A Children's Sermon on Wealth and Bigger Barns

For these Gospel texts on wealth, I've had some trouble figuring out a good approach for a children's sermon, which is actually a youth sermon.  I'm the Synod Appointed Minister at a small, country church.  I don't have a solid sense of how parents are training their children around issues of finance.  I don't know if they get an allowance or have some sort of small jobs for extra money.  I don't know if they're allowed to spend their money however they please.

I came up with an idea in the hour before church started.  I had wanted to do some sort of blessing for people who work in the school system, and I thought about having the youth bless those folks.  But that's only 2 people, and what if they didn't come to church?

For the youth sermon, the youth come to the first pew.  I told them the parable of the rich man who decided to tear down barns to build bigger ones to hold all of his bounty.  And then I said that Jesus says that's not the kind of wealth we should count on.  And I said I had a demonstration of a different kind of wealth.

I asked the people who work in the school system to stand up.  The two people did.  Then I asked the people who have a biological connection to the youth on the front pew to stand up. 

About half the congregation was standing by this point, and the youth were facing me in the front.  I asked the people in the congregation who had pledged to support these youth with love and prayers to stand up.  I said, "And that should be most of you, because that's what we pledged to do last week when we blessed the backpacks."

Everyone in the congregation but the two visitors were standing at this point, and I had the youth stand and look back at the people standing:  all these people who love these youth!  I pointed that out, and then I said, "And here is true wealth, the kind of wealth that matters, the kind you can count on."  It was a stunning visual reminder, and I hope that the youth remember it, in the days that will come when they don't feel as loved; most of our youth are in middle and high school, and I remember the unloved feeling that can come with those grades.

I was pleased with how the youth sermon unfolded and pleased that it was a slightly different approach than the adult sermon.  It doesn't always work out that way, and I'm always happy when it does.

And here's a bonus:  one of the parents of the youth wrote to me to tell me how much she loved the youth sermon.  Hurrah!