From the Mouths of Children

From the Mouths of Children
Let’s start with a little quiz this morning…There are going to be some images on the screen and I want to see if you know who or what they are…(images)
You didn’t need that or me to tell you that the world changes…The world is not the same as it was when you were a child…When I was a child…and it won’t be the same in 10 years…The world changes…
There are events that happen that we can remember where we were and what we were doing…Pearl Harbor, Kennedy’s assassination, the Challenger explosion, the fall of the Twin Towers…Some of those events brought up puzzled expressions and some nodded and went back to that moment…Some can only remember those events by reading about them or seeing a news program…The world changes…
At Bible study on Wednesday we were talking about some of the differences in schools…Howard talked about carrying pocket knives and playing with them at recess when he was in school…I graduated high school the year that Columbine happened…A teacher in Freeport found a knife in her first grade student’s backpack and the student was suspended…The world changes…
As the world changes we can choose to do a few things…We can ignore the changes and do things the way that they’ve always been done or we can change with the world…It’s hard to do…Change is scary and it’s hard to do and it’s not always comfortable…But we’re not alone it…We as individuals aren’t the only ones who are changing…The world is changing…
There’s a short story by Sandra Cisneros about a girl who’s turning 8…and she’s had a bad day…Her insight at the end of the story is that instead of thinking that we just become a year older, we collect a year…So, there’s a part of us that’s 2, 8, 16, 26, 32, 47, 58, 64, 76, 89, and so on…Think about it…Is there a part of that wants to throw temper tantrums sometimes? Or that gets giggly and laughs at silly things? Or that gets anxious over taking a driving test?
As old as we get, there’s a part of us that is still a child…there’s a part of us that is still young. Some people embrace that and some people fight against it…But think about it, when was the last time that part of you that was 2 showed up? I would guess that part of us that’s younger shows up more times than we really realize…
There are many things that are amazing about God, but one of the things that is amazing about God is that God doesn’t really see age in the same way that we do…In the same way that God used Abraham and Sarah who were in old age when they had their babies…God used David who was anointed to be king before he was a teenager…God calls those who are old and God calls those who are young…
The two passages that we have this morning are about children, and this is Children’s Sabbath or Children’s Sunday…The passage from the New Testament is the one of Jesus welcoming the children…The passage from the Old Testament is the beginning of Moses’ story…
Moses was taken care of from the very time he was born and placed in the river…How are we caring for our children? Jesus welcomed the children who were not welcomed by the rest of society…How are we welcoming our children?
It’s often said that children are the future of the church…Not just here but all over…Children are the future of the church…I have to say that I disagree with that in part…Children are the future of the church, but children are also the present of the church….Children are just as important to the present of the church as they are the future of the church…Children are the present of the church just as much as you or I are…
Last week, I asked you to think about the person who helped to nurture your faith…And to look around over the past week and see whose faith you were nurturing without even realizing it…I don’t know about you, but when I think of the people that helped to nurture my faith, the first people that come to my mind are the ones who helped to nurture my faith when I was a child…Whose faith is being nurtured without even realizing it?
Children pay attention to a lot more that we realize…Children are affected a lot more than we realize…I worked in a church where the teens didn’t like the hymns…Because the hymns were something that you sang in church and the church told them they shouldn’t be in worship…Children are more aware than we realize…
And there are some incredible things that have been done here for children…This year at VBS there were at least 60 kids everyday…Some days were more…But there were at least 60 kids everyday…There have been some amazing seeds planted because of VBS…There are some wonderful children’s ministries happening here…
At Vacation Bible School this summer, I got to go around and take pictures which meant that I got to join in on different groups at different times…One of the nights; I sat in on Chadder’s Theater and stayed in the doorway as the kids did their lesson. Mackenzie Harris came over to me and asked if there was anything I needed prayed for…I was getting ready to leave for my sister’s wedding, so I told her that I just needed to pray for enough time to get everything done. Before they ended together, Mackenzie interrupted the leader and said that the group needed to pray for me right then and it was important…In that moment, I was reminded of God’s grace and I was ministered to by a group of children…
How much have you allowed yourself to be ministered to by a child? Because it’s one thing to minister to children, but it’s another to be ministered to…Every week during the children’s sermon, I start out by talking to the children…How their week was, the good parts, the not so good parts…Each week as they share their joys and concerns, I am ministered to and I would that you are as well…Have you asked any of those kids how their week was? And kids, have you asked anyone older how their week was? There’s your challenge for this week…Kids, ask someone older than you how their week was…Adults, ask someone younger than you how their week was…
I think that we’ll all be surprised at the responses that we get both when we allow ourselves to be ministered to and we allow ourselves to minister…Because there is the part of us that is still young…So the words that tumble out of our mouths are still from the mouths of children…