Sermon Central
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From Pretzels To Prayer: Children's Sermon
Contributed by Ken Pell on Nov 5, 2008 (message contributor)
Summary: This sermon was used to emphasize the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church
Children’s Sermon
From Pretzels to Prayer
Sermon Objective: To emphasize the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church
Sermon props: A small bag of Pretzels for every child
Hello everyone! I am so glad to see you. I have something special in my treasure box today. Do you recognize these? That’s right, they are pretzels!
Can I tell you the story of where pretzels came from? It happened a loooooong time ago. There was a monk who pastored a church in Italy and he wanted to reward the children of the church for saying their prayers. So he made a special treat from biscuit dough. He rolled the bread dough in strips and then shaped each strip in the form of crossed arms, mimicking the then popular prayer position of folding one’s arms over each other on the chest.
As the children came in to church and said their prayers he would give them a “pretiola” which is an Italian word meaning “little gift.”
In time, the “pretiola” spread across the world and in German and English it became known as the “pretzel.”
The pastor knew it was important for children to pray and wanted his treat to encourage them
Today is a special day for us to pray. You see, today we are praying for many Christians who live around the world who get punished because they love Jesus and pray to God in Jesus’ name. sometimes their punishment is prison and other times they get killed. All because they love Jesus with their heart, soul, mind, and strength.
The Bible says: Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. (Hebrews 13:3)
In churches all across the world people are praying for the suffering Christians. In fact, this may be the one day of the year when more Christians are praying for the same thing than any other day of the year.
Let’s close our time this morning by praying for those suffering Christians okay?
This Children’s Sermon is provided by Dr. Kenneth Pell
Potsdam Church of the Nazarene
Potsdam, New York
www.potsdam-naz.org
