Childrens Sermon Service

For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you.... (v. 4)

Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's. (v. 21b)

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

Materials:
Markers (especially red)
Star stickers
White construction paper
Brown or black construction paper (optional)
Crayons, pencils, colored pencils
Dove, butterfly, cross, and other church-symbol stickers

Directions:

1. Have each of the children design and create a Christian-American flag that represents their country and their faith.

2. Talk about the symbolism of flag parts.

For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place where your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. (v. 8)

Good morning, boys and girls! How are you this morning? (allow answers) Today we are going to talk about microwave ovens. How many of you have a microwave oven in your house? (allow answers) What do you use a microwave oven for? (allow answers) Microwave ovens are great! Lots of people use microwave ovens to heat up food, to make popcorn, or to make TV dinners.

They answered, "The emperor's." Then he said to them, "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's." (v. 21)

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


Materials:
Construction paper cut into dollar-sized pieces
Markers, crayons, colored pencils


Directions:
Jesus said, "Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and give to God the things that are God's." Talk about the ways you can tell that money comes from the government -- the symbols, words, and people shown on coins and dollars. Have the children create "God's money" -- what a dollar might look like if it was printed by God or the church instead of by the government. Encourage them to include symbols, words, and people that reflect things about their faith.

The Point: All we have belongs to God.

The Lesson: Good morning, girls and boys. It is a blessing for me to have you come forward to share this moment together. Thank you.

“...give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperors and to God the things that are Gods.” (v. 21b)

Good morning boys and girls,

Welcome to worship today. So wonderful to see you.  Thanks for joining me for this children's message. How are you? How am I? Fantastic!

I want to show you two things:  An offering plate and a picture of Uncle Sam. Why Uncle Sam? Uncle Sam is America, and for this morning, Uncle Sam represents government.

The question today is: should we place our money in the offering plate for church missions or give taxes to Uncle Sam?

Hi everyone! Have you ever tried to play a trick on someone? (Let them answer.) I want to tell you about a time the Pharisees tried to play a trick on Jesus. It didn’t work.

Have you ever heard of the Pharisees? (Let them answer.) They were a group of people who were around when Jesus was teaching. The Pharisees were people who went to school to study and learn all about the laws that people had to obey. And I’ll tell you, there were a LOT of laws the people had to obey.

Object: A dollar bill, or any bill with a president’s image on it.

* * *

Hello, everyone! (Let them respond.) Are you ready for our story today? (Let them respond.) Excellent! This is a story about bullies. Who can tell us what a bully is? (Let them respond.) A bully is someone who tries to make you do things you don’t want to do. Bullies are usually bigger, or more powerful than you are, aren’t they? And they threaten you and say that if you don’t do what they want you to do, they will do something to you, don’t they? (Let them respond.) Well, our story today is about two bullies who were threatening Jesus and his friends.

Good morning! I brought a few cards to show you today. Do you know what these are? (Show the cards and let them answer.) Yes, these are baseball cards. Here are ... (describe the people on the cards). Do any of you collect these kinds of cards? (Let them answer.)

Now why do we have these people on cards like this? We don't have cards for ordinary people like you and me. Why do we have them for these people? (Let them answer.) Yes, these people are famous because they play baseball and they're very good at it. If you wanted to grow up and be a baseball player, would you say that these people are good examples for you? (Let them answer.) Yes, they are. They are good players and they provide a good example for us to follow if we want to be like them.

Good morning, boys and girls. Has anyone ever played a trick on you? (Let them answer. Ask what the trick was and then ask how the child felt when the trick was revealed.) Sometimes tricks are pretty harmless. Someone might point behind you. As you look to see what is behind you, the other person says "Made you look!" Has that ever happened to any of you? (Let them answer.) That trick doesn't really hurt anyone, but some tricks can make you feel pretty bad. It's really not very much fun to be tricked.

Good morning! In the Gospel reading today, we heard about
some people who were trying to get Jesus into trouble. They asked
him to tell them if it was okay to pay taxes to the Roman
government. If Jesus said they should pay taxes to the Roman
government, they would accuse him of supporting an evil empire,
and if he said they shouldn't pay, they would accuse him of being
a rebel who was encouraging people to fight the lawful
government. They thought they had Jesus in a tough situation that
he couldn't get out of. What do you think Jesus did? (Let them
answer.)

Jesus took a coin like this one (show the coin) and he asked
them to tell him whose picture was on the coin. The emperor's

Teachers or Parents: We all have difficulty at times
separating our obligations to the secular and the divine, to our
government and our religion. Children should learn early that our
responsibilities to God must always have priority, but that does
not mean that we have no responsibility to our legitimate
government. With a proper attitude, we can meet our
responsibilities to both.

* Make a number of cards with duties listed on them. Make
some of the duties clearly to government and others clearly to
God. Have several that are duties to both. Have the children draw
a card and go to a previously marked area that is either
"Government," "God," or "Both." When they have picked their area,

Good morning! When I get a nice present from someone, I always send a "thank you" card to let the person know how much I appreciated the gift. It takes me just a few minutes and I know how much the other person likes hearing that I received the gift and that it suits me well. For example, when I got this (gift), I wrote to (name[s]) and thanked them.

Good morning. This morning I'm going to ask you some questions and I want you to tell me the answers. Okay? Let's go:

1. Do they observe the fourth of July in England? (Answer: Of course! They don't, however, celebrate the American Independence Day Holiday.)

2. Which is heavier, a pound of marbles or a pound of feathers? (Answer: They weigh the same. A pound is a pound.)

3. If a tree falls and no one is around to hear it, can you say it made a sound? (Answer: Who knows?)

(Use as many trick questions as you want. Generally, just a few are enough.)

Parents: Healthy stewardship practices begin at home and begin at an early age. Teach your children the human and Christian necessity to give. Giving people learn money management and rarely have money problems later in life. You give your children an important gift when you teach them to give.

At the earliest age possible, teach your children to give the top part of their allowance to God, a second part to themselves (in terms of a savings bank or savings account) and the final part to spend. It could be split: ten percent to God (a tithe); ten percent to self (savings); eighty percent to spend.

*Talk to your child about how important it is for you to give to God.

Good morning, boys and girls. How many of you say a prayer before you go to bed at night? (Let them answer.) Who do you mention in your prayer? (Let them answer.) One of the things that you do when you pray is to thank God for many things. Have you ever thought about saying a prayer for our church when you pray at night? (While you let them answer show them your object and name it.)

Teachers: The lesson is on giving to the emperor and to God. You might want to arrange to have your students (with the help of a parent or the regular ushers) help pass the offering plates during the morning worship service. This will involve them in one understanding of giving to God. If you do this, you must make appropriate plans in advance and provide proper advance explanation to your students.

As a class activity, talk with your students about Jesus' story about giving to God what belongs to God. Plan an activity that will enable your students to place a "check to God" in the morning offering plate. The check will be a promise to God of something the student will perform during the week.

Materials
Small, clean jar for each child
Beads, buttons, decorative flowers, ribbons, etc.
Craft paint
Small paintbrushes
Glue
Small slips of paper
Pencils

Instructions
1. There are many things we can give to God. We can give him our thanks and worries through prayers, our love, and our offering.

2. We can make a Gift for God jar.

3. Give each child a clean jar to decorate using beads, buttons, flowers, paint, ribbons, and so on.

4. Tell the children to write something they want to remember to pray about on a small slip of paper and place it in the jar. They can write more than one slip of paper. Tell them that spelling doesn't matter, but they can get help if they want it.

Good morning, boys and girls. I am in a search for something that belongs to me and I can't find it. Have you ever lost something that belonged to you? (let them answer) I lost my keys and they are very important to me. I lost the key to my car, the key to my house, the key to my office, and other keys that are very important to me. They don't belong to anyone else; no one else can use them unless they work in my office, drive my car, or live at my house. Those keys belong to me.

Good morning, boys and girls. Have you ever noticed how many of us like to do the same things? Dads like to watch football games, moms like to grow flowers, brothers like to play video games, sisters like to dance, grandmothers and grandfathers like to tell you how pretty and handsome you are. They all like to do the same kind of things. We sometimes call that imitating. Can you say the word imitate? (let them say it) Very good! Sometimes imitating is a good thing and sometimes it is not so good, but we are talking today about good imitating.