Summary: An interactive childrens address demonstrating that the people whom we consider the greatest are very often servants. It asks who’s serving who. Jesus is Servant to all and we are all serving God.

Preparation:-

Make up the following 14 signs:-

Size is appropriate for the size of church – I used A4 (Foolscap)

Servant

served

Doctor

Patient

Local People

Congressman

Parents

Children

The People

Jesus

Our Community

[Our Church]

ME

GOD

You will need 2 notice boards and some velcro sticky pads to stick the signs to the boards.

Address starts>>>>

Jesus said that whoever wants to be the greatest has to be the servant.

So today we are going to do a little practical demonstration to show this point. So at this point I need the assistance of a number of friends from the congregation

(ask for 2 or 4 volunteers to take the signs from you and stick them on the appropriate board at the appropriate time)

Now I want to look at some relationships about serving and being served.

In each of these examples which is being served and which is the servant.

We’ll put up the Servants on this side and the served on the other.

(put up the “servant” sign on one board and “served” sign on the other)

So which is which (volunteers hold up the signs in pairs):-

Doctor – Patient (Debate them – get the congregation to choose)

Local People – Congressman

Parents – Children (especially babys)

The People – Jesus ( this one provokes debate and could be either - make sure that Jesus goes on the Servant board)

Have you noticed that important people – the greatest among us, people that we look up to or that we depend upon are often the servants?

I’m not saying that the others aren’t important but without doubt there’s a pattern emerging.

Here’s another one

Our Community – [OUR] Church

Are we serving our community or is it serving us?

(debate this issue)

Here’s a challenge:-

ME – (That means You) Do You want to be among the list of the Greatest Servants?

Well the other one is GOD

Is God there to serve you or are you serving God.

Well we are here to serve God and the way that we can serve God is by getting close to Jesus – so put ME next to Jesus on the Servants side.

In the reading from Mark we also read this:-

36He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, 37"Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."

So are we welcoming the child? I think we are – so let’s bring the child over to this side close to Jesus too.

Because by welcoming the child we are welcoming God – so let’s bring God close to us too.

What about people that are sick – We’ve been talking this week about a healing ministry here – so let’s bring over the Patient and welcome them.

And of course we want to welcome adults, the local people around us and the community in general

(put all the signs on the one board – including the “served” sign)

So let’s end by bringing the whole of these signs together symbolizing the whole of the Church family serving God and each other close to Jesus the Greatest and Servant of all.

Well done everyone:-

Round of applause for our young people who served us during this talk.

We’ll sing a song: The Servant King!