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Choose from the following children's sermons:

• Helping People
  a children's sermon based on Mark 1:40-45
  by Rev. Randy Quinn  (see below)
   
• God's Olympics, 1Corinthians 9:24-27
  by Rev. Frank Schaefer (please scroll down)

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Helping People
a children's sermon based on Mark 1:40-45
by Rev. Randy Quinn

Props: picture of a man with leprosy or some other skin disease

Have you ever had your foot fall asleep? What about your arm?

It’s a weird feeling, isn’t it? When your arm falls asleep, you can’t feel anything in your arm or your hand. It isn’t really ‘sleeping,’ but your nerves are no longer working in that part of your body. Normally that’s because you’ve cut off the circulation to that part of your body.

Let me show you a picture. Can you tell me what you think is going on in it?

(I have a picture of a man with leprosy or some other skin disease)

Those are nice stories, but really this is a man who has leprosy.

Have you ever heard of leprosy? It’s a curable disease that we don’t hear about very often. In fact, it’s quite rare these days. There are less than a thousand people with leprosy in our country. There are less than a million cases worldwide.

When you have leprosy, the first thing you notice is you lose your feeling. It’s like a part of your body has fallen asleep. Except it never stops. And because you can’t feel anything, you can cut yourself and not know it. Or you can break a bone and not feel it. Or bugs can bite you and you won’t know that they’re there.

Pretty soon, you end up with sores all over your body.

Look at the picture again. This man has leprosy. And the woman is putting oil on his legs where he has sores. She is helping him. She is caring for him. She is trying to make him better.

Do you think she is worried about catching leprosy from him? (No.) She could get it, but she is more concerned with helping him. And I think that’s what Jesus wants us to do. He wants us to help people.

Let’s pray:

God teach us to help people. Show us how to help people. Help us share your love in everything we do. Amen.

 

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God's Olympics
based on 1Corinthians 9:24-27
by Rev. Frank Schaefer

props: a baton (a rounded stick will do)

Greetings, my little friends.  Today I want to talk about sports.  Are any of you involved in sports?  What is your sport? (Let the children talk).  One of our bible readings today talk about a running a race.

This race is a special race.  It's a race for Jesus and it takes every single one of us Christians to run this race.  You and I are invited to run in this race too.  It's a little like a relay race where one person starts, and after a while that person will pass a baton (a stick) to another person and then that second person will run.

Actually, I brought something that looks like a baton. Invite the children to visualize a relay race by passing the baton to a kid and have him/her pass it on to another kid, etc. If your situation allows it, you may even want to have a little "walking" relay race in your sanctuary.

Of course, the bible passage is not talking about stick batons, but about something else we need to pass on to others.  In this relay race we are supposed to pass on the love of God to others.

How do we do that?  How can we hand others the love of God?     (Let the children share; if nobody does, make a few suggestions).   Do you all think you can do these things?  Can you run in God's relay race?

Let us pray to God to make us strong for his race: "Dear God, thank you for inviting us to run in your race.  Help us to be strong for this race and to share your love with others.  Amen."