“The Two Most Important Rules for a Happy Life”

Children’s Sermon from our Diaconal Intern, Dinushka De Silva ~ 

Mark 12:28-34

Good morning everyone! Today we have a children’s sermon so I would love to gather all the children here. Please come to the steps of the altar. Parents you can join them if you like.

Hi everyone my name is Dee. What is everyone’s name here?

We are going to start by talking about the Bible story today. Today Jesus mentions the most important rules in life that lead to a happy and good life. Jesus tells us that we need to focus on just two main rules. (Show rules) Can someone volunteer to read them for me?

The Two Most Important Rules For a Happy Life

1. Love God with all your heart because God loves you with all of God’s heart.

2. Love your neighbor just as much as you love yourself and God.

Do you guys ever have to follow rules in your house by your parents?

Tell me some of your rules?

Why do your parents give you those rules?

What do these rules mean?

Some people who really lived their life by these rules are called saints. Saints were people who worked really hard to follow Jesus’s rules of love. And tomorrow is All Saints Day where we remember the saints and all they did to bring God’s love into the world.

For Halloween today, I am going to dress up as my favorite saint, Mother Teresa. (Show Mother Teresa book and picture, put on head scarf). What is Saint Teresa doing in these pictures?

St. Teresa helped a lot of children living on the street. She gave them food and clean clothes and a place to stay. Here are two more saints that followed Jesus’s rules. (Show Martin Luther King Jr. and Florence Li Tim-Oi pictures) MLK believed that all children of God should be able to study together and work together and live together no matter the color of their skin. Florence was the first female priest in the Chinese Anglican church who took the communion bread that we eat here to people who were too far away from church or who were not able go to church because they were in the middle of a war and hiding in safety. She became a priest even when no one wanted women priests back then. Today the world is a better place because of all 3 of them. Are there ways you too can be like saints?

Halloween can be so much fun and it’s even more fun when we bring God’s rules of loving others and loving God into the holiday because that’s all God wants us to do is to love! And there are so many ways we can do that!

When we pass out candy we can say, “Boo! God loves you!” Some people even decorate their pumpkins with this phrase. I did one to show you. (Show decorated pumpkin) I also added to my pumpkin “Love is the best candy of all”.

Today I thought we could show God’s love by putting it right on some pumpkins! I thought we could decorate some Christ Church pumpkins to put right on your door step! (Pass out pumpkins) At coffee hour after church I have some markers and stickers and glitter we can use to decorate our pumpkins.

Thank you so much for joining us today. Remember no matter the holiday we can all be like little saints in the world by loving God as well as loving and helping others. Let’s do a quick prayer for everyone today celebrating Halloween. Does anyone want to lead it? Amen