If you grew up in the church, you probably remember going to Sunday School class. For me, growing up in Berne, IN (population 3,500) and attending a Mennonite church, meant flannel graph Bible stories, a plastic church to put my offering in, singing traditional church songs and tile flooring that was long overdue to be replaced. While the format and structure may have changed over the years in how we teach children, the message of the gospel hasn’t changed! This past January our children’s department started our fourth year of using the curriculum The Gospel Project published by LifeWay. This curriculum goes through the Bible chronologically and teaches the kids that no matter what part of the Bible they are studying, it all points towards Jesus and Him being their Savior. You can watch a five-minute video about the curriculum by following this link: https://www.gospelproject.com/kids/. It’s been exciting and encouraging to see how kids make the connection themselves relating the Old Testament stories to Jesus and applying them in their everyday lives.
Ministering to children is a high calling because children typically believe whatever we tell them, which means we as teachers need to be well grounded in the Word. D.L. Moody, the famous evangelist who founded Moody Bible Institute, said at the end of his life, “If I could relive my life, I would devote my entire ministry to reaching children for God.” At LifePoint we are fortunate that we have many dedicated teachers who take the task seriously of investing in children spiritually. While I am thankful for those who serve, we are still always looking for people who have a heart for children and their families and a desire to teach them about Jesus. Have you ever considered getting involved in our Children’s Ministry? Each Sunday in our nursery and our elementary departments we have a total of around 80 people serving our children; annually around 200 are involved. The top four places where volunteers are needed are:
- Nursery (infant – 2’s, Coordinator Chelle Bruce) – serve whatever date, service and room you want
- Preschool (3’s – kindergarten, Coordinator Rebecca Cribbs) – serve an entire quarter
- Elementary (1st – 5th graders) – serve an entire school year or for the summer
- Special Needs/Sensory room – (3’s – 5th grade, opening September 11th) – serve once a month
I would encourage you to please pray for our children, their families, our teachers and how YOU might get involved.
If you haven’t had a chance to see the new elementary area that we opened last January, feel free to go look around. Each classroom is themed with a different attribute of God. The interlocking gears on the back of the main wall actually move, when not locked, to visually show the kids that God is all of the attributes at the same time.
I close with a quote that I wish was my own because I agree wholeheartedly with it, but must give credit to Children’s Pastor Roger Fields. “My calling is to reach boys and girls for God. It is too serious to be taken lightly, too urgent to be postponed, too vital to be ignored, too relevant to be overlooked, too significant to be trivialized, too eternal to be fleeting and too passionate to be quenched.”
Partnering with you to instill Biblical truths,
Mary Veal
Director for Children’s Ministry