I asked my girls, “If Jesus showed up at church this week and was going to preach the sermon, do you think people would listen?”

“Yeah!” said my 9 year old. “That would be pretty sweet”.

“Well, when Jesus walked on the earth,” I added, “he preached a sermon to a group of his followers, and a man named Matthew wrote it down for us. So, let’s spend the next few minutes listening to this message as if Jesus were right here giving it to us tonight”.

With that high expectation set, we dove into Matthew 5. We started with a look at the beatitudes, and talked about what it means to be “blessed”, and how Jesus took the whole idea of “greatness” and turned it upside down.

Then we talked about “light“.

Each of my girls attends public school, and they go back in just over a week. We read through Matthew 5:14-16. Then we all sat around the coffee table in the family room and I turned out the lights. “When your friends don’t know who Jesus is, there is a darkness in their lives and it makes it hard to have any hope.”

Then I lit a candle in the middle of the table.

“But it doesn’t take very much light at all to make the darkness go away”.

It is important that we tell others about Jesus, but the “light” in this verse is our actions. It’s how we treat others, it’s putting them first, it’s taking care of needs we see. Even the smallest actions can show light. And even the smallest light can lighten a dark place.

We then took turns, going around the table, identifying one thing we could do, on the first day of school, to show light to a dark world. I was surprised that my girls had a tough time limiting it to just one.

What are some ways YOUR kids can shine their light as they start this school year?