debbie gets just as much of the life and love of Jesus as a long time believer like Mr. Jones. (Put the small box down and hand them a large box the same size as Mr. Jones’ to Debbie.) Isn’t that wonderful. God blesses us with a huge amount of the life and love of Jesus Christ even if we are a new Christian! Notice too the big smile on Mr. Jones’ face. He does not feel this is unfair. He’s happy that Debbie has this same wonderful gift of love and joy.

 

Children’s Prayer: Dear God, thank you for your life and love that is in Jesus Christ your Son. There is more than enough to go around. Thank you that like these big boxes here, you have a big amount of your love and life for each of us even if we are a new Christian. In Jesus’ name – Amen!

Copyright 2011 Sundaychildrensfocus.com   Andrew Hewlett  Feel free to use this on Sunday but please give credit to Sundaychildrensfocus and consider linking to this web site.  Thanks  - A.H.

 

Basic bible story idea:

I’m going with the idea that there is actually a way that 1 plus 1 equals 3! Where there are two or more Christians gathered Jesus is there too. Show two pieces of coloured glass. Bring them together and show them how there is a third colour where they overlap. Show the children 4 small cut out triangle. Piece them together and show how pieced together the 4 triangles make a 5^th large triangle. (Like all analogies this is does not describe perfectly how Jesus is present in our midst.) Explain how when believers gather there is actually an extra person present – Jesus.

 

Complete Children’s sermon:

 

Good morning children!  I have a question for you. What does one plus one equal? Right. However, I’m going to show you a way that one plus one equals three! This morning I have two colourful pieces of glass with me. I have this pretty piece of blue glass (hold it up for them to see), and I have this piece of yellow glass. Therefore, you can see that I have two colours in total, blue and yellow. Watch carefully. I’m going to put there two colours together. Look what happens when I put the two colours together. What colour do you see here in between? Right. There is a third new colour, green! Two pieces of coloured glass and a third new colour. I’m going to show you something else. Look at these 4 small triangles. (It might be easiest to place these on a felt board or stick them one by one on cardboard. Show them how you can fit them together in the shape of one big triangle.) There, I have 4 small triangles here but look carefully. These 4 actually make another big triangle when they are all together. When they are all together, there are actually 5 triangles. That’s pretty amazing. This reminds me of something that Jesus taught his disciples. In Matthew 18 Jesus said that where two or more believers gathered that he was there too. Now, we know that Jesus is with us always, but in some special way Jesus is right here with us when we come together. We can’t see Jesus but he said he would be right here with us. Let’s count how many children are up here now. (Count together) Great! There are ten of us. However, we know that there are really 11 of us because Jesus is here too. Let’s pray.

 

Children’s Prayer: Dear God, Thank you for this wonderful miracle that when we gather Jesus is right here with us too. In Jesus’ name – Amen!

 

Copyright 2011 Sundaychildrensfocus.com Andrew Hewlett Feel free to use this at your Sunday morning church service. Please consider placing a link to this site. A.H.

 

Sunday School Sermon idea: Have a bag filled with different types of weeds along with small flowers or plants. Making two piles, have the children decide which are the good plants and which are the weeds. After this hold up cut out pictures of people (from a magazine). Ask them if they can decide who are the good people and who are the bad people. After seeing the pictures and realizing it cannot be done, explain how it’s not really our job to go around separating good people from bad people. Our job is to show love and care to all people.

 

Object lesson items: Some weeds; some small flowers or plants; Pictures of people cut out from a magazine.

 

Complete kids sermon: Good morning children! Have any of you helped plant things in the garden or helped pull weeds? I haven’t done a lot of gardening and I find it hard to tell the difference between the weeds and the flowers. Look at this bag here. It’s full of weeds and its full of flowers. Let’s see if you can tell the difference. I’ll make two piles on this tray; one for the good plants and one for the weeds. OK. What about this one? Is it a weed or a flower? How about this one? (Some may be easy to recognize and some difficult. Have some fun with this.)

 

I think you did pretty well. However, sometimes it was hard to tell the difference, especially when the plants had not yet produced pretty flowers. Now I want you to look at these pictures here. They are pictures of people I cut out of a magazine. Why don’t we try to put them in different piles: We’ll have one pile for good people and one pile for bad people. (Hold up the pictures and ask the children to decide by looking at the people.) Hmmm. I don’t think this is working. I don’t think it’s really our job to put people into “good people” and “bad people” piles. In our bible reading today from Matthew chapter 13 Jesus makes it clear that it’s not really our job to try to decide who are the good people and who are the bad people in the world. God knows who are his friends and who are his enemies. Our job is to show the love of Jesus to everyone. 

 

Prayer for the Children: Dear God, help us not to worry too much about who is good and who is bad. Help us to show the love of Jesus to everyone. In Jesus’ name – Amen

 

Copyright 2011 Andrew Hewlett – Sundaychildrensfocus.com  Feel free to use this but consider linking to this site. Blessings, A.H.