Jan 29, 2019
By Jane Mackintosh
Conference President
Two months ago I promised to share my ideas about things we will try at Conference in July to welcome our children into worship and as fellow ministers of the Gospel. I talked about the Barna study that gave some statistics that ought to make us look at what we do in church, to see if our traditions and ways of perceiving children in the church are missing our primary field of evangelism. If, as Barna says, 90% of believers come into relationship with Jesus before the age of 21, then are our churches seriously considering what we should be doing evangelistically? My questions are: “Do we challenge our kids enough to look at their roles in spreading the Gospel? Do we, as adults, view them as fellow-workers in the Kingdom? Is our training of children a reflection of how we answer these questions?” I believe it is time to take a fresh look at these questions, our budgets, our worship services, our Sabbath Schools and determine if some changes are in order. We then must brainstorm to determine what might work.
I have been thinking about these questions for Conference this year and I am determined to try some things that may work or may be utter chaos. I have to assume, that since I and others have been praying for wisdom in this, that God is faithful to His Word and is giving it. I am determined that our children and young people will have an important place in our worship services—which is where I am planning to begin. For starters, I plan to have vespers each evening primarily targeted to kids in worship—where we will invite the adults to join us (and help keep the chaos contained), where we will sing, dance, cheerlead, draw, paint, play percussion instruments, pray, listen to short teachings— to be free to meet Jesus however each one best connects with Him. At the end of the week, I would like to have pastors, children’s ministers, teachers, etc. there to lay hands on the kids, praying for them, telling them they have a place in ministry, and are needed as fellow-workers in God’s Kingdom. We will ask the parents to join their children while this is going on since they are the primary teachers of their children and are responsible for their spiritual growth. I hope to emphasize to the kids and adults through this that children are a vital part of the present (not just the future) ministry of our churches—and God is calling them right now into ministry, no matter what ages they are. Jesus had a very high regard for children, having a few choice words to say when the disciples tried to prevent them from coming to Him. He had a few choice words for the rest of the people following Him when He set a child in front of them and told them they needed to come like this child if they wanted to follow Him.
Another turn around we will be doing is having an evening where pastors will be called forward to have the children, youth, and young adults lay hands on them and pray for them. Give me a child any day to have him/her pray for me!!!! I believe this could be a very powerful time of prayer for our pastors.
During each of the other worship services, the adults will be learning the songs of worship that the kids are learning, so kids know they have a place in the “adult” worship services also. They will be encouraged to dance, play percussion instruments, sing, draw, paint in all the worship services. We will try to keep it as non-distracting as possible, but hopefully, we can learn, as adults, that we are the big people, and can learn to invite everyone into worship.
People Get Ready!!!!
