Repeat After Me

A lot of the experiences that are shaping my life right now have come from, and are coming from the time I spend serving Senior Adults. It is a Mission Field that truly has a part of my heart. I was doing a “ride along” with a Pastor last year; we were visiting some home-bound members of the church. As we sat and visited with a church member we also were visiting with a daytime care-giver who was sitting with her that day. The care-giver was sharing with us her testimony. At the age of nine she went forward at the invitation of a Sunday Morning Service. She felt the need to go to the Pastor as he gave the invitation for anyone who was not certain of their salvation to come forward. So she stepped out and walked down the aisle. The Pastor greeted her and asked her if she wanted to be saved. She said yes. So the Pastor instructed her to say a prayer, and to say a specific prayer, just as he said it. It was simple, “repeat after me” he said to her. So she did, word for word just like he said it. She didn’t share with us the exact words. He sat her down on the front pew, more than likely her parents had come down by this time. After the invitation was over, the Pastor proudly introduced to the church a new Sister in Christ.  Everyone rejoiced. She said she got a lot of hugs that morning. She paused for a bit, obviously troubled by something. Then she said, “I was saved by the grace of God three years ago”. She was sixty-five when she shared this with us. She had lived with doubt and confusion almost her entire life, from nine to sixty-two. Many times she would try to convince herself she was saved. The Pastor had told her she was saved, surely she was saved she told herself. At the age of sixty-two she finally admitted to herself that she had only repeated words that Sunday Morning, she had not experienced salvation.

Today churches across America are filled with lost people who said a prayer when they were a kid. Now I’m NOT saying that everyone who was lead in a prayer as a kid is lost, THAT IS NOT WHAT I AM SAYING. What I am saying is this; our goal cannot be to get a child to repeat a prayer! It is my fear that many people leading children in America’s churches today have put too much focus on getting a child to repeat a prayer. And by doing this they don’t put their focus on teaching kids the truth of the Bible. It must be our goal to teach children all we can about God, who He is and what He requires from us. It must be our goal to teach children who Jesus Christ is and why we need Him. As desperately as we want to see all the children in our Ministries saved, we can’t take God out of the equation!

Introduction

On November 9, 2008 I went before my local church making public that I had answered God’s call for my life to be in full-time Gospel Ministry. I was thirty-three years old. Immediately I began to throw myself full throttle into this journey, wanting to get started a quickly as I could. For some reason I completely lost all my patience. Understand, I am my worst critic and I immediately started to think I had to “catch-up”. I began to compare myself to others I know already in Ministry, many of whom had answered God’s call on their lives at a much earlier age. I was overcome with an urgency to make up for what I saw as wasted years.

I began an official internship in August 2009 at Chilhowee Hills Baptist Church. Within my urgency I was constantly analyzing every aspect of my time as an intern. I was trying to understand EXACTLY what God’s plan for me was, I had to know now so I wouldn't waste any more of my life. I jumped at every opportunity before me; looking for clues that would show me what I was suppose to do. I spent time working with Children, especially during VBS and I loved it! I also spent a lot of time with Young Adult Singles as their Bible Fellowship Teacher and I loved it! And in addition to these two areas I spent a lot of time experiencing ministry with Senior Adults. Oh yeah, and I loved that too! All this was going on at the same time, so understandably I was a little confused as to which path I was being led down. However as my internship was getting closer to the one year mark I get a phone call that cleared everything right up; well almost everything.

The phone call came from my Supervising Pastor at Chilhowee Hills. He called to ask me to come by his office so we could discuss the possibility of me taking the position of Children’s Pastor at Chilhowee Hills. All of a sudden it was like pieces of a puzzle began to fall into place. And here I am now; currently the Children’s Pastor at Chilhowee Hills Baptist Church and this is my blog. I will shed light as I go along as to what some of the “puzzle pieces” are and how God has developed and is developing some core values of my ministry. I still have feelings of urgency, just a different kind of urgency. I feel an urgency to address how the Gospel is presented to kids. I feel an urgency in how we disciple kids who have responded to the Gospel. So as God directs and leads I will share with you some of my journey in this blog, Kidz Move.

Kidz Move because it is ultimately the Kid’s move to make.