Props To Our Kid’s Area–Part Two July 22, 2006

I could not sleep last night; in fact, I tossed and turned all night long. Part of it was excitement…and then part of it was simply being in awe of God for all that He has done in our children’s ministry.

Lucretia and I came back into town late Thursday night…and we both really wanted to come to the church on Friday to see how “The Great Race” was progressing.

(For those who are unaware…”The Great Race” is a week of ministry and activities for kids in K-5 through 5th grade. Many ask, “Is it VBS?” My answer is no–it’s better…lot’s better…that’s not being cocky but rather stating the facts!)

Long story short…I stood in the balcony last night of NewSpring and cried. I could not help it…it just came out. I was trying to be all manly and hold it in…but something you’ve got to just let it go. There was a huge lump in my throat throughout the entire evening.

What was all of the emotion about? I saw kids singing songs to Jesus…about Jesus…screaming the name of Jesus. I saw kids having FUN in church. I saw kids COMPLETELY engaged by staff and volunteers who poured in countless hours of time and energy. And kids walked away from this knowing who Jesus is…and also understanding that church can be awesome!

I thought back to the first event we ever did for kids. It was in the summer of 2000–we called it “Kid’s Day.” Our budget for the event was $200. Seriously–that was it…and somehow we made it work. ($50 of it was spent on this bouncy/jumpy thing for kids…we kept it for the weekend and so on Sunday night after the service we set it up and the adults played in it!) At the time we thought it was so awesome…and it was. It’s just that none of us ever imagined it would have made it to what we witnessed this past week in such a short amount of time. Yea God!
I thought back to my VBS days where we would color a picture of Jesus, cut it out and then glue Him to a popsicle stick. THEN we went and got kool-aid and a cookie. WOW–times have changed!

If churches want to reach kids then they are GOING to HAVE to stop setting a $750 children’s ministry budget & spend some money on them. The Cartoon Network is spending money on them…I think if Christians would spend less time boycotting what kids should not be watching and actually spend time and money providing engaging environments where they could learn about Jesus then nothing would HAVE to be boycotted!!!
God has been so good to us…over 600 kids attended “The Great Race,” and…I know that AT LEAST 70 asked Christ to come into their lives. Whoa–this is awesome. God has brought us so far…and this is JUST the beginning.

The thing that pumps me up about our kids ministry at NewSpring is…what the kids saw this week–they get that every Sunday. We do not allow kids to come into the main service because we understand how boring it is to them. Our staff does not want kids to grow up hating church…and so they, along with tons of volunteers, spend HOURS and HOURS of planning and study so that the kids who come to NewSpring get just as good a quality presentation of the Gospel than the adults do.

To our children’s staff and volunteers…THANKS…YOU ARE making a difference. I wish I would have had a church who believed that children and youth were the most ripe mission field that they could invest in! To those who are in the trenches & working with them…YOU are making a difference…YOU just may be the reason a kid gives his life to Christ, decides to go into the ministry, decides to stay away from the wrong crowd…YOU ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE in the future leaders of our country…thank you…and keep up the great work.

To everyone who put this on…thanks!  And to our children’s ministry team…I am SO proud of you guys!

For those who came and saw this…keep something in mind…this was the first time our kids team EVER attempted something this large…and you saw how good it was…and if you think THIS was good–to borrow a phrase from Carolina fans…JUST WAIT ‘TILL NEXT YEAR!!!