Thursday night I stood at the entrance to our children’s ministry center and greeted the bus kids as they unloaded off the buses and walked into church. I got on one knee and asked a 10-year-old girl, “How are you?”. I was caught me off guard when this bubbly little girl answered, “Not good.” She proceeded to tell me that her mom was taken to jail yesterday and wasn’t coming home until after Christmas. What happened next? I stopped right there and prayed her mom. The prayer ended with a hug.
If I hadn’t asked her how she was doing, I would have never known. I wouldn’t know how to pray for her. When’s the last time you stopped to ask a child what’s going on in his/her life? I feel convicted even as I type these words. We often get busy trying to come up with all these innovative, dynamic, critical, crucial ways to do ministry, yet we overlook the obvious.
Wow!!! Very good point Ryan….It is easy to lose your focus off of what really matters in our quest to be inovative and relevant.
Being relavant attracts the crowd…Loving kids and building relationships with them builds disciples…
Off the subject…Just a quick update on my decision to leave my current church in part time ministry (12 yrs) for a full time out of state position.
First after a horrible 1st meeting with my Pastor the 2nd meeting went much better…By the 3rd meeting restoration took place and he is going to talk about it from the pulpit and even have me back in to minister to the congregation and kids…Praise God!!!
Second I had quite a few offers from the area we feel called to at this time but only felt led to keep the door open with 2 of them. The one I didn’t see myself going to (but the Lord made me keep the door open) is the one we believe God i calling us to.
We are leaving this coming weekend for Columbia, SC for our final interview…I cancelled my trip to the other church because I feel so strongly about this and do not want them to waste 3 tickets on flying us across the country.
If you would please continue to pray for us on this new season of our lives…