The Lord's Prayer

Children’s Chapel

August 13, 2017

·    Welcome: Good Morning girls and boys! I am so happy to see you all this morning! Do we have any new friends with us? (Welcome new friends.)

·    Church Practice:

We are now in the liturgical season of Ordinary Time. The cloth on our Children’s Chapel altar is green today which is the color we use during Ordinary Time.  Who would like to move the arrow on our liturgical calendar? (Allow one child to come up to the calendar to move the arrow forward one week.) The arrow is now pointing to the tenth green square.  You will also notice that in big church the altar frontal, church dressings, and clergy stoles are green. (Light altar candles.) We light these candles to remind us that Christ is the light of the world. We remember that God is always with us, that Jesus lives in our hearts and that we are inspired by the power of the Holy Spirit. Before we begin our Bible lesson today, let us pray.

·       Children’s Collect:  Let us pray, Heavenly Father, we are here to worship and praise you. Open our hearts and minds so that we may hear your words spoken to us through the Bible story today. Give us strength that we may serve you through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives, and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen

·   Bible Reference: “The Jesus Storybook Bible” pages 222-227 (read aloud)

·  Response: Today we are going to talk about the prayer Jesus taught us to say.  There are some big words and hard things to understand in this prayer, so we are going to think about them out loud together. 

The prayer begins:

Our Father, who art in Heaven
(Pull out the collage of people and animals and hand to a child who will hold it while you speak.)

Some people find it helpful to think about God’s love for us like a father’s love for his children. You can also think about God’s love as being like the love of the person who knows you and loves you the best such as your Mom and/or Dad’s love for you, or the love of your sister or brother, or the way your grandparents love you. God’s love for us is bigger than any love, but our love that we feel in our families helps us to think about God’s love by remembering how we feel when we are with the person who knows us and loves us best.

Hallowed be thy Name
Get ready with your “holy” poster.

“Hallowed” is a funny word, isn’t it?  Does anyone know what it means?  “Hallowed” is a word that means “holy” (Hand a child the poster with the word “HOLY” on it) or “special.”  And God’s name IS special and holy. 

Thy Kingdom Come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven
(Hold up the globe)

We ask God to help us do God’s will and to help us make the world the way God wants it to be – just like God sees the world in Heaven. 

In this part of the prayer, we are asking God to use us to help make the earth the way God imagines it can be. (Hand the globe to one of the children.)

Give us this day our daily bread
(Take out the loaf of bread and hand it to another child.)

I wonder what this could mean?  Back in the times when the Bible was written, bread was the basic necessity of life.  In the prayer, bread is a symbol for asking God to make sure we have what we need.  What do you think are the things we need? 

And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us
Hold up the “No trespassing” sign and pass it off to another child

“Trespasses” is another of those big words that we need to think about.  Have you ever seen a sign like this one?  What do you think it means?  When we “trespass” against someone, we do something wrong, something that is hurtful to or disrespectful of another person. We ask God to forgive us and to help us forgive others.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
Pull out the Monopoly money or the gem

“Temptation” is another big word. “Temptation” can be lots of things.  What tempts you?  It can be something as big wanting to steal from other people or as small as sneaking a cookie from the cookie jar when Mom or Dad has said, “Not until after dinner!”  We ask God to help us stay away from the things that we know are wrong for us to do.  And that is how “deliver us from evil” gets into the prayer.  In the “trespasses” line just before this one, we prayed about forgiving others from the wrong they have done to us and we ask for forgiveness for the wrongs we have done to others. 

For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever and ever
Pull out the crown and hang on to it

This last part of the prayer reminds us that everything in the world, even our very selves, belongs to God.  Even the things we think we own, really belong to God.  In telling God that we know all the blessings and good things we have come from him, we tell God that we trust him to lead us in our lives and to help us take good care of the gifts God has given us. 

Now, let’s say the whole prayer together

·    Response Activity will be provided.