New Year's Day - B

Object: A key to give each child. I use key blanks from a hardware store. Other options would be to make cutouts of keys from posterboard, or just use some old keys that aren’t good anymore. I like the key blanks because they are durable, and have holes so the children might hang them on a book bag or something similar.

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Hello, everyone! (Let them respond.) Are you ready for our story today? (Let them respond.) Excellent!

Teddy thought for a moment and then shook his head. “I appreciate you asking but no thanks.”

“Are you sure?” Paula asked. “The new pastor is a great speaker I think you would like him.”

“No, I don’t like to go to church because I fine church really negative.” Teddy tapped his chin with his finger. “Plus with the exception of you, I find I don’t think I have anything in common with people who go to church.”

The texts for this Sunday send a message about the surprising character of grace.

Exodus 20:1-4,7-9,12-20

The call came from the doctor that Dad had only a short time to live. At the age of eighty, after nearly fifty years of farming, this veteran of World War II was fighting a final battle with Parkinson's and heart disease.

Some tenants are a lot better than other tenants. I found that out when, as a lad, I worked up the road on a farm owned by Walter and Esther Hupman. My job was to help candle eggs gathered on their egg route and exercise their English saddle horses.

The Hupmans couldn't begin to do all the farming themselves so they always had tenants living in a little house next to their unusual round barn. For farming the land the Hupmans owned, the tenants got to live in the house and receive a certain percentage of the income from the harvest.

Arnold Toivonen was headed to work at 5:06 a.m. Monday morning on a wet highway winding east through the dark pines that came crowding up close to the road from out of the spring fog. Arnold worked at the Caterpillar shop in town, crawling into the iron bellies of enormous Caterpillar tractors, scraping his knuckles on their cold, sharp innards, dropping heavy wrenches on the concrete with that satisfying metallic ring, and wiping his greasy hands on gray cloths while he stood around talking with his foreman, Jack, about what to do next.

Once upon a time two beautiful flowers lived side-by-side in a magnificent garden. One was bright yellow and the other was bright blue. From the first moments of their existence these two flowers received profuse praise from the world for their vigor and beauty. "I love your face," said the sun to the yellow flower. "I love your eyes," said the sky to the blue flower. "I love your overall beauty," said the butterfly. "I love your pollen," said the bee. "And I your nectar," said an ant. "I love the shade that you provide," said the grasshopper.

Someone has suggested that if we simply posted the Ten Commandments on the wall in every school building, it would surely help to improve the moral climate in our schools and counteract the terrible and tragic tendencies of youth to resort to drugs, guns, and violent behavior. It has been said that if we would all simply follow the Ten Commandments, the world would be a much better place in which to live! But the Ten Commandments are not simple to follow.