Wired for Worship: Week Six

With Advent coming up the following week, last Sunday was our last lesson on worship. The kids really seemed to love the unit, and we loved teaching it. So our last week, we went back to Jesus and focused on what Jesus has to do with worship. The topic was communion, which is a little tricky to explain to kids... Okay, very tricky. Symbolism doesn't quite grab their fancies.

Thanksgiving was coming up that Thursday, so we did a little Thanksgiving review. The kids were all wondering what in the world Pilgrims and Native Americans had to do with Jesus, I'm sure. We talked about how there was one big Thanksgiving meal years and years ago, to celebrate the Pilgrims and Native Americans meeting together. Then, every year since then, we've all sat down as a family and filled our faces with stuffing and turkey and casseroles--as a reminder of what the first Thanksgiving was like. This was the perfect tie in to Jesus.

I asked the kids what meal they had every week at church. Communion eventually came out of the crowd, and we talked about how the first time Jesus and his disciples had the Last Supper was very special, and that it was a passover event. Jesus held up the wine and the bread. We talked about what the wine and the bread symbolized. Jesus' blood shed for us, and His body broken for us. I asked the kids why Jesus' blood was shed for us, and His body was broken for us. SIN. Then I drew their attention to a little chalice up at the front I'd drawn. It was empty, and next to it was a piece of bread. I had all of the kids call out sins they'd committed, and we wrote them inside the chalice. There were a lot of sins. But what did those have to do with Jesus? Why did Jesus have to die for our sins?

We use the analogy of cleaning. When Mom mops the floor, she tells you not to go on it, you might get it dirty. Because as soon as your dirty feet touch the clean floor, it's no longer clean. We talked about how God is that way. If we touch him with our dirtiness, God is no longer clean. But the difference is that God is unable to be unclean. If God wasn't clean, He wouldn't be God. So instead, we're kept at a distance in our dirtiness. But what happened was that Jesus shed his blood, and his blood covered us, so that we can be clean with God, who is also clean. Then we colored in the wine on the chalice, over the sins. The sins were no longer visible. That's how Jesus' blood was shed for us.

We read 1 Corinthians 11:26-28.

"For whenever you eat this bread or drink this cup, you are proclaiming the Lord's death until He comes. Therefore, whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before eating the bread or drinking the cup."

Taking it verse by verse, we talked about what it means to be "proclaiming the Lord's death". The kids were all pretty quick at this one, which surprised me. The simple idea was that we're telling everyone that Jesus shed his blood and broke his body for us. Then we talked about what an "unworthy manner" could be. This one took a bit of work. But we talked about how Jesus did this FOR us, and how communion is more of an exchange than anything else. When we go up to drink the wine and eat the bread, what we're doing is giving Jesus our sins, and taking the body and blood he gives back to us. If we don't give Jesus our sins when we go up, we're going up in an unworthy manner, and we're taking from the Lord without giving anything. That's why we need to examine ourselves and give our sins to God when we go up there.

Leading from there out, we talked about how communion is an act of worship. Because Jesus died for our sins, the way that we thank him is by actually taking what he gave us. How would you feel if you gave somebody a present and they didn't take it, they just gave it back to you and didn't want it? You would feel hurt. That's what we do to Jesus if we don't take the body and blood that he gave for us. And we give him our sins in exchange for it. One of the kids mentioned that everything we do with God is a give and take, and how worship is like that too. Worship always starts with God giving us something. It never starts with us. It's ALWAYS our response to God. And so when God gave His son for us, we respond in thanking him by taking what He gave us, and giving Him what he wants. Cleanliness. And the whole reason he wants cleanliness is so we can be with Him.

We did the Hot Seat again that week, and it was really wonderful some of the things the kids said. I have the audio clips of it, but I need to figure out how to post them. Here's one from the week before, though.

The question was "What is worship?"

Child: It's like, a relationship.
Amanda: How do you think God feels when we worship him?
Child: I think he feels glad, and happy...
Amanda: How do you feel?
Child: It makes me feel glad that I did it.

Reminder: Christmas Unwrapped rehearsals are every Wednesday night from 6:30-7:30ish, and Sundays at 10:30 (between the services.) The actual event is on Sunday, December 13th at 6 PM.