Experiments in Joy

“Let your joy be your continual feast.

Make your life a prayer, and in the midst of everything, always giving thanks,

for this is God’s perfect plan for you in Jesus Christ.”

1 Thessalonians 5:16–18

Dear Friends,

You may have noticed that I’ve changed the order of worship a little bit for the last few weeks. This is all an experiment in trying to have worship be an engaging and interesting time for our children while we don’t have PowerZone and are not providing a separate experience for them outside of the worship space. [By the way… This is our plan for the summer but—since it’s an experiment—I’m open to tweaking it! Please let me know if you would like to help or have some suggestions.]

Now, I’m going to tell you a secret…

My father was also a pastor. Early on in my pastoral career, I was talking to him about how to do Children’s Sermons. He said to me, “The most important thing is to have them know that God loves them and that you do, too!”

For someone who tends to be “trapped” by having to do it the “right way,” this was very grounding advice. It is what gives me permission to just enjoy being with them. It doesn’t mean that I don’t try to figure out how to make the biblical stories alive for them and to provide understandable teachings. It primarily means that I allow myself to have fun with them!

Maybe this is some access to Jesus’ teaching about having to become like a child to receive the Kingdom of God. Children have a tremendous capacity to experience joy and to find wonder and surprise in so many things. Joy is one of the signs of the Reign of God. I hope you allow yourself to en-JOY the children’s message!

Along these lines… We know that for very young children, it is hard (if not impossible) to sit still and be quiet. One of the things that we (the leadership at FLC) are exploring is making the room right outside the sanctuary into a “little kids activity room.” (We’re still looking for a good name to call it!) The idea is to put a window in the wall (into the sanctuary) so that people can see into and out of that room and to “pipe” the service in there. This way, persons can be in there with smaller children (allowing them to be active and not worried about making noise) but still be able to hear and even see what is going on in the worship. If you would like to help with this project--and maybe even be willing to sit with the children—just let me or another council member know!

May you make your life a prayer… of joy and thanks!

Peace,

Pastor Phil