This weekend has been one of those weekends where it felt like at some point last week the wheels fell off.
I spent Friday in two different funeral homes dealing with two different families in two very different types of grief. In between seeing the families, I spent the rest of the day working on the two services, all while knowing I had another funeral coming up today.
Saturday was spent in churches and at gravesides. By Saturday night, keeping my eyes focused on anything was proving to be very difficult. I managed to get the slides put together for Sunday morning with only a few typos and then entered into a vegetative state in front of the television before heading to bed.
But Sunday morning was a blessing.
Thankfully after a very hectic week I did not have to preach because it was our first, of what will become regularly scheduled, service where the children lead us in worship.
The children had been learning about the story of creation from Genesis 1&2 in Sunday School, and they came to teach us what they had learned. It was simply amazing to feel the energy in the church before the service as the children very excitedly did their final preparations and practices.
Not only that, there was also the joy on the faces of the adults as they left the church after the service. The best part wasn’t that they were saying, “Oh how cute they were!”, but rather, “Wasn’t that wonderful what they taught us!”
Mission accomplished.
Children are not our entertainment in church. I don’t believe in setting the children up to amuse the adults. We want to engage our children, to help them learn, to help them to grow into leaders in our community who have a strong faith foundation, and to encourage them on their way.
Yesterday I think we saw it’s working. The children have shown us they are learning because we learned from them. I know myself, that I needed to sit and hear of the love of God, shown to us in creation and through his son Jesus Christ. Thank you children, you are a gift to us all.
How does your church interact with your children? What are they teaching you about our amazing God?
I, and the rest of the church, cannot wait to see what they will teach us next month when they come back to lead us in the story of Abraham.