The Children's Preacher as Poet and/or Teacher of First Year College Students

My writing time is a bit short today--between Lutheridge Music Week festivities and my final essay exam for my seminary class due this week, my writing time might remain short.  Still I hope to record a few insights here and there.  No, I hope to write some in-depth posts, but if not, I'll hope to make note of a few insights.

Yesterday, on the way over the mountains back from the church in Bristol where I am a Synod Appointed Minister (SAM), my spouse and I talked about sermons, as we often do on the drive back.  He is wise enough to be gentle in his critiques of my sermons.  Of all the humans I know, he has the most interest in a sermon that's intellectually rigorous.  My adult sermons sometimes hit that mark for him--well, at least, parts of my sermon do.

He is more approving of my children's sermons than I expected.  With a children's sermon, I've had less training and less experience seeing them in action.  Most of the churches I've attended in my life haven't done them, and so far, my seminary studies haven't included a class in how to craft a children's sermon.

So, I study the Gospel for the day, and I look for part that is most important for a child to hear and remember.  In a later post this week, I'll say more about some specific content from my past 6 weeks of children's sermons.  But today, before I go up the hill to the chapel for morning worship, let me record what I'm realizing.

My training and experience as a poet is serving me well as I try to create memorable children's sermons.  Just as when I'm creating a metaphor for a poem, I do the same in a children's sermon:  I'm trying to create something that makes people see the world differently, to see an object or a concept in a way that they never have before, and that each time in the future, they'll think of what I did in the poem or the children's sermon.  

My training as a teacher of first year college students is also serving me well, and it's training that goes back to my days as a drama kid.  I've always been good at improv and thinking on my feet.  I've always been good at projecting my voice and finding ways to engage the people watching me.  I'm good at making connections which often only come to me as I'm teaching or presenting the material.  I am happy to make a fool of myself if it will lead to memorable moments in teaching or preaching--because if I don't care what people think about me, I'm more likely to reach people, and it's more likely that I'm not going to make a fool of myself.

So, if that means putting my head through a styrofoam yoke to make a point about easy yokes and light burdens, I'll do it.  If that means having children move to a different part of the church, I'll do it.  And I suspect the adults watching may be learning just as much as the children.