Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: HONEST (05/31/18)
-
TITLE: Getting It All Wrong | Previous Challenge Entry
By Joe Moreland
06/07/18 -
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES
Dan turned to the guy next to him. “What are they doing? Should they be putting us on the spot in front of the kids on our first day?”
“What are you talking about, Dude? I’ve been doing this for three years.”
“Sorry. You looked confused.”
“I always look this way. Minimizes how much they ask me to do.”
Dan walked over to where the small horde of children were waiting.
“I guess this is the part where we find out if you were paying attention to the story earlier. As an added bonus, we get to find out if I was paying attention too.” The kids laughed.
“Okay, so, I’m just going re-tell the story we all heard. If I get anything wrong, you let me know. Got it?”
“Yes!”
“Good! Jesus and his followers were at the Olive Garden, having dinner when...” A boy's hand went up on the front row.
“Yes? You have a question?”
“No.”
“Then why do you have your hand up?”
“Because you said to let you know if you got it wrong, and you got it wrong already!”
“But you don’t have to raise your hand. You can just shout it out if you think I got it wrong. Now, as I was saying…”
The hand was up again.
“Yes? Something else?”
“Ms. Kathy says we always have to raise our hands to talk.”
Dan raised his hand.
“Not you, silly.” The rest of the kids laughed.
“Well, that’s confusing. How about you just yell it out--okay?” The boy nodded.
“Okay. Jesus and the disciples were at the Olive Garden and…”
“They weren’t at the Olive Garden!”
“Wow. You catch on fast. Are you sure it wasn’t the Olive Garden?”
“Yes!”
“Then where were they?”
Several kids yelled “Someone’s home!”
“Oh. I thought it was a restaurant. I heard a lot of stuff about bread. Okay, I got it now. Next they eat some dinner and Jesus tells them he is going away and Peter says he wants to go too, right?”
Six and seven year old heads nodded all around the room.
“Next thing you know Peter is bragging about how he’ll lay down and take a nap and Jesus says ‘Oh no you won’t' and Peter is like…” At this point several kids were shouting him down.
“That’s not what happened!”
“Jesus didn’t say that!”
Dan held out his hands. “Hold on. Hold on!” He pointed at one of the other boys. “What do you mean? I distinctly heard Peter say he wanted to lay down. That’s a nap where I come from.”
“He said he would lay down his life for Jesus!”
“What did he mean by that?”
A girl in the back yelled out “It means he’d die for Jesus.”
“Alright, alright. I got it. Then I guess Jesus wasn’t telling Peter that the rooster was going to wake him up from his nap?”
“NO!”
“The rooster was going to crow after Peter lied about knowing Jesus!”
“Ahhh. Okay—I’m all clear on this now. So, next they go to a park to play hide and seek and…”
“No! They didn’t play hide and seek!” Several kids were now yelling the same things. Dan couldn’t tell who was saying what anymore.
“They had to be playing hide and seek. They kept falling asleep, I always fall asleep when I play hide and seek. Are you sure Peter didn’t say he’d lay down and take a nap? Because now he’s sleeping.”
“It wasn’t a nap!”
“It wasn’t hide and seek!”
Later, after church, the children’s director caught up to him in the lobby. “How’d it go?”
Dan shrugged. “Okay I guess. I didn’t have to do too much.”
Kathy smiled. “I heard the kids loved your re-telling of today’s story. A lot of them were coming up to me afterwards to tell me how you got it all wrong.”
“Well. That’s my jam. Getting things wrong.”
“So, I’ll add you to the rotation. It’s not fair that the kids in first hour didn’t get to hear you this week.”
“What rotation? You mean you want me to go back in there?”
“Of course. It went great today.”
“But all I did was lie my face off for fifteen minutes. “
“And they loved it.” Kathy turned and began to walk away.
“Wait! Come back! Why are you still leaving? How desperate are you people anyway?”
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
Accept Jesus as Your Lord and Savior Right Now - CLICK HERE
JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.
Cheers!
Thanks for sharing!