Childrens Sermon Service

All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. (v. 11)

Good morning, boys and girls. Have you ever noticed how different the people are that go to our church? (let them answer) Stand up and take a look at all of the people that are here today and you will probably not see many that look alike. Some people are very young, just a little older than you are, and some are older. But looks are not the things that make them really different. God has given each one of these people something different to do. Our church is like a big puzzle. It takes a lot of different people to fit together to make a church.

When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit." (v. 22)

Good morning, boys and girls. How many of you are breathing this very minute? (let them answer) All of you are breathing but what would happen if you stopped breathing? (let them answer) That's right, you would die.

SHARING THIS WEEK'S GOSPEL THEME AT SUNDAY SCHOOL AND AT HOME

Materials:
Heavy paper
Scissors
Markers or crayons
Zipper bags (sandwich sized)

Directions:
1. Give each of the children a piece of heavy paper.

2. Have the children write "Receive the Holy Spirit" on their papers in large bold letters, using most of the paper.

3. Have the children color in the letters.

4. Ask the children to decorate the page as they wish, making sure that the entire page is colored.

5. As no two will be exactly alike, have the children write their names on the back of the paper and on the outside of the zipper bag.

When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit." (v. 22)

Good morning, boys and girls! How are you this morning? (allow answers) How many of you have ever had a package delivered to your house? (allow answers) What happened when the package was delivered? Did the delivery man knock on your door? (allow answers) Did someone have to sign a piece of paper to say that they got the package? (allow answers) When someone sends us a package by UPS or Federal Express, sometimes we have to sign a receipt to prove that we got the packaged. Or, we could say, that we "received" the package.

SHARING THIS WEEK'S GOSPEL THEME
AT SUNDAY SCHOOL AND AT HOME


Materials:
Bag of dress-up clothes or accessories (hat, tie, boa, beads, sunglasses, vests, etc.)
CD player or another way to play music


Directions:
1. Have everyone sit in a circle. Begin the music. As the music plays, children pass around the bag of clothes.
2. When the music stops, whoever is holding the bag reaches in without looking and pulls out one piece of clothing. They have to put on whatever they find.
3. When you run out of clothes in the bag, wrap up the session.

These verses follow the metaphor of living water flowing from our hearts into the world. The opening activity will work off of that image to show how water works. Water fills in all the empty places it can find. Even when we think there is no room, water can find the emptiness and fill it up.

What you will need:
A transparent jar or bowl
A couple of large rocks (or other large objects that will fit in your container)
Sand
Water

In your lesson say something like:

Object: A bottle of water.

* * *

Hello, everyone! (Let them respond.) I have a question for you. Have you even been thirsty? (Let them respond.) I mean, have you ever been really, really, thirsty? Maybe you’ve been running around, or singing really loudly, and you just got really thirsty. Has that ever happened to you? (Let them respond.) What does it feel like when you got really thirsty? (Let them respond.) Maybe your throat got really dry? Maybe it was hard to swallow? Maybe your throat was so dry it was hard to talk? (Let them respond.)

The Point: Jesus comes to us even when we are afraid and gives us the power to live as his followers.

When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, 'receive the Holy Spirit.' (v. 22)

Good morning, boys and girls. I am so happy to see you this morning. You know why I'm happy? I am happy because you are here at worship ? and I am really happy to tell you about something amazing! Are you ready to hear about it?  (children answer)

There are some things in life that are invisible. But they are very real. For example, here in my hands I am holding some air. (cup hands like holding air) (shows air to children)

Can you see the air? (children answer “no”) But the air is still there isn't it?

Good morning, boys and girls. Do you know whose birthday it is today? (Let them try to answer.) Today is the birthday of the New Testament church. We Christians call it Pentecost Sunday. It is the day that Jesus' disciples received the Holy Spirit from God. When Jesus ascended to heaven he told the disciples to wait for something from God. This is what they waited for.

Good morning! Today I need your help. Trace one of your hands on this paper. (give them a moment to do it) Tell me some of the things you can do with your hands. (listen) Now look at your feet for a moment. What can you do with your feet? (let them tell you) What about your eyes? Your nose? Your ears? (spend a moment or two for each question)

Materials:
Paper (one per child, with Bible verse listed below printed at the top)
Crayons
Envelopes (one per child)
Stamps (one per child)

Directions:

On the top of each sheet of paper, write the following Bible verse:

Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.


Allow each child to create a picture of Jesus underneath the Bible verse.

When they are finished, let them cut up the picture and turn it into a puzzle, with large pieces.

Let each child place these pieces into his/her envelope and place a stamp on the outside of the envelope. Tell them to send this puzzle to a friend, thus following the Bible verse.

Good morning, boys and girls. Did you ever think that you would like to be a missionary? (let them answer) What do missionaries do? (let them answer) They go places where God needs them to help people and to teach about Jesus. Some missionaries are like pastors, some are like doctors, some are like farmers, some are like builders, and many are teachers of languages, but all are servants of God.

Good morning, boys and girls. Today is a very big day because today is the birthday of the church. Let's all sing "Happy Birthday" to the church. (lead them through the song)

Teachers: (This activity is based in the Second Lesson, not today's Gospel Lesson) Today is the birthday of the New Testament Church. On this day the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit. Each of them began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them the ability. Use the phrase "God Is Love" to complete this activity.

Identify a member or members of your church who can speak a foreign language. Ask them to teach your students how to say in that language "God is love." You might ask them to also write it for you, if students wish to learn how to write it.

Good morning, boys and girls. How many of you or how many of you have older brothers or sisters who have ever had a lemonade stand? (Let them answer.) Today's lesson reminds me of a lemonade stand. In fact, I made a sign for it. It reads: "Living Water Lemonade Stand -- free lemonade." Wouldn't it be wonderful if all lemonade stands were free! Some friends of mine and I had a lemonade stand one hot summer day when I was in grade school. One of my friends walked up and down the street yelling, "Lemonade stand. Anyone who is thirsty come and get some lemonade."

Good morning, boys and girls! Today is Pentecost. On Pentecost we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit. God sent the Holy Spirit to the world so that we would always have a part of God living among us. Jesus couldn't stay forever, so God sent his Spirit to stay with us.

The Bible describes the Holy Spirit as being kind of like the wind or the breath of God. (show them your fan) It's not exactly the same, but I can use this fan to make wind. You all know what wind feels like. (turn on the fan and point it at your face; let the children take turns feeling the wind too) The wind of the Holy Spirit is the same wind that first blew on Adam in the Garden of Eden. When God blew on Adam, life came into him.

Teachers or Parents: The Holy Spirit fills our need, our thirst for God. On this special day in the church year, read about the work of the Holy Spirit in the scripture -- especially Acts 2:1-21.

* Act out a drama based on what happened on that Pentecost.

* Plant red flowers all around the church yard after the worship service in which the flowers are used (red geraniums are easily grown and are hardy and have become a traditional Pentecost flower).

* Make special "Blessed Pentecost" cards with captions conveying the thirst-quenching waters of the Holy Spirit inside. Quote today's text inside the card. Use the church copier if possible. You might make the cards up ahead of time and have the children color them.

Good morning! Have any of you ever been really, really thirsty? Perhaps you were playing outside and running and jumping and doing all kinds of things when, suddenly, you felt thirsty. You looked around and there was no water anywhere! But when you went in your home, you saw something like this -- a nice, cool pitcher of water! Umm! How satisfying! Maybe one of you here this morning is thirsty? (Offer any who are thirsty a drink.)

There are many ways of being thirsty. We can, of course, be thirsty for water. But we can be thirsty for other things. Once I did something that made me feel really bad. I knew it was wrong. I felt guilty. I had a need, a thirst, for forgiveness. I needed to hear loved ones say they forgave me the wrong I did to them.

Good morning! There are some parts of the world with names difficult for me to pronounce. I brought some of them with me this morning. These are places in the world that had residents in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit was given to the church in Jerusalem a long time ago. When I read these words, I have to have some help. To get help I turn to a pronunciation dictionary. This dictionary tells me how to speak these words correctly. Are there any of these words that you don't know how to speak? (Let them answer.) Let's look it up in this dictionary and see if that will help us. (Do it.)

The dictionary really helped us, didn't it?

Teachers or Parents: The invitation of Jesus to come to him
when we are thirsty needs to be said again and again. He is the
source of all good things. Our children need to be aware that
they need to turn to Jesus for help, for comfort, for knowledge,
and in the time of temptation. The world will be encouraging them
to come to many other places in their time of need, but we must
show them that it is to Jesus that they need to go.

*Put on a table the Bible, an encyclopedia, a novel, a
school textbook, and a computer program disk. Ask a volunteer to
come up and select one of these as a source of knowledge about
God and Jesus. When they have picked the Bible, discuss with them

Good morning! Have any of you ever gone on a long hike? (Let
them answer.) When you go on a long hike, it is a good idea to be
well prepared. What kinds of things would you take with you on a
hike? (Let them answer, and if they don't mention a canteen, add
it to the list.)

You certainly would want one of these (show the canteen).
You could get very thirsty on a hike, and you will need water.
Now, what if you drank all the water in your canteen and you were
still thirsty, where would you get some more water? (Let them
answer.) Yes, you would go to a stream, a lake, or perhaps there
would be water taps along the trail where you could get more

Good morning! Today is Pentecost, the day we celebrate the
birthday of the church. It was on this day that the Holy Spirit
descended on the believers 2,000 years ago and gave them the
power to become a church. (Expand your description as desired.)

Now, the church is often compared to a body. Here is a
picture of the human body. You can see that the body has a lot of
parts, actually millions and millions of parts. It is truly
"fearfully and wonderfully made," as the Bible says. And just as
God created the human body, so God also created the church. The
church also has millions of parts. What are the parts the church
is made up of? (Let them answer.) The church is made up of

We can feel it when someone breathes on us. This is especially true when the person is nearby. When someone is near to us it is impossible to breathe and not be sharing the same air that the people near us are breathing. Jesus deeply desired to draw near to those whom he loved. He earnestly wanted to draw people to his side and share the deepest love of God with them. Jesus and his disciples had grown close, but after Jesus had died, the disciples believed they had lost him. He seemed far away, but then he came back. He appeared to them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit."