Repentance And Confession

Objective To understand that God cares for him and wants to forgive his sins the same way his father forgives him when he makes a mistake.

Introduction Ask the children about the seven Sacraments of the church. Ask them about Baptism and explain how the person comes out of it clean without sin. The meaning of sin should also be explained to the children as doing something bad that would make God unhappy. Also if we do anything against what God tells us to do then, this is sin.

Lesson Outline When you go to school gym or play outside your home with your friends, you start to sweat and your clothes start getting dirt spots on it. What do you do? You get a shower and wash your clothes. That is exactly what we do when we go to confession. When we came out of Baptism we were clean of sins. But when we start living our active life, we start committing sins against God and others. Like disobeying your father or mother, hitting your sister or brother, taking a toy or a game from a friend without his permission, saying bad words and all types of problems and bad things that we may do.

Lesson Outline 2 We know that God loves us, but He hates sin. Just like your mother or father they love you but they hate to see you in dirty clothes or smell bad from sweating. So He made for us the Sacrament of confession. We go to the priest and tell him the bad things we have done. All of it, and he will advise us how not to do it again. He also absolves us and God will forgive us these sins or in other words we become clean again. Why should I go to the priest? Why not a friend or mother or father? God did not allow any of them except the priest to give us the forgiveness of sins. So we have to go to the man who has the authority from God to absolve us and forgive us our sins. Remember, the priest was a child and then a young man before becoming a priest and practiced confession all this time and can help as a friend or better than a friend.

Lesson Outline 3 To prepare for a confession, we must do certain things. Sit down to remember our sins and how bad they are, pray to God to forgive us, then go to the priest and confess them. You can do that every day at home before going to sleep and when you are awaiting your turn to sit with the priest do it one last time.

Lesson Outline 4 Remember there is nothing that pleases the father “God” than seeing his children cleaned up from their sins and starting a new start, living their life like angels. He will do everything to help and your secret sins, said during the confession, will be kept between you and him. He can’t tell them to any body. You will also feel much better and happier after you confess your sins, just like when you put on clean cloth and smell good again after being dirty for some time.

Conclusion/Questions God cares about me. He wants me always clean from my sins. He made this important practice “the Confession” one of the church Sacraments for me so that I will always be clean and happy. What happened to us in the Baptism? Do we stay the same way for long? What wrong we are doing and considered sins? Give examples. How can we get rid of the problem of sins? How do we prepare ourselves for confession? Do I have to confess to the priest, even if my dad or mom knows about it?

Conclusion/Questions 2 What the priest is going to do after the confession? How frequent I should confess? Would the priest tell anyone about what I said during confession? How many of you already confessed at least once? Did you feel relieved after you did? Was it easy the first time? Is it easy now?

Memory verse “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us” (1:9) John

References 1 John 1:8-10 Matthew 6:12-14 Orthodox Church Sacraments, Book 3: Confession and Penance - St. Mary’s, MD 1998

What To DO Check with the children when was the last time they confessed. Make sure that you confess regularly, at least once a month.