Some of my best children’s messages come at the last moment as I’m walking out the door, and I think, “Oh man, I need something to say to the kids this morning!!” This morning, I had an idea that went with the L.L. Bean Wind ‘N Go flashlight that I had sitting above my computer desk.

My kids had been playing with this flashlight and left it on all night long. After a long night on the shelf, the light was about as dim as it could possibly be while still being on. In a way, it looked a little like I felt! All of a sudden, I had a spark of enlightenment.

I took the flashlight to Church this morning, and showed it to the kids, asking them what was wrong. With a little direction, they correctly answered that the battery had gone dead. At that point, I showed them that it was a special kind of flashlight that we could recharge by winding the crank. As you may have guessed, I made the analogy with the way we sometimes lose our light and run out of steam and feel like we’re not connected with God (O.K. smarty-pants, I know this was over the heads of all but about three kids – children’s messages are for the adults & pastor too, you know!).

I then gave each of them a turn at the crank while I said things like, “We pray, we study the bible or listen to bible stories from our parents or grandparents, we go to Church, we sing songs,” and then I wound the thing like crazy while I said, “We listen to the sermon!” You can kind of hear the light whir pretty loudly, so this got a big laugh here from the adults.

I then pushed the on button and the thing nearly blinded the poor girl sitting in front of me! Two of the smaller kids yelled, “There’s a light!” There was a slight “Ohhh…” in the crowd, and I said, “Don’t get ahead of me now!” I then talked about how all these things we do help us be closer to God, and when we do we become lights in the world – shining out the message of God’s love. Trust me, it was much better than my sermon!