Sunday Morning Impact

For the last few weeks, when talking about Sunday mornings, I've been kinda grading them by mentioning different sections of the morning, and describing them as good or great or whatever. I was thinking that I'm not really a good judge of that. I will never give myself a great, because I always think about things I could have said better. I'm never going to give anybody else lower than a great because I don't want them to feel bad if I didn't like their message or the way they led worship. So I'm just going to not do that anymore and just describe what we did and what the kids learned about.

Our game was one that I had played when I was a kid. It's an oldie but a goodie. We had some kids come up and I gave them pantyhose and a tennis ball. They put the tennis ball in the pantyhose, all the way in the foot. Then they put the pantyhose over their heads and had to swing it around. The partners would walk towards each other and when the pantyhose got interlocked they pulled away. Whoever had their pantyhose fall off their head first was the loser. It was fun, but didn't go as well as I had hoped it would. The kids couldn't seem to get the tennis balls spinning around their heads.

Gideon led worship and did a great job. And I'm not just saying that. I think he was great and he's getting better every time he leads.

I started my opener by asking kids to think about the grossest thing they have ever seen. Then I asked a couple to share what it was. One kid talked about dropping some of his underwear with a "little brown skid mark" in it. He had just changed into a swimsuit and was carrying his clothes with him. That story cracked me up. I talked about a guy who I saw taking a dump between 2 cars behind a Blockbuster. But it was a diarrhea dump, and it was just spraying out. I about threw up in my truck when I saw it. Even now thinking about it kinda makes me a little sick. Then I talked about another homeless guy who had some gross feet. Suzy and I were walking around the Mission in San Francisco looking for a good Mexican restaurant, and we came across this homeless guy. He must have been about 400 pounds. We were talking to him, and I looked down and noticed he was barefoot, and his feet were the grossest feet I have ever seen. His toenails were so long that they curved under his toes. His feet were covered with a green mold that could have been socks it was so thick. It was just disgusting. Then I told them about a girl at City Team who washed homeless people's feet. If this guy had walked in, she would have washed his feet, cut his nails, and helped him. I don't know if I could have done that. I talked about her passion for homeless people. Then I talked about the kids and what their passions are. If they are a believer in Jesus, then Jesus is asking them to minister now. It doesn't have to be a big thing like ending world hunger. It just means that they are to meet needs that are in front of them. And if they have a passion, how can they use that to minister to others.

I think there was some good discussions in the small groups. My group had some good discussion. The 7th grade boys group said they had a really good discussion. So hopefully the kids were able to take something away from Sunday morning, that they are to be ministers now, not when they are older. If they wait, they'll miss out on so much that God wants to do through them.