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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

On Writing a Good Children's Sermon

I love children's sermons. They also kinda terrify me.

I'm not one of those people who is always great with kids. I never babysat when I was a teenager. When people hand their babies to me, I'm not always sure how to hold them.

Now that I have a baby of my own, I'm getting better. But still.

Children's sermons are a challenge for me. It's tricky to distill a 15-minute sermon or a complex Scripture passage down to something a 6-year old can understand.

It's also vitally important.

If a pastor can't explain the message of Scripture, the message of the Gospel, and the message of her sermon to a child, then it probably isn't very well-formed to begin with. Whenever I can't find a children's sermon somewhere in the Scripture text and in my regular sermon, I know I'm trying to do way too much.

I use a lot of different resources to help me come up with children's sermon. The Scripture text (obviously), the direction in which my sermon is headed, and online resources like Sermons4Kids and Preaching Today and others.

Still, the online resources don't always have what I need. Sometimes they just don't work with our particular rural, Midwestern church. Other times they have too much of a conservative or a liberal bent. Occasionally I just don't think they're theologically sound.

The worst ones, though, are the ones that play a dirty trick on the kids. One suggestion I read for a children's sermon on hypocrisy was to mound dirt in the shape of a cake and frost it. Then you offer the kids a piece of cake, cut into the cake, and find dirt.

If I was a 6-year old, that would make me never want to go to church again. Don't get between a kid and a piece of cake.

As a pastor who is always searching for Children's Sermon materials, I've decided to start posting mine on here from time to time. Only originals, and only if they worked well (I'll spare you the occasional children's sermon I preach when I hear only crickets from the kids... awwwwkward...).

Sound good? If you have a great children's sermon you've preached, heard, or read, please pass it on. This pastor's always looking for assistance!

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