Interesting that your kids liked being mentioned in the sermon. I got to a point where I resented being a sermon illustration. I remember being about 12 yrs old and showing up for Sunday School which was between the early and late services. A bunch of people who had heard a story about me from the early service were teasing me about it. It was embarrassing. My dad realized I was too old to tell stories about me without first asking permission. I’m a private person and didn’t like stories about me being shared with a few hundred people every week.

AprilK, brings up a very good point. I will interject here that it was never in excess, and it was completely appropriate as to the child or family member. My ministry spouse does a good job of not embarassing any of us–and asking permission. More than not, he usually makes himself the focus of the learning moment–and the child is usually the teacher.
More to the point, if there was a real life story to help support the sermon, the story was real to our lives–not a fabrication of our lives in the “bubble.”

PW: Now that I’m thinking about it, it’s entirely possible that one story about me told when I was 12ish (the age when kids are embarrassed about everything!!) wasn’t really that bad or any invasion of my privacy. I’m also the oldest child in my family, so I think my dad just realized I was old enough to run stories by me first a little later than he should have. That just comes with the territory of being the oldest kid in a family. Now that I’m in my 30s and not worshiping with my parents I don’t care what stories he tells about me!

Well, we all got stories told about the six of us kids … which made us think twice about doing something stupid on, say, Saturday….
While my dad didn’t have or take the time to pre-process his sermon illustrations with us all that often (church planter and bi-vocational supporting six children doesn’t leave all that much time), he faithfully processed the sermon on the way home in the car with his two-part question: “What worked and what didn’t?”
It was the act of my dad actively seeking our critique each and every time that fostered our sense of “my opinion matters” and makes me willing and able to voice my opinion in any sphere (with an eye to appropriateness, of course). I will be forever grateful to him for that gift.