Scripture Focus: Matthew 5:13-20
Children’s Sermon #1 (Within Worship)
Faith+Open--Welcome children to gather with you. Have a bag with a flashlight on inside of it, something that they can tell a light is on. Wander around a bit looking for something. Comment on how you are having a hard time seeing and you don’t understand why because you have a flashlight in your bag. Why is my flashlight not helping me find this? It’s on? Right? Hhmmm.. What should I do? (hopefully this will elicit the response to take the flashlight out of the bag!)
Faith+Share: Take the flashlight out of the bag. Oh, now that my light is out of the bag, it’s not hidden. It works better! Then shine the light in your bag and pull out some other items—‘finding them.’ Have a salt shaker, a candle, and a picture of a city on a hill with lights.
Look at all these things in my bag! We heard Jesus tell us today that we are like these things—salt and light. You know what light does right; it helps us see in the dark, when we don’t hide it! Do you know what salt does? (take some responses if there are any). It flavors food and it helps keep food from spoiling. So Jesus is giving us images—pictures with words—to help us imagine that we can be salt and light in the world. We don’t hide our lights or the story we have about how much God loves the world. How do we show others about God’s love? (take responses).
OPTION--Have one more thing in your bag—glow sticks! Hand them out and invite kids to shine their lights while you sing “This Little Light of Mine” or “You are the Light of the World” (words at bottom of post)
OPTION—have the sermon hymn be “This Little Light of Mine” and invite kids to wait to ‘turn on’ their glow sticks at that time. Have the whole congregation join in this Hymn!
Faith+Prayer: Jesus, you are our salt and light. Thank you for loving us and giving us the gift of faith and life so we can be salt and light in the world. Amen.
Children’s Sermon #2 (Children’s worship time)
Set Up: Before worship, ‘hide’ a salt shaker and candle in the room. You will pretend to be looking for them. You can also hide a glow stick for each child if you are using that option (be sure to know where they all are!)
Faith+Open--Welcome children to gather with you. Have a bag with a flashlight on inside of it, something that they can tell a light is on. Wander around a bit looking for something. Depending on your room you could really play this up, really looking for something that hidden. Comment on how you are having a hard time seeing and you don’t understand why because you have a flashlight in your bag. Why is my flashlight not helping me find this? It’s on? Right? Hhmmm.. What should I do? (hopefully this will elicit the response to take the flashlight out of the bag!)
Faith+Share: Take the flashlight out of the bag. Oh, now that my light is out of the bag, it’s not hidden. It works better! Then shine the light around the room looking for the other items—‘finding them.’ Have a salt shaker, a candle, and a picture of a city on a hill with lights. Look at all these things I found! I wanted to find them because they are part of the Gospel story today. Did you hear Pastor ______ talking about light and salt? Let’s hear that again:
Read from a children’s Bible (Spark Storybook Bible is page 268)
Ask some open ended questions about the story. What did you hear? Have you been called salt or light before? What do you think that means? We heard Jesus tell us today that we are like these things—salt and light. You know what light does right; it helps us see in the dark, when we don’t hide it! Do you know what salt does? (take some responses if there are any). It flavors food and it helps keep food from spoiling. So Jesus is giving us images—pictures with words—to help us imagine that we can be salt and light in the world. We don’t hide our lights or the story we have about how much God loves the world. How do we show others about God’s love? (take responses).
There is something hidden around this room for you to find to help you remember about being a light and sharing the story of how much God loves us—glow sticks! Have kids find one glow stick each or hand them out and invite kids to shine their lights while you sing “This Little Light of Mine” and/or “You are the Light of the World” (words at bottom of post)
OPTION—have the sermon hymn be “This Little Light of Mine” and invite kids to wait to ‘turn on’ their glow sticks at that time and walk back in shining their lights. Have the whole congregation join in this Hymn!
Faith+Prayer: Jesus, you are our salt and light. Thank you for loving us and giving us the gift of faith and life so we can be salt and light in the world. Amen.
Materials: Children’s Bible, bag, flashlight, salt shaker, picture, candle, glowsticks (or bracelets or whatever is easy to find, does not have to be big)
This Little Light of Mine:
(ELW 677)
This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Won't let Satan blow it out.
I'm gonna let it shine.
Won't let Satan blow it out.
I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Hide it under a bushel - NO!
I'm gonna let it shine.
Hide it under a bushel - NO!
I'm gonna let it shine, Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Let it shine over the whole wide world,
I'm gonna let it shine.
Let it shine over the whole wide world,
I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
You are the Light of the World Lyrics
You are the light of the world
You are the light of the world
So Shine, Shine, Shine where you are
You are the light of the world
You are a candle in the dark
You are a candle in the dark
So Shine, Shine, Shine where you are
You are a candle in the world
You are the salt of the earth
You are the salt of the earth
So Shine, shine, shine where you are
You are the salt of the earth
You are a city on a hill
You are a city on a hill
So Shine, Shine, Shine where you are
You are a city on a hill
You are the light of the world
You are the light of the world
So Shine, Shine, Shine where you are
You are the light of the world
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