I’m guessing that many of you have experienced many a children’s moment during your time in churches. I’ve witnessed some that have gone on for 10-15 minutes and they felt like they would never end (I’ve probably given one or two of those myself). I’ve seen some object lessons just go horribly wrong. I’ve seen pastors who seem like they have no understanding, whatsoever, of how to relate to children. It’s true that I’ve seen some bad ones.
However, a few years ago while I was serving a church in Oregon, I experienced, perhaps, my worst children’s moment.
It was Sunday morning, and I was scrambling around before worship trying to think of what to do for the children’s moment. We had a small group of kids, so I ended up landing on the idea that I would ask the kids how to spell G-O-D, and then give them some sheets with letters on them. I had four sheets with the letters L, O, V and E. See, it was going to be tricky – there were four sheets of paper, but I asked them to spell the name of God, which has three letters. But they had to use all of their signs.
I explained to the kids what they had to do, and after awhile, I thought they had it figured out. I was standing behind the kids, and heard some chuckles from the congregation, and so I stepped down to the floor and turned around, and this is what I saw.
God is spelled…E-V-O-L?
Say it out loud. EVOL.
God is evil. Awesome. That went JUST like I had envisioned it.
I’m sure you all have your own stories of children’s moments that have just bombed – or perhaps just some really bad ones you’ve seen done before. Share your favorite “worst” children’s moments in the comments section.
When I sat down and quickly drew a sketch of a rock and the word remember last fall, I couldn’t have known where this was going to go. But that’s how these things begin sometimes, right?