Children’s Sermon: Loved Before We Are Known We are all very different. We’re all different sizes, we like different foods, we have favorite things to do that are different from each other. But being different doesn’t stop us from loving each other or from being one family in Jesus. Do you know that someone loved you before anyone knew anything about you? Your folks loved you before they even saw you. You were loved before anyone even knew if you were a boy or a girl, before they knew what size you would be, what food you would like, or what your favorite thing to do would be. You weren’t even here yet and it was already settled: You are loved! Jesus told his friends that God loved him “before the foundation of the world.” That means before there was anything, God already loved him! And Jesus told his friends that God shares the same love with us, because God wants us to be one family, the kind of family where we love each other even before we know each other! We will soon have a special offering. (Mention how many Sundays remain until Week of Compassion.) It is called Week of Compassion. There are people around the world who we do not know yet. We have not met them yet. But we love them and we care about them. Some of them are hungry. Some of them are sick. Some of them have lost everything in a disaster like a flood or a storm or an earthquake. These people are part of our family and we love them, even if we have not met them yet. We are collecting money to help them because we love them. And it’s not only us! There are many people in many different kinds of churches who know about Jesus and how Jesus wants us to be one family. These people want to help out, too. So let’s all plan to help out. If you have some money you want to give, check with your folks, and bring some to the offering ____ (next week or whenever the offering will be given). Encourage your family to give some money to this offering. Let’s give together because we were loved even before anyone knew us, and we want to help others, even before we meet them, because we love them too. Just like God loves all of us. Frank Ramirez is the pastor of the Everett (Pennsylvania) Church of the Brethren. He and his wife Jennie share three children and three grandchildren. Children’s Sermon: The Math of Sharing In Through the Looking Glass, the sequel to Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Alice becomes a pawn in a great chess game played on a giant chessboard spread across miles of fields, forests, rivers, and streams. When she finally reaches the eighth square, she becomes a queen. The White Queen and the Red Queen quiz her to see if she's ready to become one of them. Anxious to see if Alice can do addition, the White Queen asks very quickly: "What's one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?" Alice admits she doesn't know because she lost count. The Red Queen concludes that Alice can't do addition. It’s easy to lose count! The answer to the White Queen’s question is ten. There were ten ones. Now I'd like to ask a similar question: what's one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one? Some of you who are quick may be ready to answer "Nine!" but the answer this time may surprise you. It's "One!" That's right. Nine ones equal one—when it's the nine communions (that is, different churches like ___ and ___*) that work together on One Great Hour of Sharing! That's because, as Jesus told the disciples, it is his prayer that we all be one. We are nine denominations acting as one in Week of Compassion. And if we were to add up one and one and one and one and one and so on until we counted every person sitting in each of the thousands of congregations preparing to share in this one great hour, the answer would still be one! We're one in Christ. Jesus prayed in John 17:20-24 that all his followers be one with him. When we love like Jesus did, helping everyone we can, people who are hurting will feel God’s love. We can change one life at a time through our shared Christian witness, and those ones can add up until they equal all of God’s family. Remember, when our gifts spread out as one into all the world to feed the hungry, heal the sick, comfort those in pain, and bring hope to the suffering, the number is still one—each single individual whose life we touch, whose life we change, is some one very important in the eyes of God! One body, one Jesus, one with God, one with every one throughout the world. See! Arithmetic is not as hard as Alice, the White Queen, and the Red Queen made it. The answer is wonderful one. * Mention two denominations the children will probably recognize—your own and another. The nine denominations participating in One Great Hour of Sharing are:          American Baptist Church African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Cumberland Presbyterian Church Church of the Brethren Presbyterian Church (USA) Reformed Church in America United Church of Christ United Methodist Church About the author: Frank Ramirez is the pastor of the Everett (Pennsylvania) Church of the Brethren. He and his wife Jennie share three children and three grandchildren