Christian Education — Unit 10: The Children's Sermon (Capstone)

The children's sermon runs about five minutes — a practical target, not a fixed rule; the right length depends on the age of the children, the congregation, and the moment. The pastor steps down from the pulpit. He sits on the steps. The children gather around him on the platform. The whole congregation watches and listens. He has chosen one truth. He has brought one object. He has prayed all week. The clock starts.

Five minutes from start to finish. He must gather the children's attention without a microphone trick. He must say one true thing in language a four-year-old can hold and a fourteen-year-old will not roll his eyes at. He must use an object the back row can see. He must end with a sentence the children will remember on Monday and the adults will remember at sixty. Then he must stand up and the regular service must continue as if those five minutes had not just happened. The children's sermon is the smallest sermon in the church. It is also, by every measurement that matters in this course, the hardest.

This is why Andi has saved the children's sermon for the capstone of the entire course. Every method of Units 7 and 8, every activity of Unit 9, every aim from Unit 6, every learner from Unit 4, every word about the Master Teacher from Unit 3, and every calling from Unit 1 will be tested in five minutes of speaking to a child. The teacher who has done the work of nine units now reaches the moment when the work either preaches or does not. Six sections follow, taking up the children's sermon as the form, the example of the Master Teacher with children, the anatomy of the five minutes, the theology of the child, the goal toward which Christian Education is aimed, and the silent fact that the whole congregation is listening too. The closing of this last unit is also the closing of the course.

The children's sermon is a particular form, and the form is older than the radio. Long before any modern church included it as a regular feature of worship, godly parents and pastors knew that a child needed a moment in the service that was for him. The Puritan home had family worship in which the youngest could speak. The early Sunday school movement put the smallest learners in their own classes precisely because the regular sermon was not pitched to them. The children's sermon, as it appears in many churches today, is a small remainder of that long impulse: a deliberate piece of the worship hour reserved for the children, in language they understand, with their bodies in the front of the room.

What the children's sermon is not is a substitute for Sunday school. The children's sermon does not teach an entire passage. It does not run a craft. It does not memorize a verse. It does not have an exam at the end. It is a single image, a single truth, a single application, all carried in five minutes by a teacher who has prepared more for these five minutes than for any forty-minute lesson in the course.

What the children's sermon also is not is a moralism. The temptation in any short message for children is to say something like, Be kind. Be obedient. Be honest. Share your toys. Each of those is true. None of them is the gospel. The Christian children's sermon is not a five-minute lecture on good behavior. It is a five-minute proclamation of who God is and what he has done, in language a child can hold, with the application of how that truth is to be lived. The teacher who reduces the children's sermon to Be a good little person has substituted morality for Christianity, and the children will grow up thinking the church is a place where someone teaches them to behave instead of a place where someone tells them about the Lord who saves them.

The children's sermon, done well, is small in length and large in substance. It is the gospel in five minutes. The methods and activities the teacher has learned in this course converge in the form: a story, an object, a question, a song, a memorized line, a prayer at the end. None of it is added decoration. All of it serves the single truth the teacher has prepared the children to hear.

If the Christian Education teacher wants to know how to speak to children, he reads Mark 10:13–16 until it has settled into him. The disciples were trying to manage Jesus's schedule. Parents were bringing their little ones to him to be touched and blessed. The disciples thought the Lord was too important to be interrupted. They rebuked the parents.

Mark records the response in one of the strongest verbs in any Gospel. Jesus was "much displeased" (Mark 10:14). The verb is the same verb the Gospels use for righteous indignation. The thing that made Jesus angry that day was not opposition or unbelief. It was an attempt to keep children away from him. He said the words that have hung over Christian Education ever since: "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God" (Mark 10:14).

Then Mark says three short things. He took them up in his arms. He put his hands upon them. He blessed them (Mark 10:16). Each of those three motions is its own theology. The arms tell us that the children belonged in the embrace of the Lord. The hands tell us that he laid the priestly blessing on them, the same blessing Aaron had laid on Israel. The blessing tells us that he had words for them, real words, not ceremonial mumbling. And the order of the three tells us something more: he gave the children his time before he gave them his speech: arms first, then hands, then words. The Master Teacher's lesson plan with children began with embrace.

The teacher preparing a children's sermon learns from those four motions. Be glad to see the children. Bend down to their level (Jesus, in standing height, did not look down on them; he reached for them). Use the body, not just the voice. And when the words come, let them be the priestly blessing of God, not a moral lecture. The children will remember being held, even if they forget every word. A child who has been welcomed by the teacher will, years later, remember that he was welcomed by the Lord. A child who was barely tolerated by the teacher will remember that, too, and the wound will be deep.

Five minutes will hold roughly seven hundred words. That is the length of a long greeting card or a short newspaper column. Inside that small space, the children's sermon does five things, each in about a minute. Practice will reveal that the proportions shift, but the five movements are nearly always present in any good children's sermon.

CTS Editorial Note (2026): When children are invited to answer questions or handle an object, use fewer spoken words so their participation also fits within the time.

The first minute is the gathering. The teacher waits for the children to come and settle. He smiles. He greets a few by name. He shows the object he has brought, or holds up the picture, or lets the children touch what is in his hand. The first minute is the equivalent of the opening of any lesson plan from Unit 6, compressed into the smallest possible window. By the end of the first minute, every child should be looking at the teacher, leaning slightly forward, expecting something good.

The second and third minutes are the story. This is the body of the children's sermon. The teacher tells one short story from the Bible, in his own words, with the kind of detail a child can picture. Daniel was thrown into a pit full of lions. Not Daniel was placed into a chamber containing carnivorous beasts. The story should have characters with names, a problem the child can feel, an action God takes, and a result the child can see. Two minutes is enough for one Bible story, told well, without the digressions adults insert by habit.

The fourth minute is the truth. The teacher names what the story shows about God or about the gospel. God shut the lions' mouths because Daniel trusted him. God is able to rescue us, and He remains faithful even when He does not remove our troubles (Daniel 3:17–18). He has not changed. One sentence, repeated twice, in language a four-year-old understands and a fourteen-year-old will remember. The truth must be specific and theological, not a moralism. Daniel was brave is not the truth of the story; God is faithful is.

The fifth minute is the response. The teacher closes with a prayer in which the children join silently, or a memorized verse the children say with him, or a question the children answer aloud. The response moves the lesson from the head to the lips and from the lips to the day. Father, thank you for being faithful. When I am scared today, help me remember Daniel. In Jesus's name, amen. Every child has heard a prayer modeled. Every child has been taught how to use the truth before he leaves the platform.

Gather, story, truth, response — with one minute of buffer for things that take longer than expected. Five minutes. Roughly seven hundred words. One object the back row can see. One truth the kindergartner can carry home. The children's sermon, executed this way, will preach more in five minutes than many forty-minute lessons preach in their full hour.

The children's sermon is not only an act of kindness toward the children. It is also a theological act, and the theology behind it is laid down by the Master Teacher himself in Matthew 18. The disciples came to Jesus with a question that was, in its honest form, about themselves: "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" (Matthew 18:1). They wanted a ranking. They expected Jesus to point to one of them.

Jesus did not point to a disciple. He "called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:2). Then he said the line that should hang over every children's ministry in the world: "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3). And then the verse that should sober every adult in the room: "But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea" (Matthew 18:6).

Three things land in those few verses, and each of them shapes the children's sermon. First, the child is the picture of the kingdom. The kingdom of heaven is entered by people who become like children — trusting, dependent, unimpressed by their own credentials. When the teacher speaks to children, he is not stooping; he is showing the rest of the congregation what the kingdom citizen actually looks like. Second, the child must be welcomed, not offended. The Lord uses the strongest possible language for any teacher who would damage a child's faith. The teacher who is bored by children, irritated by them, dismissive of them, has to face that millstone language. Third, the child set in the midst is a teacher in his own right. Jesus did not hold the child up as a project; he held the child up as a lesson. The disciples needed to look at the child to learn the kingdom. So do we.

This is why the children's sermon ought to be one of the most carefully crafted parts of the entire worship service. It is not a side activity. It is the moment when the kingdom of God is set in the midst of the congregation in a body small enough to be lifted up and pointed to. The teacher who treats the children's sermon with the seriousness it deserves is teaching the whole church what Jesus has already said about who belongs in the kingdom and how they got there.

Why does any of this matter? Why pour weeks of preparation into one five-minute sermon for fifteen children whose parents may not even bring them next Sunday? Paul's second letter to Timothy answers the question, and the answer makes sense of every unit in this course.

Paul reminded the young pastor of his upbringing. "But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; and that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 3:14–15). Three things in those two verses change the value of every children's sermon ever preached. First, Timothy was taught from a child — not in seminary, not after his conversion as an adult, but in the years his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice were holding him on their laps and reading him the Scriptures. Second, what he was taught was the holy scriptures, not stories invented for children. The same Old Testament he would later teach as a pastor was the Old Testament he had been hearing since he was three years old. Third, the Scripture, taught from childhood, was able to make him wise unto salvation. The reading was not preparation for later teaching that would actually save him. The reading itself was already the means by which God had been saving him.

This is the goal of Christian Education. Every aim from Unit 6, every method from Units 7 and 8, every activity from Unit 9, and every minute of every children's sermon a teacher will ever preach, are aimed at producing more Timothys. Children who from a child have known the holy scriptures. Children who, decades after their grandmother is in the ground, will still be able to remember a song she sang and a verse she made them recite, and will find themselves in a moment of crisis at age sixty-four pulling on a rope that was tied for them at age four.

Paul ends the passage with the verses every Christian teacher should have memorized: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Timothy 3:16–17). The Scripture is what does the work. The teacher is only the channel. The five-minute children's sermon is one small place where the Scripture, taught from childhood, begins the work that will, by God's grace, finish in the man of God thoroughly furnished unto every good work. That is what is at stake on the platform every Sunday morning. That is what makes the smallest sermon worth the largest preparation.

A course this focused on children would be incomplete without saying plainly what every teacher of children must know and do. Christian Education anywhere near minors carries real responsibilities that go beyond good pedagogy. Wherever possible, no adult should be alone with a child outside the sight of another adult; classrooms and activity spaces should stay visible, with doors open or windows uncovered. Every teacher should know and follow the church's own child-safety policy, including how children are checked in and released only to authorized adults. And every teacher must know, before the moment ever comes, what to do if a child discloses abuse or danger: never promise secrecy before hearing what a child is about to say, respond calmly and believingly, and report what was disclosed to the appropriate church leadership and, where the law requires it, to civil authorities, without delay. Reporting laws vary by country and state, so know your own before you need it. A teacher who handles Scripture faithfully but handles a child's safety carelessly has not yet learned what this whole course was for.

The teacher who steps down to the platform steps for the children, of course. But he does not step alone. The whole congregation is watching, and the whole congregation is listening, and a great deal of theology is being preached in those five minutes whether the teacher knows it or not.

The skeptical adult, who would never sit through a forty-minute sermon with an open heart, will sometimes catch a children's sermon over the head of his own grandchild and find himself convicted by it. The visitor who came to church for the first time in a decade, expecting to be lectured at, will sometimes hear a children's sermon and think, If this is what they teach the children, maybe I should listen to what they teach the adults. The exhausted mother who has heard a hundred adult sermons will sometimes hear a children's sermon and remember why she came to faith in the first place. The teacher who is preaching the children's sermon is preaching to the whole house, whether he intends to or not.

This means the truth of the children's sermon must be a real truth, not a small one. The story must be a real story. The application must be a real application. The five minutes must be the gospel preached at the highest possible quality, only in language a child can hold. The adults will hear what the children hear, and what the adults hear will frame how they listen to the rest of the service. A children's sermon that wastes the five minutes wastes the worship hour. A children's sermon that uses the five minutes well sets the tone for everything that follows.

One more grace is at work. The Spirit who saved Timothy through the Scriptures from his childhood is the same Spirit at work in any congregation when those Scriptures are preached, even to a group of four-year-olds in front. He has saved adults through children's sermons. He has saved children. He has used five minutes when the surrounding forty did not seem to land. The teacher who walks back up to his seat after a children's sermon does not always know what just happened. But he can be sure that something happened, because the Spirit is willing to do anything in five minutes that he is willing to do in fifty. The teacher's job is to prepare; the Spirit's job is to apply. The five minutes belong to the children. They belong, also, to the Lord, who has been the unspoken teacher behind every word of this course.

This is the end of Unit 10, and it is also the end of the course. Ten units lie behind us. The calling. The teacher. The Master Teacher. The learners. The learning environment. The teaching aim and the lesson plan. The seven methods. The four families of activities. And, last of all, the children's sermon, in which the entire course is tested in five minutes. The teacher who has walked through all ten units has been given more than this short course can summarize in a closing paragraph.

You have a calling, given by the Lord himself, to teach. You have an example, lived perfectly by the Master Teacher, that no other example can match. You have learners who are persons to be loved, environments that can be prepared, aims that can be hit, plans that can be written, methods that can be chosen, and activities that can be made. You have a children's sermon that, prepared with care, is the smallest and most representative form of the entire art. You have a course-mate, the Spirit of God, who is the unspoken Teacher behind every word you will ever speak in a classroom or on a platform. You are not empty-handed. You never were.

Andi would say one more thing if she were sitting beside you on the bench in the seminary courtyard at Chapala. She would say, Go and teach. Not go and lecture, not go and prove that you know more than your students, not go and protect your reputation. Go and teach, the way Jesus taught, the way the apostles taught, the way every faithful saint has taught from the Jordan riverbed to the upper room to the Sea of Galilee to the school of Tyrannus to the Areopagus to the road to Emmaus to your own classroom this Sunday. The Lord called you, the Lord prepared you, the Lord will be in the room with you, and the Lord will save the children he plans to save through whatever five minutes you give him.

The exam below is the last in this course. Pass it, and the certificate will be ready. May the Lord whose course this has secretly been bless every classroom you ever stand in, every child you ever lift, every adult you ever address, every Sunday you ever preach a five-minute sermon to the smallest and the largest learners in the room at the same time. Be doers of the word, and not hearers only. Suffer the little children to come unto him. From a child they will know the holy scriptures. Go and teach.