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A new children's sermon on Sunday's Gospel! -- When you are facing conflict
New Children's Sermon! |
Hello my friend! Between vacation and other summer things, I ended up taking the month of August off from blogging. Thanks for your patience! Just in time for Sunday I have a new children's sermon for you. There's a link to the older "Monday Meditation" on the same Gospel passage inside the post. It's Matthew 18:15-20, a classic text that has guided the Church for centuries on matters of church discipline. That's probably not really a great interest of the folks who come up for a children's sermon, so I sort of recast the story about a particular common related issue: What do you do when someone is really mean to you? Which reminds me of the classic approach Mr. Rogers took. (He was one fine Presbyterian minister who really knew how to connect with kids.) He sang a song he'd written, "What do you do with the mad that you feel?" After all, we all feel mad sometimes. Somebody treats us badly, or things just go wrong somehow. The question is what you do with that mad -- and what you do with yourself in any given situation is a great question for spiritual formation. Jesus' advice was to go to the source and try to make things right -- in a challenging sense, really, if we've been hurt. Making things right didn't mean pretending that all was well. It meant telling truly what we felt, what we experienced, and trying to get someone to reach a change of heart. It's still good advice. Far better than trolling someone online, or whispering complaints to others -- two familiar poisonous forms of gossip. So much better to be direct. And so challenging! But it's Jesus' way, seeking good and being true. As I said in my most recent missive a month ago ... I'm getting ready to seek a publisher for a book that closely relates to what I do in these children's sermons. Having a growing list of subscribers is super helpful in that process. If you know someone who might appreciate seeing this children's sermon, would you be willing to forward this email to them and encourage them to subscribe? Thank you always for reading what I write! It means so much to me. Blessings, Gary
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P.O. Box 17, Bible School Park, NY 13737 |
I'm Gary Neal Hansen
Sign up for my newsletter, and I'll send you new articles most Fridays, as well as news of upcoming classes and things.
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