Children's Sermons Can Be Risky

In the last 4 weeks, 3 of my children's sermons have gone awry at the second service.

A few weeks ago, the paperclip floated without any problems at the first service. At the second service, the paperclip didn't float until the 4th attempt (The children's sermon theme changed to a lesson in patience...). The week of Easter, the supposedly hard boiled egg was soft boiled and made a bit of a mess on the floor as it landed on the floor after being thrown in the air (In a sense, this only enhanced the theme of how God surprized us with the empty tomb). Last week, I played it safe and did a talk-only children's sermon.

This week, at text study, we were talking about the Acts text regarding the Jewish Christians and the Gentiles. The Gentiles were labelled as unclean and were disliked. I told my colleagues that it reminded me of how people react when I tell them we have a pet rat. Legolas is the most snuggly, clean and loving pet, but people assume he is dirty, mean and ugly. My colleagues challenged me to bring him in for the children's sermon...

I took up the challenge. At first service, predictibly, all went well. At the second service, Legolas decided to pee all over me. As my tweener girls screamed out, "EEEWWW!" I responded, "It's ok - it's just pee."

I have now spoken the words "damn" (twice) and pee before the assembled people of God. I'm sure my seminary professors would be bursting with pride.