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Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Weekly Devotion - November 11, 2012 - 24th Sunday after Pentecost - Lec 32B
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Saturday, October 27, 2012
Weekly Devotion - All Saints Sunday, Year B
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November Faith + Home Connection Mark 12: 28-34
Faith
+ Open: Gather the household members to a comfortable place
in the home. Light a candle and open with prayer. For this prayer, have each
person gathered offer a word or a phrase of how they have felt God’s presence
this day/week. Have everyone say a loud “AMEN” together!
Faith
+ Share: This month we have two texts that are related.
First read Deuteronomy 6: 4-9, then read Mark 12: 28-34.
For
Children: Sometimes it feels like we have a lot of rules in
our lives, doesn’t it? But Jesus tells people in the Bible that the most
important thing to remember-better than any other rules-is to love God with
your whole body and love everyone you meet! When do you like to talk to God in
your day? How can you show love to the people in your family, neighborhood or
school?
For
Youth/Adults: Jesus is repeating in Mark 12 the words
from Deut. 6. In Judaism Deut. 6 is call the “Shema” which means “to hear.”
These verses in Deut. are so important that they are written down and kept in
what is called a mezuzah-a small capsule type object that is fixed to doorways
in Jewish homes. Mezuzahs are a constant reminder to love God with all of your
existence all day long no matter where you are. What helps you to remember to
have God first in your daily life? Prayer? Scriptures? How or when do you hear
God in your daily life?
Faith
+ Blessing: Write down the words of Deut. 6: 4-5 on a large
piece of paper and put it on your refrigerator or a prominent place in your
home. When you pass by this verse take a moment and read it out loud to hear the
words of the Shema.
Faith
+ Live: This month at LCM we will be putting together 50
Thanksgiving meals to show love for our neighbors who may be hungry. Let’s see
if we can do more than 50! Look in the Master’s Voice for more information on
this important way to love our neighbor! The Confirmation youth will be making
50 cards with words of God’s love and community to go into these baskets.
Faith
+ Close: Prayer:
God
creator, Jesus Christ redeemer and Holy Spirit our sustainer, we pray to love
you with our whole lives and our whole selves. Focus us on our community and
all of your people in the world so that all will hear your voice of love for
your creation. Amen.
Why Faith Five?
Cross+Generation Faith Formation
and Faith Five
The Four Keys (Devotion, Caring Conversation, service and ritual) are wonderful ways to think about how we structure our daily faith journey. Vibrant Faith has put many years of hard work and research into this model and it is a rich blessing for our households. Faith Five does not replace or take away from that model but actually enhances it and make it accessible to families/households/individuals at any point on their faith journey. It requires very little to no preparation or direct input from church leadership. The Four Keys model is the why, Faith Five is the how.
So what are the Faith Five? Share, Read, Talk, Pray, and Bless:
The FAITH 5 connects church to home, faith to life, and parents to kids in a powerful way. The five steps of the FAITH 5 are:
Step One: Share highs and lows. Name
something good and bad you experienced today. Can't think of a personal one?
Check out the headlines from the news and teach empathy and compassion for the
broader world.
Step Two: Read a verse from your
Bible. (Each Faith Inkubators curriculum includes suggested verses that kick
off at church and go home for families to explore every night.
Step Three: Talk about how the verse
relates to highs and lows. Unpack the verse a bit. What does it mean in your
own words? How might it relate to where you are today in your highs and lows?
Step Four: Pray for one another's
highs and lows, for your family, and for the world. Simply talk to God, thank
Jesus for the good, and ask the Holy Spirit for guidance in specific problems.
Step Five: Bless one another. Trace
the sign of the cross on one another's forehead or palm as a reminder that you
belong to God and to one another.
Faith Five is a
way to equip families to daily live out their faith in a way that is
meaningful. Faith Five is easily modeled in worship, small groups, Bible
studies, etc. and can then be encouraged to be done around the dinner table or
before bed each evening.
How does this connect to worship? What if worship
was the seed bed for what happened in the home Monday through Saturday? What if
worship became a place where the five generations that are gathered on any
given Sunday morning explored the Bible story for the week together (instead of
age segregated classrooms) through music, prayer, art, drama, silence, dance,
etc? In cross + generational worship all of the five generations connect and
all of the five senses are engaged and the sanctuary becomes a classroom where
we rehearse our faith together in order to take it out to our homes, schools,
neighborhoods and world. The child’s questions, honesty and presence bless the
elder and the elder’s questions, honesty, and presence bless the child. This is
the community that God created us for!
Why now? As leadership in the Church, we all can
attest that our current model of faith formation (Sunday School, confirmation)
isn’t working and we are not witnessing young people professing a relationship
with God in their daily lives. Many a teenager (including my own!) has asked me
why does this matter? What if the
home+church+world connections become so seamless and loop back on themselves
for the purpose of connecting us deeper into relationship with our God who
loves us unconditionally and eternally and each other-God’s people that we all
at every age, every night in every home can experience for ourselves and for
others that God does matter?
Pastor Steve Pannkukk from Spokane, WA thinks of the Faith Five in this way: “It’s really about a new spirituality. A new way to think about our relationship with God and one another.”
There is no
“magic bullet” to ensure that we are passing on the faith to the next
generation and everyone around us, but what if it is as simple as intentional
time together? Five minutes to transform a heart, a mind, a family, a church
and a world in the love of Jesus Christ? Who’s in?
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Children's Sermon All Saints Sunday 2012
Preparation: A chair for every generation you have in your worshipping community and someone to represent them. There are 5-6ish living generations-depending on your source. Roughly: GI Generation (1901-1924), Silent (1925-1945), Baby Boomers (1946-1964), Gen X (1965-1985), Gen Y (1978-1990), Gen Z 1995-2007 or today)
Then 2 extra chairs-one on each end- to represent the generations that have all passed and the ones yet to be born.
You can prep people ahead or just call people forward to sit in their chair, whatever is more comfortable.
Faith+Gather: Gather the children with you and in front of the empty chairs (or if you would rather have the people in them already that is fine too). Explain the chairs and generations to the children saying that they represent all the different ages living now.
Faith+Share: Ask them, "Why do we have empty chairs on each end?" Take their answers and guide them to understanding that the empty chairs show the generations of people who have not been born and also the ones that have all lived before us. Continue with a simple explanation of All Saints Day, "Today we are remembering all the people who have gone before us and specifically we will say the names of the people who died this year. We call this All Saints day not because they are people that never did anything wrong but because they were people who were important in teaching and living faith in God even t hough they had struggles and sorrows and joys just like we do. We take time to remember that God's promises are for us and that they have been passed down and told to us because of the generations before. And these living people--they are the saints that tell us the story now and share their faith with each other and with the next generations. And this other empty chair shows that there are people yet to be born that will need to hear the story. And who will tell them about God's promises and love?.... That's right, you and the others who are here to live and walk in faith with them."
Share the scripture: "God promises to bring new life to us here on earth and to restore us all together in God's kingdom. It's a promise for the future but it's also a promise for today that God is here with us and loving us all through our lives no matter our age."
Faith+Prayer: Let's pray together and then we will offer a blessing to all the generations. Jesus, you give us many people to share the story of God's love. Be with each person, young and old, and be with us today as we remember the people who have died and how you love them too. Amen
Faith+Blessing: Have the children stand and gather around the chairs placing their hands on heads and shoulders. Say this blessing together or have just the leaders say it:
May you know the love and presence of God who is here in all ages. Amen
~Idea submitted by Rev. Michael Stadtmueller, written by Rev. Leta Behrens
Permission to use for nonprofit. When printing give credit to Faith Formation Journeys. Intellectual property rights apply
Monday, October 22, 2012
Children's Sermon Reformation John 8:31-36
Preparation: symbols of freedom like: flag, Bible, peace signs, statue of liberty, cross, hymnal (the old red hymnal was a sign of freedom in Namibia, Africa as it was given to them in a time of occupation and war but was used to declare their freedom to have english as a common language when the country gained independence)
Faith+Gather: Gather the children with you and welcome them. Say, "I have some items with me today... let's see if we can figure out what they have in common" Have items in a bag or hidden and pull them out one at a time. Save Bible and/or cross for last. Ask kids to see if they can come up with their common element. Give them hints like, "What does this symbol mean?"
Faith+Share: After you have explored items for a minute say, "All these things are a little different and they do have different meanings, but one thing they have in common is that they bring to mind the word 'freedom'. See the flag is a symbol of freedom for our country and the statue of liberty is a symbol of welcome and freedom not only for us in the United States but to those who come from other places. I also have the Bible here that is a different kind of symbol of freedom--this Bible is in English and did you know that a long time the Bible was only written in Greek and then in Latin? So people who didn't know those languages could not read the Bible. Today we are talking about the day of reformation which is a day we remember a part of the history of our church but also a day that we look forward to how we are always being made new by Jesus. Part of the history of reformation is that a man named Martin Luther thought it was very important for everyone to be able to read the Bible and to teach their children what it says. So he translated the Bible and that is how the Bible is now like a symbol of freedom because it means that we can all read and know the stories of God. I also have a cross here--in today's gospel Jesus says, 'The truth will make you free--you all sin and are not perfect and cannot be without sin, but I have come to make you free.' (paraphrase, you can read the scripture directly). Jesus went to the cross for you and for me and for all people, so this cross is a symbol of that freedom that we have through Jesus. It is freedom to love one another and help one another and tell the stories of the Bible to show God's love for the world."
Faith+Prayer: Let's pray together. Jesus, you make us free. Thank you for your love. Thank you for the Bible which tells us your story. Amen.
Faith+Blessing: Make the sign of the cross and say + May you know God's love and freedom today and always.
**Additional Idea: You could also do a children's message that simply explains parts of reformation and how the Bible got translated. You could show many Bibles and talk about how we use scripture all throughout worship. Then use stickers as suggested by Worshipping With Children at this link to have kids find places in the bulletin where there are words from the Bible.
~LB
Permission to use for nonprofit. When printing give credit to Faith Formation Journeys. Intellectual property rights apply
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Weekly Devotion - October 28th, 2012 - 22nd Sunday after Pentecost - Lec. 30B
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Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Children's Sermon Pentecost 21 Mark 10:35-45
Children's Sermon by guest writer Mary Stoneback who serves Ascension Lutheran church in Colorado Springs, CO. Thank you Mary!
(if you would like to submit a children's sermon please email pastorleta@gmail.com)
Scripture: Mark 10:35-45
Faith+Gather: Gather the children together. Ask, Have you ever asked your parents for something and they said “no?” Maybe you asked for a new bike, a new outfit or maybe a chocolate chip cookie? Was it hard to understand why they said no?
Faith+Share: Today in Mark’s Gospel reading, two of Jesus’ disciples, James and John, asked Jesus for something very big. They asked Jesus to have a special place at Jesus’ right and left side when the disciples think he will be made king, to be his special assistants. What exactly are they asking for? It’s a little different than asking for a bike, an outfit or a cookie.
Well, the Disciples didn’t really know what they were asking
for either and Jesus let them know this. In Jesus’ time, the Jewish people were
made slaves, living under the rule of a bad Roman king and they desperately
wanted to be freed from the meanness they experienced. The prophets in the Old
Testament had told people about God’s plan for a new kind of Kingdom, the
Messiah’s Kingdom. Jesus was their hope for a new future but it wasn’t the kind
of kingdom they expected. Jesus’ kingdom didn’t have thrones and palaces like
that of Rome. Instead, it was in the hearts of Jesus’ followers. And that’s not
very easy to understand.
Jesus knew that James and John were willing and would experience
really hard times because they were His followers but Jesus said, “no” to their
request to sit to the right and left of Him when Jesus goes back to heaven because
it wasn’t for Jesus to grant that request. Jesus knew what was best for them.
Just like James and John, we don’t have to fear asking God
for anything. He hears us when we pray but the answer may not always be yes.
God wants to give us what is best for us, not only what we want. Sometimes it
may be really hard to hear “no” even if we ask for a cookie right after
brushing out teeth but God says “no” sometimes for our own good, even when we
don’t always understand why.
Faith+Prayer: Dear God, thank you
that we can talk with you like a parent or friend. We can ask you for help, for
understanding and for the desires on our hearts. Thank you for listening to our
prayers. Help us trust you, even when your answer is “no”.
Amen.
Faith+Blessing: Gracious God (pause) Help us to see you in our lives this week.
Permission to use for nonprofit. When printing give credit to Faith Formation Journeys. Intellectual property rights apply
Guest Writer: Mary Stoneback, Ascension Lutheran, Colorado Springs
www.ascensionlutheranelca.org/
Thanksgiving Table Faith+Home Connection
Share this around your family table
at Thanksgiving or anytime this month!
Meal Blessing:
Come Lord Jesus be our Guest and let these gifts to us be blest. Thanks be to
God who is our bread may all the world be clothed and fed.
While you eat…
Share your highs and lows from the
year—what you are thankful for this year and what you pray for in your life or
in the world.
Read Revelation
21:4-5 “God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed
away.” 5And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am
making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are
trustworthy and true.”
Talk: Families
with young children: What is God’s promise in this verse? How does the
promise of God’s love help us to live together as family?
Families
with teens: What is the promise of
this scripture? What do you imagine it would feel like to be where there is no
more pain? How do we live this promise at school and home?
Families
of Adult(s): What is the promise is
this scripture? How do we live this promise in our daily lives? How does this
verse connect with your highs/lows and/or lead you into the future?
Pray: At the end of the meal join in prayer thanking God
for your highs and praying for your lows.
Blessing: Share this blessing around the table or before people
depart or go to bed. Mark the sign of the cross on their forehead or hand and
say, “_________(name) may you know God’s love is for you in your blessings and
in your sorrows. Amen
~LB
Permission to use for nonprofit. When printing give credit to Faith Formation Journeys. Intellectual property rights apply