As a parent (and also as someone who from time to time is scheduled to do ‘talks’ with children in church contexts) I found this article helpful in framing some of the questions I have about church and children. See ‘Conversations on the Church’s Vocation in the Public World: It’s Not That I Don’t Like Children’s Sermons…

Hat tip: Mary Hess at Tensegrities » Blog Archive » Thinking about children’s sermons

Damaris have produced some multimedia and study resources for schools and churches in conjunction with the new Prince Caspian movie. See Damaris Media: Prince Caspian.

Free CD-ROM of resources if you’re in the UK.

We’re not on for a children’s talk at church for a while, but I’ve been trying to thrash out some ideas that work and some that didn’t in advance. I thought I’d jot them down here because, as Steve found out in Adelaide a while back (see e~mergent kiwi: stories of failure), it’s useful to hear of things that didn’t work out as well as those that did.

As always you can see all the posts in this category here.

Jesus as train conductor
A talk I did ages ago after seeing the guards on the train go around the carriage making obviously exhausted school kids give up their seats for fit and healthy adults. The children and I made a big train track at the front of the church using Lego Duplo trains. It’s been a while but I’m sure it included the value of children in the Kingdom of God, Jesus buying tickets for us to ride the train to God, the train stopping anywhere to let people on, and ‘I’m going to ride that glory train’ gospel choir music.

What didn’t work so well: The track took a long time to build (and hence took ‘too long’ for the slot given according to some ‘grown ups’), and I forgot to invite interested adults down to see the train. Several adults and older youth wanted to see the train too, but we had to pack it up. I now often stop and ask if anyone from the back seats wants to have look at what we’re doing down the front.

Hand puppets
It seemed like a good idea at the time to use a zebra hand puppet for the talk. Forgot to work out clearly what the point of the talk was first, and then use the puppet to augment that. I’m sure I had something to work with but it didn’t integrate well. Got the big ‘thumbs down’ from my family evaluation for that one.

House on the sand and the rock
Literally made sand castles and rock piles at front of church and then poured water on them. What happened to them? Also read the parable from “The Lion Storyteller Bible” (Bob Hartman) (which I think is quite good).

What didn’t work so well: The activity worked well. The story worked well. Together they took too long. I’d retell the parable while we did the activity next time. Also, using lots of sand and water up the front caused a few of the church managers to worry about the carpet.

Prayers in the darkness
Talked about Jesus being the light of the world, and also about the importance of prayer – both individually and corporately. Used the example of some small tealight candles. One on it’s own in a dark place makes a real difference, but a whole lot make a huge difference. On the whole it worked well, but…

It’s really hard to make our church dark so the effect of the tealights didn’t work so well as I thought it might. Also need another adult to keep an eye on the candles so they don’t get bumped or touched (I had them on a plank down on the floor). Using a gas match allowed the kids to light them safely though. (Also, the odd comment that we’re not Catholic so don’t need candles from adults who missed the point of the talk – sigh).

Who’s loved the most by God?
Kim did this and it worked really well. It was impromptu and the kids all came to the party. Kim had the four kids arrange themselves in different orders – age, height (not the same as age), ticklishness, love of a particular food (I think). And then she had them arrange themselves in the order of who was loved most by her. The kids all clumped together so she could hug them all the same. And so an analogy for God’s love.

Possible problems: If one of the kids is in a bad mood or is feeling like mucking around it might not work. Also they needed to be confident with their mother showing them affection in public. (I don’t think I could have pulled this one off, but Kim did).

Strength in numbers
Got adult ‘volunteer’ from the congregation and put them on a chair. Then wrapped a strong of wool around them and had them stand up. Then repeated it with a bit more wool and had them ‘break free’ again. Finally, wrapped the ‘victim’ in enough wool to immobilize him. Then dressed him in a funny hat, glasses and face paint. The point being that sometimes individuals need to work with others to achieve a task. It’s a pretty general talk, but I’ve adapted it several times to deal with particular things from Scripture that are up for discussion.

Downside: Don’t pick a ‘victim’ who can’t take a joke. Also don’t pick a claustrophobe.

The humanity of Jesus
Did this just after Christmas when my youngest (who was born just before Christmas) was only a few weeks old. Wanted to connect that that Jesus in the Christmas story (who we forget about after Dec 25 often) was incarnated as real flesh and blood. So we counted toes and fingers (and marvelled at their smallness), checked out the clothes and blankets, and talked about babies in general. Just trying to get beyond the Christmas card Jesus to the God who ‘became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.’

Downside: I didn’t check with Kim first about ‘borrowing’ fourth-born for the talk. Ouch!

That’s all for now.

On the children’s talk again today. Had a few ideas rattling around in my head, including one involving paper airplanes and Isa 40 and another involving something based on a game show. In the end decided to go with an talk introducing biblical genres to children.

Started with an apple and asked how we might go about sharing it out. Out of that discussion, produced my trust Swiss army knife and went through each of the different bits of it – asking if the bit in question (screwdriver, tweezers, can opener, knife etc.) would be the bit to use. Then cored and sliced the apple in to slivers to hand out.

Talked a bit about how the Bible is like a Swiss army knife. Not just a single book, but made up of all sorts of different parts and genres that are like the ‘toolkit’ build into the knife. So the genres of saga, myth, history, biography, lament, prophetic voices (ethics), letters, gospel, poetry and proverbs all help us with the different things we have to be, know and do.

Also, talked about how if we try to make part of the Bible (or a genre) do or mean something else that it’s meant to can end up making a mess of things – like if we tried to cut up the apple with the screwdriver attachment.

It was pretty rough and ready talk but seemed to go okay. The analogy will only go so far – and it wouldn’t be good to limit the Bible to only being a ‘toolbox’ – but it is a useful way of introducing the concept of genre.

(I’ve done something similar for hermeneutics classes in the past – where I’ve used snippets of musical genres in a gameshow format “Name the Genre!” to introduce the concepts of biblical genres).

Jelly beans rock for children’s talks at church. They’re colourful, taste great, universally recognizable by the kids, and relatively cheap as a prop. You can use them individually, by the handful, or in massive numbers.

Today I was doing the children’s talk slot in church but I’d been busy all week things – thinking about other things, doing other things – so when I had to prepare in a hurry I returned to the jelly beans.

I wanted to talk about God’s ‘hesed‘ – that strong relational aspect of loyalty, faithfulness and steadfast love towards another. Used the example of how my tastes changed over time – from black jellybeans when younger, to green ones, and currently to yellow ones. My favourite jelly bean changes, but God’s promise of and faithfulness in love doesn’t change over time (like my tastes in jelly beans), and is universal (embraces all ‘jelly beans’/people). Ended up handing out the jelly beans to the children – which was good as they were salivating all the way through.

I’ve also used the jelly beans to do an Easter children’s talk:

• Black – Good Friday, Jesus’ death
• Blue – The sadness of Easter Saturday
• Red – Jesus’ blood
• White – The angels at the tomb
• Orange – Easter is in autumn here – orange leaves
• Green – Resurrection, hope, new life
• Purple – The Kingdom of God

That worked well too. Just be careful how many you hand out though – don’t want the Sunday school/children’s church teachers coming to see you later about children on a ‘sugar rush’ in their programmes

The previous post mentioned Simply Simon: Gates & gorillas which got me thinking about a children’s talk I did a while back at church.

I’d been sitting in the playground at school waiting for my kids to come out of class and was again astonished by the range of ethnicities that spilled out of the classrooms when the bell went. (The same is true of the local kindergarten). This got me thinking about what the church teaches children about those who are new immigrants, and especially how to treat the new children at school who look and sound different from themselves. Is there an explicit connection between the ‘love your neighbour’ ethic from Sunday School to identifying that these new arrivals are now your neighbours.

To introduce the topic I bolted a Hot Wheels track with the loop and jump to the pulpit up front (an excellent use for a pulpit) and had the children race cars and trucks down the track. There was more than enough spills and excitement. Connected the track to the idea of dangerous journeys, and asked the kids to suggest others dangerous trips etc.

Then I asked them if they could remember a dangerous journey from the Bible about Jesus – aiming for Matt 2:13-18 – Jesus’ parents having to take him and flee the country because he was in danger of being killed. Talked a bit about how Jesus was like a refugee. They had to take a dangerous journey to a strange place (Egypt), and how he’d have grown up sounding and looking different from other kids around the place. And even the same when he returned home – he’d still be a bit different having come back from a strange place.

Can we see Jesus the refugee in the faces of the different ethnicities in our local community, and especially in the faces of the children. How many of them made dangerous and costly journeys to be here? Do we treat them as our neighbours, seeing Jesus the refugee and immigrant in them, even if we find it hard?

A couple of recent posts connecting to theme of children in church.

• The Christian Century: Memory verses – Teaching children the Bible by Nancy Ammerman (April 03, 2007)
• AKMA’s Random Thoughts: I Second The Notion (April 09, 2007)

In the blog reshuffle I noticed that the Children’s Talks category hadn’t had anything new posted in it for a while. So here’s one I did the other week.

When teaching hermeneutics I’ve always been struck by how much the method that’s often described in text books is like the children’s TV programme Blue’s Clues. (For those of you who don’t know the programme, the blue dog, Blue, leaves three paw prints on different things around the house, which the host of the show (Steve, Joe, Kevin, Duarte or chengewa) uses to figure out what’s important to Blue (e.g. Blue’s suggestion for a present).

Anyway, before the children’s talk I’d collected three different “clues” and “hidden” them (in plain view) in church with big blue paw prints on them. I asked the children if they knew about Blue’s Clues and explained the premise to the children who didn’t (along with those members of the congregation who were unfamiliar with recent children’s TV). Then I told the children I’d “hidden” three clues in the church and together they would tell them something about me when they were collected together. A different group of children were sent off to find the clues and bring them back to the front of the church. The clues were:

• Some red and blue clothes
• A collection of toys that are related to flying – frisbee, airplane, toy birds
• A bag filled with bricks (really heavy)

As each clue was returned I drew them on my “handy-dandy” whiteboard (a notebook was too small to see) and then we used a “thinking chair” to think about what they meant – red and blue clothes, flying, and strong. Eventually we got to “Superman”, and the fact that I like comics books.

Then I asked why reading the Bible might be like playing Blue’s Clues, and we talked about how in the Bible, God leaves clues about what God is like. And how we can collect these clues, and the more clues we find, the better the picture we get. Also, discussed what the best clue is (Jesus), and how, when we need to think about the “clues”, we sometimes need to do it with crayons, paper, glue, scissors, songs and with the help of other people who may have collected different clues.

All in all, it went well – though I restrained myself from singing the goodbye song and there are probably a few children who think I think I’m Superman.

As an aside, on the subject of children’s talks, I’m more a fan of all-age inclusive worship across the duration that the children not in their Sunday school classes. Children’s talks can smack of tokenism at times – so if you have to do one, treat the children as valued members of the congregation, respect their ability to participate and contribute, and resist pressure to cut the talk down to fit into adult-centric time slots or nice pithy moralistic message. If you only have one space in the service specifically for children make sure you do it well. I made mistakes doing the talk above and asked for feedback from my family and others. Next time I’d do it differently in a couple of places but on the whole it worked.

My turn today to do the part of the church service that is specifically for the kids. So we did the Parable of the Lost My Little Pony. Unfortunately during the ensuing hunt around the house last night Sparkleberry Swirl and Minty were unable to be found (they really were lost) so Seaspray (see picture) had to front up. Which she did just fine.

The talk went well – it focused on God as a passionate, even obsessive, collector of people – so I had lots of props of things young and older people collect (including a old 45rpm disc of the NZ soccer teams 1982 world cup song!) and interaction with the children. The parable of the lost sheep was reworked into a girl who collected the ponies, lost one, searched and found it, and celebrated. That parable in Matthew 18 works well because it sits within texts that talk about God valuing children.

Was going to talk about collecting robot movies, science fiction TV shows and comic books – which the kids would have been fine with – but some obsessions are better left at home sometimes. (Still getting comments about the Serenity screen saver that kicked in last time I was preaching – though some people felt the images went well with the content of the sermon.)

Today at church we had our normal children’s slot down the front which started off talking about trees, roots and fertilizer. And the person doing the talk made the standard sorts of links about feeding the plant and having good roots. He was doing this with a Rewarewa seedling he had and the kids were all paying really close attention.

Then he said that he had a seedling like this planted in his garden and it was his “prayer tree”. Every time he saw it it reminded him to pray and remember God. And then he said he had a seedling there today for any child who wanted one to plant in their garden. So we have one, and it’s planted in a pot until it gets a bit bigger. We’ll water it, feed it and it’ll be there, by the car port, reminding us of God as we leave each day. Excellent.