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Sticking to the basics

As part of my internship at Pilgrim Church, which began last Sunday, I preached my first official sermon today...to 2- and 3-year-olds. The topic was God's promise of Isaac to Abraham and Sarah. I had one goal and one goal only: to convey to them the idea of a promise.

When I merely observed their worship service last week, I saw how excited they were to receive stickers at the end. In a stroke of genius, the children's pastor had me hand out the stickers so the kids would warm up to the impossibly tall white man (the kids are all Korean) who towered over them (even seated), and who probably seemed a bit scary.

I began this week by promising that I would again give them stickers at the end of the service, which I then sealed with a pinky promise and thumb stamp. I'm pretty sure that gesture crosses all cultures. Just like I pinky promised to give them stickers, God pinky promised with Abraham and Sarah to give them Isaac--that was more or less the idea. I also made use of a felt board that served as a background on which I placed cut-out characters of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac. The baby doll I borrowed from their regular pastor served as the climax.

And, yes, there were stickers to be had at the end. I am faithful to my promise.

Comments

  1. SadNobodyNovember 15, 2010 at 10:26 AM

    Amen.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownNovember 29, 2010 at 4:53 PM

    Reminds me of the 5 minute teaching sample I had to do for my Teach for America interview. I taught the "1st graders" how to use end punctuation and I managed to get through the lesson without help from you or Grammie! I can still remember the time you gave up editing the story I wrote while I was staying in Manhattan. I went back and forth between tenses so often that you dropped the red pen after correcting the first page. I wasn't too upset because we moved on to crush Aunt Sandy in a game of Monopoly (also referred to as "Family Feud").

    ReplyDelete
  3. JohnNovember 30, 2010 at 12:49 PM

    I honestly have no recollection of correcting your story! The Monopoly game, on the other hand, I remember very well for you revealing your rooting interest a little too enthusiastically for Aunt Sandy's taste. I also seem to recall during that visit something about an irate phone call Aunt Sandy made to Verizon. ; )

    ReplyDelete

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