Blood Cake

For Eleven years now I have been a Children's Minister, Ten year prior to Children's Ministry I was a Youth Minister. These two ministries are extremely different. In youth ministry I could say almost anything to teenagers, they could handle, actually they loved the more gruesome Bible stories. I quickly found out that in Children's ministry I had to be very careful in what I said and how I said things and the tone of voice I used or little kids would start crying. I like to think that over 11 years I've gotten pretty good at being able to talk to children about the more sensitive topics that are in the Bible. That is until last night!

Since It is just a few days before Valentines Day I thought it would be an easy... almost no brainer lesson. Thats were I went wrong! I though the obvious lesson would be 1 Corinthians 13 "The Love Chapter" immmediately the Boy were all like ooooo yuck gross, cooties, LOVE Stuff! So I quickly switched gears ( I was quite proud of myself, That should have been another warning sign... pride come before a fall) I went with John 15 :13 "No greater love hath a man than to lay down his life for his friend." I told the boys that the most "Manly" (Godly) thing ever done was an act of Love when Jesus gave himself to die on the cross for us. The boys started perking up and getting into the lesson more at this point. When they mentioned him being beatened and nailed to the cross Lizzy's a little 5 year old was quite concerned, she spoke up and said "I don't think they really nail Jesus' hands to the cross, they nailed his clothes." before I had a chance to respond Hayden a "Cool" 8 year old said "Nope! they nailed his hands because he wasn't wearing any clothes." I did my best to accurately explain everything. We even went back an picked up 1 Cor. 13. Everyone seemed to be handling things well. So on that note we ended our Bible study and transitioned ( a good teacher term) to our activity and snack time. Since Saturday is Valentines day I thought hey lets make a red velvete cup cakes for our treat! Each child got to help add ingredients and mix, upon adding the egg oil & water the cake mix became RED! Hadyen the Cool 8 year old, loudly proclaims WOW! Coooool! Blood Cake!......... you probably can imagine what the girls said.