Calling and Sending

I went to look at my story schedule for this week, and found that it was on the 3 wise men, which we covered in "I knelt at the stable" last KFW.  Oops!  So, after seeing the lessons this week and feeling inspired by the Old Testament and Psalm which talked about God's calling and providing, I went in a slightly different direction :D  Hopefully it prepares us for what's coming up--the winter season will be FULL of stories that deal with symbols and signs in the bible and how they fit with imagery in our stories!  This deals with an element we often talk about--our calling and sending--and how that fits even into each service we do at KFW!

Callings and Sendings

Drawing from the Spark bible, pp. 90-93

Have you ever played “Marco Polo”?  It’s a game we usually play in the pool, but we could play here today!  Someone closes their eyes and calls out “Marco” everyone else has to say “polo,” and the closed-eyed person has to try to find you with their hands!  Can we try it?  (play for a couple of minutes) The bible is FULL of stories like this—well, sort of.  You see, God is often calling for someone, (though he doesn’t say Marco—he calls each person by name!) and when he finds them, and they know him as their God, he sends us out to tell others.  The story you heard in bible story time today is like that.  God had called Moses and the Israelites out of Egypt.  They had met him and learned his message and his laws and were on their way out, into the promised land.  But they got lost, and angry, and scared!  They were afraid they were alone and would die of hunger and thirst.  Have you ever felt that way?  What did you do?  Well, when the Israelites complained, God sent bread and meat and water.  You see, even when God sends us out, he goes with us!

We  remember this each Sunday in our service.  What do we do together to start our service after we sing?  We have our call to worship—why? it reminds us why we are here and what God is calling us to do.  What do we do at the end, before we sing our last song?  We do our blessing and sending, which does what? Reminds us that we don’t just KNOW God, we can and should share him with others as we leave this place!  We are not alone though!  What are some ways you see God with you when you leave KFW and before you come back the next week?  Now that our manger scene has come down, we need something new on the wall to remind us that God is with us.  Let’s write our “God sightings” down on this BIG piece of poster board together to remind us that God is with us this week, and that he calls and sends us all the time!