Saturday, March 13, 2010

Out of the mouths of babes and infants…

Are children born with certain gifts? Do we come into this world equipped for our God given vocations (should we choose to follow his path)?

Once a quarter at Dartford we have an afternoon 'praise' meeting, which is organised and led by the children, those who want to are given the chance to preach.

Tomorrow, my youngest daughter, Bethany will preach her second sermon (she is only 11).

She came to me this morning with all the aplomb of a veteran preacher and said do you want to read my sermon Dad, it didn't take long because I wrote it down in my sermon book ages ago so I just had to tidy it up – what do you think? I'll let you work out for yourselves what I thought by sharing the sermon below (any typos or bad grammar are hers – the sermon is posted without any sub-editing from me).

My sermon!

Talking

Talking is socializing you could not get through life happily without socializing.

Some of you may be like me and love talking. You don't have to know me much to know that once I get going I'm talk, talk, talk if someone is talking to me they don't fit a word in edge ways.

Praying is talking, you're talking to God. Some people love praying like I do talking. I don't know if any of you watch Larkrise to Candleford but Thomas Brown the postman loves to pray! It's important for us all to pray as it would be if god lived on earth in human form how important it would be to talk to him every day. More over some people find it a challenge to pray; but they shouldn't. When you pray you don't have to be formal, like your meeting the queen - even though he's a king. He'll just be happy you're going to chat and don't worry because you can just go on and, he may not talk like you talk to friends but you may get a feeling that just lets you know he's listening! In our bible reading Samuel gets a call from god. It's not a call like you call up your friend to say you are coming to meet them down the town or a call like someone calls you to dinner; but god always calls us in some way. Maybe not so much of a call but you could have a sort of feeling inside you that made you feel all nice or another way, a prayer could have been answered like someone being healed or maybe you make a life changing decision that you couldn't work out before! In a family we talk to each other, if there is a big decision to be made you have a family meeting. We are a family and we should talk to each other and we should talk to God, we should as Thomas brown says in Larkrise to Candleford 'we must endeavour'. Either way God's always there listening and will be there till you're there with him in heaven!

Thank you for listening!

Xxx J

Grace and Peace,

Andrew (and Bethany!)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That's beautiful Bethany, Thank you for your message.
I remember when I was a young Corps Cadet I had to speak in the meeting and I worked hard to prepare what turned out to be a three minute sermon. That was about sixty years ago and I still remember it.
I pray that God will continue to use you as you grow each day more like Him.
Wilma Paterson, Windsor, Ont. Canada