Amelia KidZone - Amelia Church of Christ

We live in a society that loves tradition, whether we realize it or not. We have holiday traditions, Saturday morning traditions, family traditions, and we have church traditions.  Traditions aren’t necessarily a bad thing though.  We love eating turkey on Thanksgiving, sleeping late on Saturday mornings, and having family dinners.

But sometimes traditions, as much as we like them, end up changing in the end.  We start having ham at Thanksgiving, we have kids that get up early on Saturday mornings, and not everyone makes it to the family dinners because of busy schedules.  Not only do these traditions change at home, but traditions in the church change as well.

Jesus was all about changing tradition with his ministry. He changed the traditional views of what was thought of as holy and lawful in his ministry.  The story we will be focusing on this week talks about Jesus switching things up.  It comes from Luke 6:1-11. Make sure you read this with your kids.

This is also a great lesson for us as parents. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in a routine that we lose focus of what’s really important.  If things don’t go according to plan and are changed up a bit, we tend to freak out.  “But that’s the way we’ve always done it” becomes our attitude towards everything.

This was the same attitude that Jesus had to deal with during his ministry.  The people could not understand or be open-minded to this change.  Sometimes, we act the same way.  We don’t like change or anything that makes us uncomfortable. We just want things to stay the same.  So the question we should ask ourselves is, “Does Jesus really care about my tradition?”  If he doesn’t, then neither should we.

See you Sunday!

Have you ever felt alone in a crowded room? It’s a weird feeling.  On one hand you’re not technically alone, but you feel so distant from everyone that you might as well be.  I’m sure there are times when we have all felt this way.

When Jesus was traveling, he was constantly surrounded by crowds.  They followed him everywhere he went. There were believers. There were the non-believers who hoped to catch Jesus in a mess up, and still others wanted to see Jesus heal people and perform miracles because it was entertaining.  Crowds followed him all the time. This happened so much that several times when he would travel, it hindered his ability to get anywhere. You would think He was being followed by the paparazzi.

Though there were large crowds and lots of reasons why they were following Him, he never lost sight of the importance of each individual. I would even go so far as to say if you were in a crowd with Jesus, you would never feel alone.

This week we will learn about a woman who wasn’t necessarily a follower, a critic, or following Jesus for entertainment.  She was in the crowd one day following Jesus because she wanted to be healed.  She had an illness that only He could heal.  With the crowds surrounding Jesus, it was hard to have a one-on-one conversation with Him.  So, she had the idea that if she could just touch his clothes, she would be healed, and that’s exactly what happened.

Surely while Jesus was being touched, pushed, and tugged from this crowded mosh pit, He would have never noticed or been able to identify who specifically touched Him.  He was surrounded with all this craziness and yet he knew that he was touched by this woman. This was his response after the woman was healed, and this is also our memory verse for the week:

Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, ”Who touched my clothes?”  Mark 5:30

Though we all feel alone at times because we live in this great big world with millions of people surrounded by billions of problems, we are never alone.  God doesn’t care how small or how big our problems are.  He pays attention to us individually with our hurts, wants, needs, and our prayers. He is the best multi-tasker in the world.

Let’s do our best to help our kids understand what this means this week.

This week we will learn about forgiveness.  Parents, this is an awesome lesson to teach our kids.  Not to just teach them about forgiving others but to remind them how cool it is that God forgives our sins.  He has no reason to forgive us, but he does.  A perfect, all-powerful God takes time out of His busy schedule and forgives us for our mess-ups.  That’s pretty cool. The older I get and the more I grasp how much God truly loves us, it blows me away.

The story we will be focusing on this week is about a woman who desperately wanted Jesus to forgive her sins.  She wanted peace from her messy life.  She came to Jesus and just wept at his feet.  She poured expensive perfume on his feet and then dried his feet with her hair.  She felt so unworthy and was so broken.   The woman kept kissing Jesus’ feet.  Jesus said the woman loved much because she was forgiven much.  He forgave her of her sins and told her to go in peace.

A lot of times when we hear this story, we focus on what was said by the Pharisees and Simon.  They can’t believe Jesus would allow this woman to touch him.  They also question how Jesus can forgive sins. But a lot of times we completely overlook the story of the woman.  In Luke 7:47 it says,

I tell you, her sins-and they are many-have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love.  But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.

Some of us have been Christians for our entire life, and some of us are new to the faith.  Some of us have grown up in the church and have walked away.  Some of us came back, and some of us haven’t quite found our way yet.  This story just reminds me that no matter how many times we fall, how many times we think that there is no hope for us, that our sin is too BIG for God, he loves us no matter what.  He is ready for us to come back.  It doesn’t mean we keep sinning and doing whatever we want.  It just means that He knows we are going to screw things up, and he doesn’t want us to be afraid to come to him and ask for forgiveness.

He loves us like crazy.  And whatever path we are living or have lived, if we come to his feet and ask for forgiveness, He has the authority to forgive us.  If we are truly sorry and humble, we can have peace that He will forgive us.  And how could you not love a God like that?

Read the story with your kids this week.  Luke 7:36-50

Our lesson this week is all about compassion.  Sometimes we forget that God cares about his kids.  Obviously he cares that way because he is our Heavenly Father.  He hurts when we hurt, and he is filled with joy when we are.  He is truly concerned with our well being, whether we want him to be or not.

As most of you know Josh and I are expecting our first child this January.  Our little girl is growing everyday.  I get so excited to feel her every kick and read everything that I can get my hands on to know what is happening with her development.  Even though she isn’t here yet, I’ve already started to be the protective parent.  I’m doing things such as getting the house ready for her arrival, watching what I eat, and continuing to prepare for the future so we can provide for her.  I know that as soon as she gets here that the mother instinct will intensify.

Sometimes I think about the things that she will have to go through.  She will have skinned knees from riding her bike, she will experience what it is to share, she will have a broken heart at one point, and she will experience hurt that neither Josh nor I can fix.  That is why I hope and pray that our examples as parents will show her what it is to have a relationship with Christ.  He will be able to fill that gap that nothing else can fill.  As much compassion as we have as parents nothing can compare to the compassion that Christ has for his children.  I can only imagine how much love he has for us.

The only comparison I have of this kind of  love is the love that I have for my daughter.  I know that as soon as I meet her that I will love her immediately.  It won’t be after getting to know her, then we’ll see if she is loveable. Not at all.  The love a mother and father have for their children isn’t something that is earned.  It simply is.

This week we will be focusing on a story of Christ compassion for his children.  Make sure you check it out with your kids.  It’s in Luke 7:11-17.

See if your kids can memorize their memory verse this week:

When the Lord saw her, His heart overflowed with compassion.  “Don’t cry.”  Luke 7:13

See you Sunday!