Children’s Church. Kid’s Worship.  I am not sure what this special ministry is called in your church, but I can guess there are only a few reactions to these phrases.  Some reading this will smile sweetly, calling to mind happy memories perhaps as a participant, perhaps as a leader, of Bible memory verses and crafts and snacks. 

For others, “Children’s Church” causes sweat to pop out and a fear to fill your chest almost as bad as a public speaking event.  In many cases, the children’s church teacher is sent to the church basement only to emerge 58 years later.  For others, it is a quick trip. 

When my husband and I were first called into ministry we excitedly signed up to help with the upper elementary age group at our church.  Three short months later we begged for a reassignment.  We were still fairly certain we were called to ministry, but we were confident it was not with that sweet little age group.  We thankfully found our niche during that time with the middle schoolers. Regardless, children’s church serves an important role in the ministry and discipleship of our youngest students. 

Fast forward 11 years, knowing its importance, our new church leadership began praying about what this ministry should look like.  What would we want our own children experiencing and learning during their time in this service?  God had already been drawing our hearts toward two specific areas: discipleship and teamwork. 

We knew we could only begin a part of discipleship in our Sunday morning services with our students, but it could be done with a powerful team of teachers. We started by praying about who to talk to about helping in children’s church.  It was decided we should have teams of two adults and possibly one teen each week, but with no one serving more than one Sunday a month.  We have teachers who also serve in nursery, on the worship team and who teach a Sunday School class. 

It was important to us that our teachers be adults, women AND men, who were growing in their faith and preferably plugged in to a small group of discipleship themselves.  If they were to be teaching our students how to grow in their faith, then we wanted them living that for themselves. 

We began by asking couples, parents of our students, and other men and women who were in discipleship groups to prayerfully consider serving on this ministry team.  The details were spelled out: one other team member, on a rotation of no more than once a month, and agree to complete one year. At the end of the year, we reassess how this ministry team is working for each of our team members.  Many times, they agree to another year of serving. However, there are also years when a team needs a change or a break.  Our intention is for this yearly assessment to prevent burnout and ultimately resentful serving.  It gives our leaders a chance to change ministries and encourage healthy transitions. 

The team approach also helps teaching be a little less intimidating for those who do not feel as “natural” in that role.  Our children’s church serves students in pre-k through 5^th grade.  We split the group in two and have the younger students begin with snack and Bible memory work while the older students go to their lesson time.  At the halfway mark they switch classrooms which gives the students a change in scenery and allows the teachers to interact with all the students.  

Our curriculum has changed over the years, but we have currently landed on one with enough material to last Sunday morning and Wednesday evenings.  The Scripture lesson and Bible memory work is taught on Sunday mornings and then Wednesday evenings are spent reviewing the lesson and adding in fun activities. 

As we focused on discipleship, we wanted our students to retain the information and live it out and we felt that could be better accomplished by focusing on one weekly lesson.  In order to create rhythms for our students (and a schedule our teachers can remember!) we have the Children’s Church teacher teams take a month at a time for teaching Wednesday nights. 

We have been doing VBS on Wednesday nights in August, and then we begin our semester with our first set of teachers in September.  This allows the other teams to attend our adult Bible study until it is their turn to teach.  Again, we want our teachers growing in their faith, too.

Our goal has always been to disciple our students and teach them to worship Jesus, however, as we were beginning to restructure our system, we realized our students did not know how to transition from student ministry to the adult corporate worship time. With that goal in mind, we implemented a new component of our Sunday morning children’s ministry called Family Sunday. 

The last Sunday of each month we have all our students remain with their families for the main service, but we still offer nursery for our youngest children.  This Sunday offers a break for our teachers, but we truly believe in the power of our families worshipping together.

We are one full year into this specific team of teachers and curriculum.  Of course, it isn’t perfect; however, I believe we are seeing one of the healthiest teams our church has developed in many years.  It is a team that has been flexible, eager to serve, and perhaps most importantly, growing in their individual faiths.  As a result, we are watching our students grow in their faith and knowledge of our Lord Jesus. 

Our prayer is that this ministry and part of their discipleship will develop a foundation that they will build upon as they grow and become disciple makers themselves.

Lyndsey Reese is first and foremost a disciple of Jesus. A few of her other favorite titles are “wife” to Tim and “Mama” to their two daughters. Lyndsey is a small town girl who moved back to the family farm where she and her family serve in their local, rural church. She can be reached through email at tnlreese@gmail.com.

Have you ever gotten obsessed with a passage of scripture? Having a verse or passage just pop off the page and speak to you in a new way is such a great feeling!

For the past few weeks, I’ve been a little (ok, a lot!) obsessed with Acts 18. The Apostle Paul’s life and ministry are both so fascinating! What a privilege it is that God has blessed us with the ability to read about his journey as he spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. As believers, Paul is so often the standard that we strive to be. A man who was, not only willing to preach the salvation message of Jesus in the face of danger, but was excited to! And that excitement, in spite of all the difficult and challenging circumstances that Paul often dealt with, could not be extinguished or even diminished in the slightest.

What I’ve found intriguing about Paul’s account in Acts 18 is that, for all of the great things that Paul strived to do for Jesus and for all of his impressive accomplishments of healing the sick, planting churches and continually teaching and encouraging churches and believers, he didn’t attempt to do it all on his own. And I’m not just talking about relying on Jesus instead of his own strength or understanding. Paul made it a point in his life’s journeys and ministry to greatly include and involve others.

You see, no matter where you’re at as a Christian, you aren’t meant to go through your journey alone. If you’re a new Christian, you need seasoned believers to help guide you, answer questions for you and give you wisdom. In fact, even if you’re a pastor, a missionary or have been a Christian for 70 years, you need the exact same thing! For the seasons that we go through in our lives, we need the people that God wants to place in our lives. And they need you, too. We need each other!

As General Baptists, we know this, don’t we? Our mantra has been based around “doing together.” And while it’s great to see each other at the M&M Summit in the summer, to serve on various boards or groups, or simply to spending time together at the new regional events (you are going to your regional events, right?!), there are times when I’m left with this question: Even though I’m involved in all of these church and denomination activities and groups, why are there times when I feel like I’m on an island?

Maybe you’ve felt like that, at times, too. Maybe you’ve been genuinely happy when you hear other pastors talk about how great things are going at their churches, only to be left wondering why those same great things don’t seem to be happening at your church. Maybe you’ve felt a little isolated when you hear the number of salvations or baptisms from other churches. Times when it feels like God is doing awesome things at other churches, with other pastors or ministry leaders or, even simply other Christians, but not in your situation.

As Christians, we know that life is full of peaks and valleys. We hear sermons on it and sing songs about it. My fear, though, is what we might miss out on in the times when it feels like you’re in a valley. Because, those chapters of life, when things aren’t going how you hoped they would or when Satan really hits you hard, it can be easy to lose sight of anything other than the solution to whatever you’re going through.

Thinking about a time when things will be better or your situation will change usually brings a sense of hope. A hope that God is working all things out for the good of those who love Him. In those times when we’re in the valley, that’s a great verse to cling to, isn’t it? That’s a hopeful verse, for sure. However, there’s something that can be easy to miss in that scripture—it’s a scripture for where you’re at right now! Not just for down the road when things get better. Instead, it’s a verse for right now, in the meantime.

Check out the definition of meantime: the time before something happens or before a specified period ends. I love that! And that’s because we’re usually, as Christians, in the meantime! We’re so often in a time before something happens. We’re so often in the time before a specified period ends. In other words, a time when it feels like God isn’t really doing anything. Or when it feels like nothing is changing in your situation.

The “meantime” can often feel like it goes on for far too long. When you know, deep down, that God has plans for you, plans for your family, plans for your ministry or for your church…but those plans don’t seem to be coming to fruition. The meantime can be tough to go through! Here’s the challenge for us: don’t miss what God has for you in the meantime!

You see, Paul went through a lot of meantimes! Times in prison, being shipwrecked and under house arrest. But he NEVER let those meantimes go to waste! And one of the things that’s struck me deeply about Acts 18 is how God led Paul, in his meantime of being bi-vocational and trying to plant a church in Corinth, to a couple named Priscilla and Aquila. As Paul met with the Corinthian people, “in weakness, with great fear and trembling (1 Corinthians 2:3), God blessed Paul with a dynamic duo that would help him, encourage him, travel with him, mentor other believers and future leaders, plant a church with him and start a church in their own home.

Paul didn’t dismiss or wish away his meantime! Instead, he allowed God to continue to work in his life and he didn’t do it alone. Don’t miss what and who God has for you in your meantime!

About the Author: Jonathan Hubbs serves as the lead pastor at Lane Avenue Church in Kansas City, Missouri. He’s passionate about helping people deepen their discipleship journey with Jesus Christ. For questions or comments, please reach out to him at pastorjonathanh@gmail.com