As preachers, our goal is to proclaim the good news of God through Jesus Christ to the people sitting in our pews. Much of the time, we tend to focus our preaching toward the adults in the congregation; however, there is a large portion of the congregation, the children and the youth, who also need to hear the good news in ways that they can understand and to which they can relate. Thus, the goal of this thesis is to investigate ways to preach to the whole congregation by welcoming children and youth without losing the adults. To accomplish this goal, I worked to find methods that would invite children and youth into the preparation and performance of the preaching act, connect with children and youth as well as the whole congregation through authentic preaching, and engage the hearers by meeting them in their questions and concerns and presenting the sermon in ways that reach the majority of the hearers. In the process, the children also teach the adults lessons about faith and life as their experiences are shared with the congregation. When preachers are able to make these kinds of connections within the congregation, they find passion in their preaching as they are able to connect God’s word to the lives of their people in a way that makes a difference in their lives and invites them to share that good news with others.
