Rebecca S. Ramsey's Blog, page 13

A Blessing for A New (Upside Down) School Year

This Children’s sermon was given August 9, 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic. I’m sharing it here in case it’s useful to someone.

Good morning, girls and boys! Today’s a special day here at church. It’s Promotion Sunday! It’s the day that kids move up to their new Sunday school class!

It sure doesn’t look or feel like it did last year on Promotion Sunday. We’d sit together, and I’d give you something from my basket for you to take with you to school, to help you remember that God goes with you to school, and our love goes with you too.

Now everything is upside down because of the virus, isn’t it?! School is starting late, some kids are going to school at school, and some kids are doing school at home. We’re making the best of it. Lucky for us I could mail it to you!

If you haven’t gotten it yet, you can let me know but here’s what it looks like. It’s a tag for your backpack- or just to hang up if you’re doing school at home, with our church logo on one side and some really important words on the other.

The words say Be loved. Be kind. Be you. No matter where you’re doing school, those are good words to remember.

BE LOVED. I hope that every morning, when you’re brushing your teeth and getting ready for school, you’ll take a few seconds just to be loved- to feel God loving you. You might imagine yourself standing under God’s faucet and letting God’s love pour all over you, soaking you to the skin!

BE KIND. This is so important, isn’t it? The virus has made us all a little more stressed. Have you noticed? Your kindness really makes a difference. Your teachers will need your kindness, and so will your friends. Your parents need it to, don’t they? And you need it. Be sure to be kind to yourself! Jesus asks us to be kind, to treat everyone as a treasure of God, because that’s what we are.

BE YOU. I hope this year, you will work really hard to be yourself! Not to try to be like other people, to be who you are, to like what you like. God made you YOU and God loves you exactly the way you are. And we do too. Be you!

Be loved, be kind, be you. As we pray, I’m going to ask God to bless you as you enjoy the last bit of summer and get ready for school to begin again.

Dear God, we ask for your blessing on all of our kids getting ready for school- and for their teachers too. When it’s time for them to go into their classrooms, at home or at school, help them to feel a closeness to you. Open their hearts and minds to new friends and teachers. Help them know they are loved so dearly. Help them to be kind and generous to those around them. And help them to be brave enough to be true to themselves, to be the people you made them to be. We thank you for them. We love you, God. Amen.

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What Does God Look Like?

This Children’s sermon was given August 2, 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic. I’m sharing it here in case it’s useful to someone.

Good morning, girls and boys! I’m so glad you’re here!

I brought a book to share today, one that Juli Morrow told me about and I’m so glad she did! It’s called Drawing God, and it’s written by Karen Kiefer and illustrated by Kathy De Wit.  I’m going to read it quickly today and share just a few of the pictures, but once we’re back at church in person–whenever that will be!– you can take your time and look at all the illustrations.

(Read Drawing God)

I wonder what you would draw, if I asked you to draw God. What would you pick? A valentine heart? A sun? A loaf of bread? You’ve got such good imaginations. I bet you might think up your own ideas. Maybe a shepherd? An ocean? A mom? A dad?

I hope that you’ll think about this today. Maybe you could ask your parents and brothers and sisters what they’d draw.

You could even make a drawing yourself and give it to God as a gift. I know God would love that!

Let’s pray together.

Dear God, thank you for our imaginations. Help us think about you today, God, and use our imaginations to try to picture you. We love you, God. Amen.

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The Great Pearl

This Children’s sermon was given July 26, 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic. I’m sharing it here in case it’s useful to someone.

Good morning, girls and boys. I hope you are doing well today! Look what I brought today–a treasure box from Sunday school, like last week. I wonder what parable might be inside this box. Shall we open it and see?

Let’s see what we have. We have a man, a merchant, with a table in his house. Oh look what else he has in his house, bags of money, a chair, a chest, a candle, his bed.

And we have another man who is selling things and his little table.

We have a gold box with—what are these? There are pearls inside!

One of them goes to the selling man. This one goes in this shop over here. And this one goes in this shop over here. Is there anything else in the box? No? it’s time to tell the story.

There was once someone who said such wonderful things and did such amazing things that people followed him. And as they followed him, they heard him talking about a kingdom, but it wasn’t like any kingdom they’d ever been in. It wasn’t like any kingdom they’d ever heard of! They couldn’t help it. They had to ask him what God’s kingdom was like. One time when they asked him, he said, “The kingdom of heaven is like when. A person who buys and sells fine pearls, a merchant, goes to search for the great pearl.

When he finds the great pearl (at seller’s table) he went and tried to buy it.

He exchanged his bags of money. His chair and vase and candle, everything but his bed. Even his bed and the very house he lived in.

He exchanged everything for the great pearl.

I wonder if he’s happy with it. I wonder why the seller was willing to give up something so precious.

I wonder if the seller has a name?

I wonder if the merchant has a name.

I wonder what the pearl could really be?

I wonder what could be so precious that a person would exchange everything he has for it?

I wonder if you’ve ever come close to the great pearl. And where this whole place could really be?

I hope you’ll think hard about this and see if you can figure out what Jesus was talking about, comparing God’s kingdom to the search and the finding of the Great Pearl. Why not talk to your family about it and tell them what you think. It’s a fun puzzle to figure out together, and such an important one.

Let’s pray: Dear God, thank you for these treasures Jesus gave to us- his parables, the little stories he told about big, big things. Help us think about this one today and figure out what you are saying to us through it. We love you God. Amen.

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What Does God Treasure?

This Children’s sermon was given July 5, 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic. I’m sharing it here in case it’s useful to someone.

Good morning, girls and boys. I’ve been missing you, and I’m so glad we start Vacation Bible School tomorrow. You don’t have to have the kit that parents signed up for, to participate. I hope I’ll see you on Zoom.

I have a question for you. Have you ever held a treasure in your hands? Something so special, you’re afraid you might break it? How would you hold it? With steady hands. You might want to sit down to hold it, so t87hat you don’t drop it. And as you hold it, how would you feel? You might be thankful for it. You might feel love for it, and want the best for it.

I brought a treasure of mine that I’ve shown you before. Do you remember what is in this box? I keep it in my box because my hands sometimes are shaky and I don’t want to break it- I want to keep it safe. See, it’s a butterfly. It’s not alive anymore, but it’s still beautiful.  I can look at it and feel thankful, and treasure it.

I bet if you asked your parents, “What are your most valued treasures?” I know what they’d say. They say you, of course! When they brought you home, I wonder if you were like that butterfly. They wanted to stare at you all the time, and noticed everything about you. They wanted to keep you safe and not break you. And as you grew they had to let you begin doing things, making choices. And sometimes getting hurt feelings or scrapes from falling, and that was hard. And you know they will keep treasuring you, even as you become an adult. You’ll make mistakes and hard things happen, and oh that’s hard for those parents who treasure you and want to keep you safe. But if they kept you in a box, you couldn’t be who God made you to be.

We are not just treasures to our parents. Who else treasures us, treasures all of us, the billions of us all over the world? God. How God does it, I don’t understand, But God does. God holds us in God’s hands, just like the song says, treasuring us, wanting the best for us, feeling pain when we feel pain, and such joy, when we can fully be the people that God made us to be. I’m so thankful for a love like that.

Let’s pray: Dear God, thank you for somehow loving and treasuring each of us in this world, no matter who we are or what we do. We love you, God. Amen.

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Christ’s Face in the Mirror

This Children’s sermon was given June 28, 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic. I’m sharing it here in case it’s useful to someone.

Good morning, girls and boys. How are you doing today?

As I was getting ready to talk with you today, I read the scripture that is coming up in this service, and it made me smile, because it’s the one we often memorize in Missions Week during June. Jesus is getting ready to send his disciples on their work- kind of like a mission trip-and this is what he says:

“Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me”—which is God, right?

So when you try to do God’s work- helping others- people see Christ in you!

We’re not able to do our Mission work like we usually do, are we? But I have pictures from last year:

Look at Christ’s face here:               And here:                  And here!  (Show photos of kids doing God’s work with helping organizations.)

We can’t do Missions Blast. But does that mean we can’t do God’s work at all? That others won’t see Christ in us this summer? No, I know you and I know you’re still doing God’s work- and so is the rest of church family.

Still collecting fruit on Wednesdays from 10-6
Earlier this month you donated books to Greenville Literary Association
Even though we can’t host homeless families here at church, we still can host them. People contributed money to pay for them to stay in hotels, and to pay for food and activities- and wrote notes to welcome them.

Many more things are going on through church, but is that the only way we serve God?  No. You’re doing God’s work in your own family, which is just as important, helping your family team, being Christ to each other in the way that you love each other and share the work that comes with living together.

When times are weird or hard and when times are good, life is full of opportunities to serve each other and let others see Christ in us. I’m so glad about that.

Let’s pray: Dear God, thank you for the chances we have to love each other like Jesus loves. Help us be the people you want us to be, so that others see Jesus in us. We love you, God. Amen

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Why Rest?

This Children’s sermon was given June 14, 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic. I’m sharing it here in case it’s useful to someone.

Good morning, girls and boys. I hope you’re doing well today! I’m still missing you!

Today I wanted to talk with you about something really important. So I brought something that you might recognize to help me talk about it. It’s this. (Godly Play tile of the day of rest, which is a blank white rectangle.) Does it look familiar to you? Do you know what this is?

It’s a tile, but it’s blank. It’s just a blank white space.

I bet some of you recognize it, if you go to Sunday school at First Baptist or anywhere they do Godly Play. Let me help you out by showing some tiles that usually we share with it. Like this one, which has the sun on one side and the moon and stars on the other, and this one, which has birds of the air and fish of the sea.

Now I bet you know. We use these tiles when we share the creation story. And what does this tile mean, the one we share at the end?This tile represents the last day of the7 days of creation. All week, God has done beautiful work, but on the last day, God makes important time to …rest.

In the creation story, God shows us that God loved working, creating life and our beautiful world, but we can watch God take a whole day to rest.

Jesus did the same. Listen to our scripture in Matthew today to hear Jesus tell the disciples how to do their important work. But they also saw him STOP. They saw him rest. Jesus had important work. If Jesus can set aside time to rest, we can too.

Rest looks like this tile. It’s making a space in your week where you’re not trying to accomplish anything or earn anything or win at anything. God cares about you and who you are APART from what you are able to get done or earn or win. So when we rest and make time for joy, there’s room for God to join us in it.

What does it mean to rest? Do you have to get in your bed or on the couch and take a nap? Rest could look like going on a hike with your family- and seeing what surprises you can find. It could be going fishing or taking a bike ride. Or playing with your dog in the sprinkler. It’s different for every person. God has shown us that it’s important, when times are easy and even when times are hard. I wonder how you’re going to rest today? I hope your afternoon is full of joy!

Let’s pray: Dear God, thank you for showing us how important it is to make time for rest and joy, even when there is work to be done.  We love you, God. Amen.

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The Parable of the Mustard Seed

Welcome to The Parable of the Mustard Seed, our lesson for June 7. We’re currently not meeting on account of the coronavirus, but you can find the blogpost for this parable here.

During our time away from meeting in person for Sunday school, we’re changing what we had planned and offering instead a video series of Godly Play parables for the month of June. It’s my hope that families will watch and experience the parable together and then share their responses to the wondering questions with each other.

You can find this video and others at my YouTube channel here. 

Love, Becky

 

 

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Happy Pentecost!

This Children’s sermon was given May 31, 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic. I’m sharing it here in case it’s useful to someone.

Good morning, girls and boys! Happy Pentecost to you! Since it’s Pentecost, I brought you a cake. I wish I could hand it through the computer or tv or radio to give it to you! It has a candle on it. Do you know why?

That’s right. It’s the birthday of someone special- or someONEs special I should say. It’s not Jesus’s birthday, is it? It’s the birthday of the church!

Today we celebrate the day that the disciples started doing what Jesus said! Today we celebrate that they became the church! They started going out and telling Jesus’s story, even though he wasn’t there. The church was born!

And since it’s a birthday, Today the gift arrives! And it makes an amazing entrance!

Do you remember what it is and how it came? Vivian read us the story.

Jerusalem was jam packed with Jewish people from all over going to temple to celebrate Pentecost (Shavuot) – the 50 days between the exodus and when God gave Moses the 10 commandments. Some say the disciples were back in the upper room. Suddenly they heard the sound of a big wind! Bits of fire seemed to dance around each person. Even their tongues felt on fire, they felt so much JOY!

They had to tell people so that rushed outside and started talking in all these languages- People must have thought they were crazy!

So what did we get for our birthday? And how would it help us be a better church for God?

It was the holy spirit! Some people use the symbol of the dove- remember when Jesus was baptized and God’s spirit came down it reminded people of dove. Some people call the Holy Spirit The Comforter, which I like sometimes, to imagine God’s spirit wrapped around me, comforting me. But in today’s story God’s spirit is all about Power and Mightiness and extreme JOY. It looks like fire!

Whatever you imagine it to look like, the holy spirit still will help you and me today:

See what we’ve done wrong and points us to God
Helps us do what is right
Helps us understand the Bible,
Prays for us when our hearts are so heavy that we don’t know what to pray for.
Helps us find our special gifts so we can use them for God.

It’s the perfect gift for serving God! It’s just what we needed then. And what we need now!

Let’s pray: Dear God, thank you giving us the Holy Spirit. We need it, God. Open our eyes to see what the spirit can show us: what we’ve done wrong, and how to do right, and understand you better. We love you God. Amen.

 

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Knowing Jesus in a New Way 7: Known by the Holy Spirit

Welcome to Knowing Jesus in a New Way 7: Known by the Holy Spirit, our lesson for May 31, 2020. We’re currently not meeting on account of the coronavirus, but I’m sharing this here in case it’s helpful to someone.

This week we get to share with the children the story of the coming of the Holy Spirit on the first Pentecost as told in Acts 2:1-21.

What a perfect time to not only share the story of the events of Acts 2:1-21, but to lead the children DURING the Godly Play lesson into an exploration of what the Holy Spirit is, what it did for the disciples and what it does for us today. A good time in the script to insert this is after you relay what Peter said, quoting Joel.

Here’s the part of the script as I would amend it:

(original script)

Peter stepped into this chaos with a confidence                  

and calm that the disciples had never seen before.

“These people are not drunk, like you think.  After

all, it is only morning. What has happened is what               

the prophet Joel wrote about. He said that God will

pour out God’s spirit on us so that our sons and 

daughters will prophesy, the young will see visions,

and the old will dream dreams. 

(Now, here’s the section you might add to help children get the concept of the Holy Spirit…)

The pouring out of God’s spirit was God’s gift of the

Holy Spirit. But was the Holy Spirit? Jesus had talked

about the Holy Spirit and when he did, he called it the

Comforter. He had told the disciples that it would come

after He left them. And now it was here! But what would

it do? Jesus had talked about that too and we can find it in the

book of John. Jesus had said that the Holy Spirit …

1. helps people see what they’ve done wrong and points

them to God

2. helps people do what is right

3. helps us understand the Bible

4. prays for us-the Bible says that He prays to God when

we sometimes don’t know how or what to pray. Helps us

through our hard times

5. helps us find out what our special gifts are so we can use

them to help others

The Holy Spirit had come! It had happened!

(The original script picks back up here…)

Many passed on by to keep their great traditions and live         

good lives. Others listened and became baptized…..                     

(Continue with rest of the script.)

You can see that I’ve included questions about the Holy Spirit in my wondering questions.

Wondering Questions

1. I wonder what is your favorite part of this story.

2. I wonder what the disciples thought was happening when the mighty wind filled the house and bits of fire began to dance around each person.

3. I wonder how it felt to have God’s spirit poured out on you.

4. I wonder what you would have thought if you were on the streets when the disciples ran out, overjoyed, telling everyone what happened in different languages.

5. Before Pentecost the disciples felt the love from Jesus. At Pentecost the holy spirit helped the disciples feel the love inside them.  I wonder how the love helped the disciples do their work.

6. I wonder how the holy spirit can help you.

7. When we celebrate Pentecost, we call it the day the church was born-it’s birthday.  I wonder why that might be.

I really hope that if you’re in a room where the children have access to Godly Play materials, that after the story is shared, you’ll try letting the children select something to bring to the circle that helps tell the story.  Those connections can be so meaningful.

IDEA SPARKERS FOR OUR GIFT TO GOD TIME

1. Flame hats or headbands

In some Christian churches church officials wear flame shaped hats to remind us of the flames seen over Christ’s followers on the day of the first Pentecost.

Why not show a picture of such a hat and let the kids design how they want to do their own. It doesn’t have to look like that one. Have fun foam or cardboard or fabric on hand- and long strips of large construction paper for the band part.

2. Flame portrait

As followers of Christ, let each child draw themselves as a disciple, with flames at the top of their heads. These flames could be added with tissue paper or paint or whatever they choose.

3. Make pinwheels or kites or windsocks to remind us of the mighty wind that filled the house.

There are great instructions for making a pinwheel here. If the kids want to make a kite, you can find instructions for making a real working one here, or just cut a kite shape out of paper and kids can decorate it as they want, hopefully with the story of Pentecost in mind.

Or make a Pentecost windsock, as shown here.

4. Doves

Since the symbol of the holy spirit is the dove, why not make flame colored doves (yellow, orange, red) and hang them from the ceiling to remind us of Pentecost. There are directions for doves here. Or make an origami one as shown in the video below.

Amazing Origami Flying Dove

Creative commons licensed photo by upsidedownapril

5. Birthday Cake-Since we celebrate the birthday of the church as we remember Pentecost, you could bring plain cupcakes to Sunday school and allow time for the kids to frost them and decorate them. If you’re feeling brave, you could have each child light a candle for their cupcake and remember the gift of the spirit, which looked like flames above each follower’s head.

See more art response ideas at my Pinterest page, here.

Enjoy the story!

Love, Becky

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Time to Pass the Baton! Ascension Sunday!

This Children’s sermon was given May 24, 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic. I’m sharing it here in case it’s useful to someone. 

Good morning, girls and boys. I brought something to show you. I wonder if you know what it’s used for? I’ll give you a hint- it involves running… a race.

Yes, I brought it to remind you of a baton used in a relay race. You know what I’m talking about. Your team lines up with all the other teams, and the first person of each team runs hard around the track, carrying the baton, and then hands it off to the second person who runs the loop. Then that person hands it off and they keep doing this until the last person runs.

As I was getting ready for worship today, today’s scripture and the scripture we heard in Funday school last week reminded me of the baton too. I wonder if you can listen and see why.

It’s been many weeks after Jesus rose from the tomb and was with the disciples. They had LOVED being with him. One day he met with them and told them something important, something that was hard for them to hear. He said that they had been his sheep for a long time, but now it was time for them to be shepherds. They had been part of his traveling home for a long time, but now it was time for them to help others make a home for their faith. They had been part of Jesus’s story for a long time, but now it was time for them to share the story with others- like us- so that we could be part of Jesus’s story.

Later, the disciples returned to Jerusalem and to the upper room again and Jesus led them out of the walls of Jerusalem and to a hillside, maybe near Bethany. Jesus stops and they gathered around him. He lifted up his hands and looked at each one and blessed them. And then the scripture says he withdrew. A cloud took him out of sight.

Have you figured out why this story reminds me of the baton? There’s no running or a baton in the story. The story reminds me of handing off of a baton, when Jesus says I’ve been your shepherd but now it’s your turn to shepherd others in faith. To help others discover their own faith home. To help make others faith part of Jesus’s story. Then he leaves. He has passed the baton to them. Others have passed it to us. We are the shepherds now, whenever we follow Jesus and share our faith.

Let’s pray: Dear God, thank you for Jesus, our shepherd, the one who shows us how to live with each other in love. Help us follow his instructions, to become part of his story and to help others become part of his story too. WE love you God. Amen.

 

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