I have a new blog post in the Patheos Symposium on “Passing on the Faith to the Next Generation.” I hope you’ll click through and see it. Better still it would be fantastic if you left a comment over there so it could gather some interest.
My piece is “A Test Case in Passing on the Faith: The Children’s Sermon” and here’s how it starts:
You can click here to see the whole thing…
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Possibly just as wonderful as making a comment over at Patheos would be if you would share the post in your favorite social media! You can use my buttons below or the ones you find on the full post.
Amen!
So true. I think when prospective pastors are looking for a call, the search committee should ask for a video of a children’s sermon. I hit a few and missed a few, back in my solo pastor days. I always tried to explain the main idea of the sermon. Sometimes I tried too hard and ended up using useless metaphors (“That’s right kids, it’s Big Bird!”) Other times I could get some understanding and connection with them and I knew I had done a decent job at preparing my sermon. If I can’t boil down an important message to about 60-90 seconds of short, concrete sentences, then perhaps I haven’t prepared enough. I’ll admit as I’m writing this…time has a way of glossing things up. (Fish I caught 2 years ago are bigger than yesterday’s fish…ya know?) In the middle of the first children’s sermon I ever did, in front of my future father-in-law, the reverend, a kid shot his hand up and solemnly informed me, “God is dead. I saw it on T.V..”
Thanks Kathie and Dana!
I’m dying to hear what you said to that kid, Dana!