The kiddos at church yesterday really got
into the teaching intro. I brought up
our tub of gigantic tinker toys. Now, I don’t
know if you have ever seen such a thing as giant tinker toys. Somewhere back in our history someone thought
our boys would enjoy playing with them, so we have kept them around. Being plastic, they even survived Hurricane
Ike, so they have seen their share of excitement through the years. (Not sure which was worse, the hurricane or a
typical playing session with three boys).
The next three teaching sessions at church
will be about “Connecting” as it relates to the crucifixion (with the Event,
with the Word, and with the People). What
better way to learn about connecting than playing with tinker toys, right? There were only three or four kids who came
over to the tub, so I gave them free reign with the tinker toys for the rest of
the service. I did get a message from
Chris that it might not have been my wisest moment. Those things make a lot of noise when dropped
onto a tile floor. All in all, though, I
think the kids did a pretty good job staying relatively quiet.
The first recognizable thing I saw put
together was clearly a hockey stick. And
of course one of the smaller round toys made a perfect puck. That kid was from Minnesota. I have to say, he remained busy and quite
creative the rest of the service. In fact,
later on I almost lost it right in the middle of the teaching. That youngster had fashioned what looked like
a pretty awesome sword to me, but then he kept adding extensions to it until he
reached the ceiling. Fortunately he
stopped before breaking through. When he
began to break off all those extensions, I thought he would return to the
simpler sword idea. But no. Instead he turned the sword upside down –
point toward the floor – grabbed the hilt with both hands and began to act out
… any guesses? A jackhammer. Now that was totally unexpected. And inspired.
Not that I was distracted by any means …
Speaking
of the teaching, it was comprised almost entirely of Scripture. I compiled all of the accounts of the
crucifixion in the four gospels into one story to give an overview of that
entire day. After that I read Psalm 22
to show how that specific prophecy, made around 1000 B.C., came true in such a
graphic way at the crucifixion of Jesus.
Sounds pretty simple and straightforward, doesn’t it?
Well, among
our visitors was a group of ladies.
There were four of them, but they were part of a group of nine women who
have known each other since junior high school.
They were all celebrating turning 50 years old this year, and they were
at a beach house for the weekend. So, after
the service one of these ladies, visiting from Rhode Island, asked to talk with
me. Seems that in her church background she
had never heard the Jesus story in quite that way before, and it had pricked
her interest. She wanted to know more
about the whole love relationship with God thing. So we talked together for a few minutes, and
before you know it, she was praying and asking Jesus to come into her life with
that love relationship. All because she
listened to the Word of God rather than some speech I could have given. I really love how God works that way. Pray for her as she returns to Rhode
Island. I gave her a New Testament, but
she needs a church up there. Her friend
promised to be there for her, and so should we … in our prayers.
Luke 15:10 says, “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the
angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Father, receive your new daughter into your
kingdom. She was pretty excited that the
angels were having a party because of her.
May she quickly come to know the joys of being one of yours. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment