Hosted each week by the Faith To Go team in the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego, David Tremaine, Maya Little-Sana and Charlette Preslar, the Faith To Go Podcast highlight themes from the Sunday Gospel reading for you to take into your faith discussions and reflections throughout the week.
Activity Time: Making Invitations
Supplies: Paper, crayons, markers
Help your children create an invitation. It could be for something as simple as someone coming over to play. Help them to decorate and deliver the invitation. Talk about what it felt like to invite someone over, why they picked that person, and so on.
Story Time: The Great Banquet
Watch this video together and then use the discussion questions below to reflect as a family.
Discussion Questions:
1) I wonder what Jesus said to the host.
2) I wonder what he means about a reward.
3) I wonder what story Jesus tells them.
4) I wonder who came to the party.
5) I wonder what Jesus wanted them to learn.
Dinner Time: Receiving The Invitation
Below is a prayer with which to start your meal and then discussion questions to explore this week’s topic with your family while you eat.
Prayer-
God, you were present at the beginning.
Be with me as I begin a new school year.
Comfort me when I am unsure of my new surroundings.
Strengthen me when I stumble,
And help me remember that your light shines in all places.
All this I ask through you, my Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.
Questions 0-4 years old
1. I wonder if you have every received an invitation to a party.
2. I wonder how you felt.
3. I wonder how you would have felt if you weren’t invited.
4. I wonder what are some reasons someone might not be invited.
5. I wonder who Jesus wants us to invite.
Bedtime: Reflections for Children at the End of the Day
During your bedtime routine, invite your children into a time of reflection about their day, maybe by saying, "Did you know that God really wants to know what happened in your day today, and that God is always listening whenever you need to tell God something?" Then continue with these questions:
1) What are some things that happened today that you want to tell God about?
2) What is one happy thing that happened today? What is one sad thing that happened today?
3) Did you see God or feel God with you when those things were happening? Where did you see or feel God when those things happened today?
4) Read to your children this week’s scripture selection, then ask the questions that follows.
Luke 14:1, 7-14
(read by assigned person)
On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.
When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, `Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, `Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."
He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."
Did the story remind you of anything that happened in your day today?
5) What are some things that you want to tell God that you are grateful for today?
Share some of your conversations in the comments below: