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2020-02-26 to 28 Pictures: Charleston, South Carolina

One of the few upsides of having to cancel our Spring Break trip last March at the onset of the pandemic is that we are "stuck" with a rather large voucher from one of those discount airlines. Last autumn, Tricia and I spent a weekend in Savannah, Georgia and had a...

A John 3:16 Craft for Kids

John 3:16 is one of the most well known and reassuring verses in the Bible. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.John 3:16 (NIV) The following is a little craft I threw...

2020-03-01 Pictures: Lyndsey’s College Signing Day

This afternoon Lyndsey made it official, signing her letter of intent to play college basketball for the Hiram College Terriers starting next year. While she made the decision and committed to Hiram before Christmas, she has been looking forward to this day since her...

2020-02-13 Pictures: Lyndsey’s 18th Birthday

I am little behind on posting photos. These are some of my favorites from a couple of weekends ago when we got a chance to celebrate Lyndsey's 18th birthday. It's hard to believe that my little girl is officially an adult. It was nice to have the family all back...

What is DOCTRINE?

Introduction I love working with kids, and I love teaching them hard concepts in ways they can understand. To that end, for years I have been working on a dictionary of theological terms for kids and teens. In sharing those definitions, there seemed no better place to...

If You Want It Done Right

In all likelihood, you know how the phrase ends: If you want it done right, DO IT YOURSELF! This is a bit of a mantra for me, and frankly, something that I struggle with daily both in leadership and in my Christian walk.  In theory, this is easy to accept. ...

What Does God Hate?

This is the little and humble post that started it all. I happened to be reading through my Bible, and this passage impacted me so much that I posted a little blurb about it on Facebook. That was July 28, 2008, and I've been writing and sharing ever since. (Maybe...

On the importance of being prepared in Children’s Ministry (Children’s Ministry Moment #8)

Childrens_Ministry_MomentsSeveral weeks ago, we were teaching on the birth of Jesus as part of our December series.  More specifically, we were talking about God meeting our greatest need in sending Jesus Christ to earth.  As part of the lesson, I asked the kids to name some of their needs.  They started, of course, with physical needs like food and shelter and clothes.  Then I asked them to name some things they need which they could not touch.  The kids offered some ideas, but most of them were actually tangible things, and many weren’t needs at all.  I tried to steer them a little bit to things like love and friendship.  One little girl gave the age-old church answer “Jesus Christ.”  Of course, she was right.  That got the rest of the class started, and another shouted “God.”  I said, quite off the cuff, “that’s true, we definitely need God and Jesus Christ is God.  Great answer!”

One little boy in the class scrunched his face and proclaimed with conviction – “Jesus is not God.  He is God’s son, and if he’s God’s son, HE CANNOT BE GOD!”

That morning I learned two very valuable lessons about working in children’s ministry.  #1 – always be prepared.  I was prepared that morning to talk about Jesus.  I was prepared to talk about God.  I was even prepared to talk about Mary and Gabriel and Joseph and Bethlehem.  Heck, I was even prepared to talk about the condescension of God into human form (not in those exact terms, but I was prepared to talk about it)!  I had not planned on talking about the trinity to a bunch of five and six year olds.  Fortunately, my own son had asked me the exact same question a couple of years ago when he was six, and was somewhat prepared to answer.  I talked about the trinity.  I used the example of an egg, I was honest and explained that I did not fully understand it even though the Bible indicates that it is true.  Finally, I explained that the trinity was really an idea that humans could never fully understand until we meet God.  #2 was actually the more important lesson.  It pays to be prepared, but in those moments, we must rely on God to give us the proper words to speak to his kids!

Return to the Children’s Ministry Moments index page.

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