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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...

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...

Six Ways to Persevere Through the Sluggish Times in Ministry

Have you ever had one of those days?  You know the kind – where you really aren’t “in to” what you’re doing and you feel like you rather be doing just about anything else.  What do you do when those times correspond to your time in ministry. I wrote this...

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.  As a Christian, we have to empty ourselves to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  We have to turn our hopes and desires and aspirations over to God to follow after His will.  We need to rely on Him in the big stuff and in the small stuff.  I get it!  I really do…except…it isn’t that easy!  Instead, I fall all to frequently to the lies I tell myself.  I’ve gotten myself into this mess…I need to get myself out.  If I work hard enough, I can do anything.  I don’t want to “burden” God so I’ll just take care of this myself.  That is my daily walk and my daily struggle.  God has been gracious enough to show it to me, and if I’m being honest, my biggest struggle is still in not trying to fix that problem myself.

But, that’s not what I want to talk about.  I want to chat for a second about children’s ministry.  Are you a do it yourself kind of person?  Does that show in your ministry?  Do you have kids involved in all phases of your weekend service.

  • Are they involved in large group?
  • Do you let them lead worship?
  • Do you trust them to keep a small group moving along, or is it all leader driven?
  • Are they, wait for it, in the tech booth where all that expensive equipment hangs out?
  • Do they lead games?
  • Do older kids disciple younger kids or are they all shuffled off to their age specific groups never to mix again?

I was listening to our “big church” service on podcast on the way in this morning.  It was put on entirely by the young adult ministry in our church, and they did an awesome job.  It got me thinking though, “…if the high school ministry takes over the main stage from time to time.  I wonder if our kids could that?”  They would need adult input to be sure…as they do in all things.  But, the question really is, have we enable them and discipled them in such a way that they could do it?  Or, are we too busy trying to make everything “perfect” by doing it ourselves.  Instead of doing it all ourselves, let’s quit underestimating the kids in our ministries.  Whenever I talk about volunteers and children’s ministry, someone mentions that we have to give the volunteers ownership of the ministry so they will buy in completely.  Don’t we owe the same to our kids?

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