Sermons For Children 1
Preaching
The Preacher's Edge
For whom do we give the children's sermon? What is the message we are attempting to convey? Is there an edge for preacher and listener here also? And, most important, why do we do it at all?
After preaching 1,400 children's sermons, I am not sure that the message we give can be learned by the ones who come forward for it. I doubt they will even remember it for the remainder of that day, and I am certain the purpose must be more than the content of the message. Still, congregations demand that children's sermons be given and often comment that it is the most meaningful and understandable part of all the verbal messages in our worship!
After observing many students and pastors trying to satisfy their congregation's demand for children's sermons, I am convinced that some ought never give them. In fact, as a homiletician, I am not even sure that a student can learn to do children's sermons very well. Some seem to be born to the task. Truly, it is more like a gift than a set of acquired skills. The weariness I experience with a lot of the children's sermons I hear leads me to advise that some preachers should take advantage of someone in the congregation (like an experienced pre-school teacher) who can do it well, and then sit with the kids and listen.
Neither am I sure that those young people who come forward for the sermon have the capacity to relate the utilized object to the lesson or truth the object is supposed to illustrate. However, I do believe the object ought to be used as something to focus on and to playfully wonder and talk about.
After all these years of giving children's sermons, I am convinced that the time is probably best spent in helping children feel included, valued, important, and loved in and by the congregation. Hence, it is more important to provide a certain "feel of it" than to get content understood. It is a time for the pastor to bond with the children of the congregation. It is the children's time in the liturgy when the congregation acknowledges they are a part of God's family, and it is a time when God's love and that of the people around them - especially their pastor - is communicated to them.
The time might even better be named "Children's Time," when the children look forward to some fun and playfulness within the setting of the worship experience and when they have friendship demonstrated and expressed to them. It will be a time the children anticipate each week that is for and about them.
Of course, overhearing does take place. It is an opportunity for the adults to hear further illustrative material about what will be proclaimed in the other sermon of the day. Certainly the children's sermon ought to support that one and recognize the theme of the liturgy and worship.
The children's sermon is not a time to display how cute children are. With this in mind, we need to pay particular attention to which way the children face and which way the pastor faces. We must also note the pastor's posture to be sure he or she does not tower over the children, yet still conveys the office of pastor. Some pastors kneel to speak and others sit to be at the children's level. My advice is not to ask questions of the children or force an enthusiastic "good morning" if they do not want to do that.
Story is probably the best form for a children's sermon. The old fashioned flannel graph or the opportunity for children to act out the story in the Old Testament or Gospel for the day is still a very effective way of communicating and enjoying a certain playfulness and creativity during the children's time.
There are other ways we might consider helping children not just to endure, but actually enjoy, coming to church. Booster chairs such as those used in restaurants, stacked up at the door and available for the children as they go into the worship area, can enable them to see more than the back of a pew and observe the activity in front of the church, and thus enjoy the service more. The old fashioned "children of the church" when young people are dismissed during part of the service for their own special worship opportunity still works. Many parents enjoy worship without having to tend to children the entire time (or part of the time). Most growing congregations find that a Sunday school held at the same time as worship works very well.
Why we do it, to whom our message is addressed, and what that message is are all crucial questions to be considered and answered as we decide whether or not to call young people forward for a children's sermon.
1. Jerry Schmalenberger, Plane Thoughts on Parish Ministry (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing Co., Inc., 1994).
Transition
As we move from consideration of the sermon to its delivery, we examine the results of research on listening which ought to influence how we present the message.
1. Researchers have found that people stop listening when the material is uninteresting. They pay attention only to the material they find stimulating.
2. Distorting a person's message often occurs when the speaker's delivery is poor. Listeners are influenced more by the delivery than by the truth of the message.
3. Closely related to message delivery is the fact that people tend to be influenced more by the dramatic emotional elements of a sermon than by its logical elements.
4. Becoming overstimulated or emotionally involved with the speaker also can create message distortion. If, for example, a parishioner should question a pastor's integrity as a person, it would not be easy to remain open to what is being said.
5. Most listeners find it difficult to separate the essential from the non-essential in a message.
6. Mentally jumping ahead of the person speaking can cause one to miss part of the message - perhaps an essential of its meaning.
7. A person can think at a rate of more than four hundred words per minute. But speakers rarely talk at a pace of more than two hundred. So the listener thinks ahead of the speaker and misses part of the message.
8. A common obstacle to effective listening is faked attention.
9. Often people allow emotion-laden words to block their listening. Poor listeners respond to the loaded words rather than to their contextual meanings.
10. Effective listening is blocked when personal prejudices and deep-seated convictions impair comprehension and understanding.1
When we take these findings about our listeners seriously, it ought to help us deliver a sermon which will be vital, interesting, inspirational and remembered. Let's look at some practical tips of what to do and not to do when we preach.
1. Myron R. Chartier, Preaching as Communication (Abingdon Preacher's Library, 1981), p. 53.
After preaching 1,400 children's sermons, I am not sure that the message we give can be learned by the ones who come forward for it. I doubt they will even remember it for the remainder of that day, and I am certain the purpose must be more than the content of the message. Still, congregations demand that children's sermons be given and often comment that it is the most meaningful and understandable part of all the verbal messages in our worship!
After observing many students and pastors trying to satisfy their congregation's demand for children's sermons, I am convinced that some ought never give them. In fact, as a homiletician, I am not even sure that a student can learn to do children's sermons very well. Some seem to be born to the task. Truly, it is more like a gift than a set of acquired skills. The weariness I experience with a lot of the children's sermons I hear leads me to advise that some preachers should take advantage of someone in the congregation (like an experienced pre-school teacher) who can do it well, and then sit with the kids and listen.
Neither am I sure that those young people who come forward for the sermon have the capacity to relate the utilized object to the lesson or truth the object is supposed to illustrate. However, I do believe the object ought to be used as something to focus on and to playfully wonder and talk about.
After all these years of giving children's sermons, I am convinced that the time is probably best spent in helping children feel included, valued, important, and loved in and by the congregation. Hence, it is more important to provide a certain "feel of it" than to get content understood. It is a time for the pastor to bond with the children of the congregation. It is the children's time in the liturgy when the congregation acknowledges they are a part of God's family, and it is a time when God's love and that of the people around them - especially their pastor - is communicated to them.
The time might even better be named "Children's Time," when the children look forward to some fun and playfulness within the setting of the worship experience and when they have friendship demonstrated and expressed to them. It will be a time the children anticipate each week that is for and about them.
Of course, overhearing does take place. It is an opportunity for the adults to hear further illustrative material about what will be proclaimed in the other sermon of the day. Certainly the children's sermon ought to support that one and recognize the theme of the liturgy and worship.
The children's sermon is not a time to display how cute children are. With this in mind, we need to pay particular attention to which way the children face and which way the pastor faces. We must also note the pastor's posture to be sure he or she does not tower over the children, yet still conveys the office of pastor. Some pastors kneel to speak and others sit to be at the children's level. My advice is not to ask questions of the children or force an enthusiastic "good morning" if they do not want to do that.
Story is probably the best form for a children's sermon. The old fashioned flannel graph or the opportunity for children to act out the story in the Old Testament or Gospel for the day is still a very effective way of communicating and enjoying a certain playfulness and creativity during the children's time.
There are other ways we might consider helping children not just to endure, but actually enjoy, coming to church. Booster chairs such as those used in restaurants, stacked up at the door and available for the children as they go into the worship area, can enable them to see more than the back of a pew and observe the activity in front of the church, and thus enjoy the service more. The old fashioned "children of the church" when young people are dismissed during part of the service for their own special worship opportunity still works. Many parents enjoy worship without having to tend to children the entire time (or part of the time). Most growing congregations find that a Sunday school held at the same time as worship works very well.
Why we do it, to whom our message is addressed, and what that message is are all crucial questions to be considered and answered as we decide whether or not to call young people forward for a children's sermon.
1. Jerry Schmalenberger, Plane Thoughts on Parish Ministry (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing Co., Inc., 1994).
Transition
As we move from consideration of the sermon to its delivery, we examine the results of research on listening which ought to influence how we present the message.
1. Researchers have found that people stop listening when the material is uninteresting. They pay attention only to the material they find stimulating.
2. Distorting a person's message often occurs when the speaker's delivery is poor. Listeners are influenced more by the delivery than by the truth of the message.
3. Closely related to message delivery is the fact that people tend to be influenced more by the dramatic emotional elements of a sermon than by its logical elements.
4. Becoming overstimulated or emotionally involved with the speaker also can create message distortion. If, for example, a parishioner should question a pastor's integrity as a person, it would not be easy to remain open to what is being said.
5. Most listeners find it difficult to separate the essential from the non-essential in a message.
6. Mentally jumping ahead of the person speaking can cause one to miss part of the message - perhaps an essential of its meaning.
7. A person can think at a rate of more than four hundred words per minute. But speakers rarely talk at a pace of more than two hundred. So the listener thinks ahead of the speaker and misses part of the message.
8. A common obstacle to effective listening is faked attention.
9. Often people allow emotion-laden words to block their listening. Poor listeners respond to the loaded words rather than to their contextual meanings.
10. Effective listening is blocked when personal prejudices and deep-seated convictions impair comprehension and understanding.1
When we take these findings about our listeners seriously, it ought to help us deliver a sermon which will be vital, interesting, inspirational and remembered. Let's look at some practical tips of what to do and not to do when we preach.
1. Myron R. Chartier, Preaching as Communication (Abingdon Preacher's Library, 1981), p. 53.
