The Unintended Lesson
© 1999 Don Rogers
It was a children's sermon moment in which I was using red cardboard bricks from the children's room to illustrate how people respond to being asked to pick up a responsibility in the church.
I took a brick and talked about offering this job to a fictitious person who refused. Then I said, "Well, I'll just give this to Jennifer if she will take it. Will you take this "job" Jennifer?"
She nodded yes so I gave her the brick. Then I continued the same routine, each time ending up giving the "job" to Jennifer. The bricks stacked up in her arms. I was so intent on making my lesson point that I was oblivious to Jennifer who, now hidden behind a stack of bricks, was overcome and was crying.
Only some half-whispered words from the choir people near-by, ones who could see Jennifer behind her bricks, brought me to the awareness of her plight. I then turned and asked in all solicitousness, "Is there something wrong, Jennifer?" She said, through her tears, "It's too much."
I felt terrible and tried to make something out of it by saying to the other children, "We must help Jennifer. Will you take one of her jobs?" They did but I have remembered with pain a lesson that went bad.