Invite children to come to the front of the church for a children’s feature. Ask if anyone knows if there is someone in this church who is the perfect person to love and serve God. Listen to their responses as they think. Tell them you want to find out if any of them are absolutely perfect enough to love and serve God and your dialogue might go something like this:
“Does anyone here have perfect knees? Do you? Let’s see you bend your knees…it seems to work really great! Are there any scratches, how about on your other knee? How about you, how’s your knee? Do your knees work okay? Uh oh, looks like you got a little bit of a scrape. How about ears…does anyone here have perfect ears? (This one is great because they have to check each other’s ears and will say they are perfect or that they found a good one.) Can anyone find some good eyes too? How about elbows…does anyone here have perfect elbows? Any scrapes? Hmmm, seems like most of us have some scars or bruises somewhere.”
“You know what, to serve and love God and to come to church, we don’t have to be perfect. God loves us and each of us is the perfect person to serve God even though we all get bumps and bruises and scars and sometimes we get angry or hurt. God made each one of us exactly like we are and each one of us is totally perfect enough to love and serve God.”
“God made each one of us different with different things we can do and can’t do. Some of us have might have perfect hands or eyes, some of us can sing or talk lots without getting tired, and everyone of us is perfect enough to love God, no matter what we are like.”
Let’s pray: Dear God, thank you that you love each one of us exactly the way we are. Amen
By Elsie Wiebe Klingler, 2003.
