Dad in the Middle » Children's Ministry Moments

That Moment Made My Week

Wayne — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0000

It’s been a busy week – a really busy week. Soccer practice in the rain on Monday, Meeting on Tuesday for a new ministry, Awana Wednesday night, and a starting a new ministry on Thursday all made for an exciting week. On top of that, I came down with the worst cold I’ve had in quite a while starting Tuesday morning and continuing through now. So, do I tell you all that to whine about my week – maybe a little bit. No, but I wanted to set the tone of my week so that God’s grace is sufficiently clear in the story I am about to tell.

Last night was my first night serving in a ministry called Divorce Care 4 Kids. If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been spending a lot of time recently on my newest ministry called Divorce Ministry 4 Kids. As part of that, I found a local church offering the Divorce Care 4 Kids curriculum on Thursday nights and asked if they would let me serve in their program. They were nice enough to allow it, and last night was our first of 13 weekly meetings. The leaders of the group are great, and the other volunteers are nice enough, but there was, of course, a bit of awkwardness as everyone gets used to each other.

The night went well. We had 12 kids, plus three more leader’s kids who have been through the program before. That alone is a gift from God because as of Tuesday we thought we had seven kids coming. Two of the first people to show up were sisters aged 11 and 9. Mom hung out for a while, and it seemed pretty clear that they didn’t want to be there. They weren’t causing any problems, but they were sticking to themselves and just had that “I don’t want to be here, and you can’t make me like it” air about them.

We went through class with some minor glitches that come with working out a new team and new ministry, but everything went fairly well. I was reminded how much fun it is to just sit at a table with a bunch of kids you don’t know and get to know them. After class was over, we had a little bit of time to hang out and chat before parents picked the kids up. I noticed that the 11 year old was helping to clean up after some of the younger kids left their snacks so I walked over to thank her, at which point her nine year old sister was quick to point out that her older sister never cleans up at home. We got to talking, and I learned a little bit more about their home lives and things they like and don’t like. I didn’t really think much of it at the time.

When their mom came to pick them up, her first questions was, of course,

How was it?

I had moved on to something else, but I overhead the older child explain to her mother than “It was O.K., I like that guy over there.” My heart, which had been breaking for all these kids all week and throughout the night, just melted. The Mother asked if I was going to be there next week, so I explained that I would be there all 13 weeks.

So, why do I share this story? Am I tooting my own horn? No, way! I’m writing to toot God’s horn. After a really long week, when I feeling really drained, God sent a child into my life who is, no doubt, hurting and confused. In my misguided human thinking, I was under the impression that I was there to help her. In the end, God worked through her to fill my spiritual tank, rejuvenate me and reignite a passion for serving God’s hurt children. When we need encouragement and sustenance the most, God works through little lives and reminds us why we do what we do. That moment made my week. Thank you God!

Carrying Heavy Stuff (Children’s Ministry Moment #11)

Wayne — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 13:00:00 +0000

To me, one of the fun things about teaching large group is asking kids questions. First of all, you get immediate feedback on whether or not what you are doing is working. Secondly, you get to engage the kids. However, I think the thing I like best is that you never know exactly what they are going to say. It really keeps you on your toes.

This week, we were talking about Nehemiah and the providence and protection of God. After laying out how God had worked through Nehemiah to do the impossible (rebuild the wall of Jerusalem in 52 days), I asked the kids what in their lives seemed like something impossible that God could help them with.

One little kindergarten aged girl raised her hand and said:

…Like carry heavy stuff.

Indeed he can. God often carries the heavy stuff in our lives. Imagine how weighed down we would really be if he didn’t.

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Them People Ain’t So Smart! (Children’s Ministry Moment #10)

Wayne — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:00:00 +0000

I haven’t posted a Children’s Ministry Moment in a while so I thought I would share one of my favorite stories from my own son and his Children’s Ministry Lesson. Several years ago, when Jacob was five or six, I picked him up after church as usual. I asked what they had talked about that day, and he told me they learned about when Saul met Jesus and Jesus renamed him Paul. He explained that Saul was traveling on a road to go somewhere when he met Jesus. He couldn’t quite come up with the name of the place Saul was traveling to. I offered up the Saul was traveling to Damascus.

“That’s right,” he said, “Saul was going to Damascus. They call it that because the people there were stupider than anybody else.”

There you have it – Biblical geography through the eyes of a child!

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I love Jesus enough to punch you in the mouth (Children’s Ministry Moment #9)

Wayne — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:00:08 +0000

We have one child in our class who is not really a bully, but he wants the other kids to know that he’s cool and tough and all that. The other day , I was taking he and a group of other kids to the restroom. He was walking beside me with a couple of the other boys and explaining that he loved Jesus more than anything. My heart warmed a little bit just listening to him proclaim his love for our savior. About ten seconds later, we reached the restroom and he announced to the little boy beside him,

“I really need to go bad, and if you try to go in first I’m going to punch you in the mouth!”

I guess we’re all a work in progress!

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

Wayne — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:00:10 +0000

Several 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!

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Everybody Needs Jesus (Children's Ministry Moment #7)

Wayne — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 13:00:13 +0000

During one lesson this past month, we were talking about the birth of Jesus and how he is the greatest gift a person could received. The focus of the lesson was on how God gave us the greatest gift he could give, and we challenged the kids to think of a gift that they could give someone that week to show someone in their life the love of God. As we were going around the table, one little boy’s eyes lit up as he figured out what gift he was going to give -

“I’m going to tell Santa Claus about Jesus!”

With God all things are possible! I hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas!

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What are Your Thanksgiving Traditions? (Children’s Ministry Moment #6)

Wayne — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:00:22 +0000

This past weekend in our large group teaching, I was talking to the kids about the Thanksgiving traditions in their family and reminding them what we have to be thankful for above all other things. We were talking about family coming and visiting relatives. We were talking about who does and doesn’t like turkey. Then, I started to ask them what else they had for Thanksgiving. We went through the usual suspects:

Turkey
Ham
Any other kind of meat
Corn
Potatoes
Stuffing
Sweet Potatoes
Green Beans
Pumpkin Pie
Pecan Pie
Other Vegetables

Then I asked if anyone had anything else every Thanksgiving they I hadn’t mentioned yet. There were a couple of answers (which frankly I can’t remember as I write this), then one little boy raised his hand, and I called on him:

Ramen Noodles!

he exclaimed with excitement. Now, that is a unique Thanksgiving tradition!

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How Many People Were On That Boat? (Children's Ministry Moment #5)

Wayne — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:00:55 +0000

As I was working through memory verses and the AWANA book with my six-year old daughter last night, one of the questions required them to retell a story that they had heard in AWANA. I asked what they had talked about this week. My daughter racked her brain for a few seconds then explained that they had talked about “that buy” but she couldn’t remember his name. After more pondering, she said, “You know the guy with the boat.”

Trying to be helpful, I offered “Noah.”

She said, and I quote “Yeah, Noah, the guy who saved all those people with his boat.”

I gently corrected, “No, there were only eight people on the ark.”

She replied, “No, you remember from the movie? He saved all those people with his boat.”

Now it was my turn to be loss for just a moment until I realized that she was talking about the movie Evan Almighty. From there, I reminded her about the whole story of Noah and how God, by grace, chose Noah and his family as the only people on earth to save. Our conversation served three purposes. First, it gave me another chance to explain the differences between fact and fiction and retell the real Biblical story of Noah. Secondly, it reminded me that I need to be more diligent about correcting Biblical error when I see it. I don’t think there was anything wrong with them watching the movie, but I failed in my role to point out at the time that this was fiction as opposed to the true account given by God. Finally, it flamed the fire for me on an issue that is near and dear to my heart. I think in our culture we have tried do hard to make the stories of the Bible kid friendly to compete with other children’s literature, that we have muddied the difference between fact and fiction and reduced Biblical truth to the same level as the story of Shrek or Nemo in kids’ eyes!

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Where Did You Say He Was From (Children's Ministry Moment #4)

Wayne — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:00:16 +0000

This past weekend in the Kindergarten and First Grade Room, we learned the story of Epaphroditus from the Philippians 2 and 4. We talked about how Epaphroditus helped Paul and how Paul helped the church in Philippi by sending Epaphroditus back to them after he got sick. We learned about how you can make a difference when you take care of other people.

Well, following the large group lesson, I was going over some review questions with the kids during their small group time.

Who did we learn about today? Epaphroditus
What did Epaphroditus do? Brought a message to Paul
Who did Paul and Epaphroditus tell people about? Jesus
What happened to Epaphroditus while he was with Paul? He got sick

Then, I asked one last question:

WHERE WAS EPAPHRODITUS FROM?

I should have seen it coming! While most of the class was singing a chorus of “uhms” and “oh, what was its,” one little boy chimed in:

The Philippines!

It still makes me smile to picture Paul and Epaphroditus sitting in a grass hut on a beach enjoying some authentic Filipino cuisine.

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You've Got To Love An Honest Kid (Children’s Ministry Moment #3)

Wayne — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 21:13:21 +0000

You’ve got to love an honest kid! This morning was my first weekend teaching the kindergarten and first grade room, and I had a blast. We were studying the story of Solomon and the time when God asked Solomon to tell him anything he wanted God to give him. I explained to the kids how cool that would be to have the creator of the whole universe, the living God who made you and me, tell them to ask for whatever they wanted. I proceeded to ask them what they would ask for in that situation. The answers were predictable at first. Several of the kids wanted more toys. Some wanted money. A handful even expressed that they would want to know more about Jesus. Then one little boy spoke up with what I thought may have been the best all around request. He said:

I would ask God to give me better attention so that I could listen in class on Sundays and pay better attention.

Talk about self-awareness! You go God!

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Little Mouth…Deep Truth (Children's Ministry Moment #2)

Wayne — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:00:30 +0000

So, this moment was a little bit different. It wasn’t actually in my K-1 class. Instead, this entry deals with a conversation I had with my eight-year-old son about Baptism.

After six-and-a-half years of being a Christ follower and ignoring God’s command that new believers be baptized, I finally took that step of obedience this past weekend. There was no theological, philosophical or other reason that I put it off. It just sort of got relegated to the back burner of my spiritual life, and I never made it a priority. God continued to tug at me about this one, and I finally started to feel like a hypocrite telling my kids how important it was to be obedient to God on one hand and ignoring this call on the other. This is just one of many examples where God has used my role as a dad to my children to explain my role as child to him.

Anyhow, in my local church, the process for baptism involves a class one weekend followed by the actual baptisms the next weekend. As part of my plan to keep from backing out this weekend or finding something “more important” that needed to be done, I told my kids about it. I knew they would keep on me. They were more excited about seeing their Dad get baptized than I ever imagined – especially my eight-year-old son! He rearranged his weekend and skipped a cousins graduation party because he didn’t want to risk missing the moment.

The afternoon of the Saturday evening I was going to be baptized, we were driving to go see a movie together, and he brought up the issue of baptism. He wanted to know about the class (for the 30th time). He wanted to know about the “test” (the four question form our church has you fill out to give your testimony during the baptism. And, he wanted to know about the symbolism. We talked about the water and what it signifies. We talked about why you get dunk as a symbol of Christ’s death on the cross. And we talked about coming back up out of the water as a symbol of resurrection to new life. In that moment, Jacob uttered something to me that I found profound and which altered my view of the whole process. He said,

“…and the pastor stands there with you through the whole thing just like God does in your walk with him.”

I will never cease to be amazed at the wisdom that God consistently speaks into my life through these little voices.

The most exciting thing to me as a parent about the whole experience is that he has indicated that he wants to get baptized now, and he’s planning on taking the class when it comes up again next month. It’s amazing how God works through and in the children around us to teach us about him.

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Children's Ministry Moment #1 – Outdoor Guy

Wayne — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:00:33 +0000

Anyone who works in Children’s Ministry knows that there are moments. There are moments of clarity, moments of frustration, moments of humor and moments that just take you aback. I’ve decided to start a new series on this blog to remember some of those moment.

This past Sunday, the lesson had to do with a parable told by Jesus. In order to teach them what a parable was, we were having the kids draw a picture of their favorite story. Some of the kids were struggling to come up with something to draw, and I was trying to help out. I asked one little boy (age 4), do you like books? Do your parents read to you before you go to bed? His response qualified as a Children’s Ministry Moment and prompted me to start this series. He told me:

“I’m not really a book person. I’m more of an outdoors kind of guy!”

You got to love kids. You never know what they’re going to say!

If you go to the index page, I’ve included some earlier posts which discuss some moments that were posted before this series started.

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