It's Not About the Numbers

We don't have a large children's ministry, but we do have an incredible one! We have three or four children who come regularly. We have Sunday school and a children's message during worship. And we are teaching our children how to be disciples of Jesus through words and actions.

We've started a collection on the First Sunday for our local food bank and thrift shop. People bring cans of food, personal items, and money, and the kids collect the items during the children's message. They love it! They ask, "Is this the day we do the collection?" They are physically learning that discipleship means sharing what we have.

This past Sunday for the children's message we received a sandwich in the mail from John. When we're studying a letter, like we're currently doing with 1 John, we often get a big envelope with something in it. This Sunday it was a sandwich because 1 John asks how can God's love be in you if you see someone in need and don't share with them. So we talked about how our church will join with other churches this summer to make sack lunches and hand them out to hungry children. Our kids are going to help make the lunches and hand them out -- an inter-generational mission project. We decided that after church we would cut up the sandwich we got from John and let everybody have a piece of it.

After church, I was standing with the two girls and their mothers, and one of the girls said, "Ask her." They asked me to pray for them because they were having trouble with a bully on the playground. So I invited them into my office where I have a bowl with "prayer stones." We each took a stone, and I prayed that God would protect them.

We don't have a large children's ministry, but we do have an incredible one! It's not about the number anyway, is it? It's about the lives that are being formed by God.