Why do we do Vacation Bible School?

I call your attention to one of the songs that Jared led us in. There is a Redeemer. There's a good story behind that song and it's a wonderful Christ-centered story about the person who wrote that. I challenge you to look that up. One of the things I want to mention to you is this. That song is primarily a prayer. We sing about the Lord. We sing truth. We sing to Him things that He already knows. But sometimes what we're singing, it could be a prayer. And I hope and pray that that song there is a Redeemer was a true and honest prayer from your heart. I say this from time to time. That is one that I use in my own personal worship time.

Thank you Jared for leading us in that. Well we're here. Vacation Bible School starts tonight. Is everybody ready? Yes. Yes. Somebody blurted out yes. I'm ready. I've actually gotten my official name tag. It says Chris Shepherd Bible Study. So I'm excited. I'm excited that we have name tags this year. I'm excited about all of it. I really am. And I love Vacation Bible School. I do. I dearly love Vacation Bible School. And I think most of you know that Vacation Bible School is a big part of our church and it has been ever since I've been the pastor of Grace Life Church. Now some of you know that our church is unique.

Some of you were there back in the day when our church was Nola Baptist Church and we met in the Nola community. Nola Baptist was a church that was almost closed and the Lord led me to Nola in 2010 and by God's grace we experienced the rebirth of a church. This week I was thinking about some of you and if you were there in those early days I think that Chris and Clarissa Travis were there at the very beginning of it all. Chris and Clarissa could tell you all about it. Now when God led me to Nola I was the interim for the first year.

Now when you're the interim of a country church that's down to about eight or ten people and it's about to close you're really not the interim you're just a permanent fill in. That's what they call you. Well during that first year that I was there I taught them nothing but the basics. I simply taught them what the church should be and what the church should do over and over. I was like that broken record. But when God led me to take the church as the pastor in the fall of 2011 God led me to institute and organize a few things in the life of the church that are very, very important. Right away we started a Sunday night service.

You might think that's odd. Pastor I think most churches are getting away from a Sunday night service. No we had a Sunday night service way out in the country. We also added a Wednesday night service and a good prayer meeting. But one of the things that was very high on my priority list was ministering to children. But we really didn't have that many children. We really didn't. Now this is what it was like back then when we started the Sunday night class for children right away we had a few. My children, Brother Keith's children, a few others. I think somehow that class got called little class. I don't know where that name came from.

We started a nursery right away. We believe in a nursery. I can take you to the scripture and show you where I have scriptural evidence and proof for a nursery. Maybe that's a sermon I need to preach on soon. The need for a nursery, the biblical position for a nursery. But a year or so in around 2011 we started a children's class on Wednesday night as well and then somebody, the Lord led somebody into our church that could do Bible drills. And that led us to our first vacation Bible school in 2012. Now back then our vacation Bible school was pretty basic. We had children, our children.

And then we had all these community children that we had been reaching out to, quite a few of them. And we worked hard to teach the truth of God's Word by using good Bible centered materials. We taught them truth by using truth saturated songs and music. And look we truly loved on all of the children that the Lord sent us. It didn't matter if they were ours or theirs or somebody else's. It didn't matter if they knew how to behave or not. And look in the life of that church, Nola Baptist Church, vacation Bible school took off. If you were there you remember. But that leads me to a question that we all need to ask.

Why do we have vacation Bible school? We're making all these preparations, isn't that right? We're spending budget monies, that's God's money. We're investing a lot of time. There's a lot of work to be done and there's a lot of work that has been done. I was blessed. My wife came home yesterday and talked about the army that was up here working and that was you. But why do we go to all this trouble? Why do we do VBS? Honestly this is a question we need to ask but we don't need to ask it just to justify what we are doing. So this morning I want to answer that question in two ways. First from the scriptures.

Now I know my Bible and I know that we're not going to find a vacation Bible school in the scriptures. Now use your imagination with me for a minute. Just imagine a vacation Bible school in the church of Jerusalem in those early days. If you do not like a big church you would not have been a part of the church of Jerusalem. They would have had thousands of children. They would have been kids from Perthia, Meade, Elam. They would have been kids from Mesopotamia, in Judea, in Cappadocia, in Pontius, in Asia. Kids from Phrygia, in Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya even from Cyrene.

They would have been kids from Rome of parents who were Jews and proselytes to Judaism. And there would have been Christian kids and Arabian kids. If you know much about the Christians those kids would have been the trouble makers. Just imagine a vacation Bible school at the church at Corinth. There would have been some lewd women leading the kids in music. The leaders of the vacation Bible school would have played music at the Temple of Aphrodite the Saturday night before vacation Bible school even started. The wealthy parents would have excluded the poor kids like they did at the Lord's Supper.

Some of the leaders would have had too much wine to drink at the commencement service. Now just imagine vacation Bible school in the Galatian churches. Instead of getting their curriculum from answers in Genesis they would have gotten their material from answers in legalism. The theme of their vacation Bible school would have been this. We are saved by grace plus keeping the law. Now I know I'm being a little bit humorous and I know that we do not see vacation Bible school in the scripture but again I'm going to beat the dead horse. Why do we do vacation Bible school?

I want to answer that in two ways first from the scripture and then second I'm going to answer that from me as your pastor, the pastor of Grace Life Church and that will be on a very personal level. So let's look at our scriptures. I said in our scripture reading that I want us to read three portions of scripture. This is Matthew's account, Luke's account and Mark's account of the same event and we're reading these different accounts to get the total picture that the Lord wants us to have. So Matthew 19 verses 13 to 15, "Then children were brought to Him," that's Jesus, "that He might lay His hands on them and pray.

And the disciples rebuked the people. But Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to Me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven and He," that's Jesus, "laid His hands on them and went away.'" Now let's turn over to Luke's account. I'm reading them in this order because I want us to end at Mark's account, that's where the message will end. Luke chapter 18 verses 15 to 17, "Now they," this will be the adults, parents, we're going to see that, "they were bringing even infants to Him that He might touch them and when the disciples saw it they rebuked them.

But Jesus called them to Him saying, 'Let the children come to Me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.'" That would be the kingdom. And then back at Mark chapter 10 verses 13 to 16, "And they," that would be the adults, parents, "were bringing children to Him that He might touch them and the disciples rebuked them." That would be those bringing the children.

But when Jesus saw it, all that was going on, He was indignant and He said to them, "Let the children come to Me, do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." And He took them in His arms and He blessed them laying His hands on them. Now I think that we can all see that Matthew, Mark, and Luke record the same event. Of course we can pick up a few details, a few different details from all of their accounts. That's why I wanted us to read them.

But before we get into many details, I want us to see what was going on in this event, in this situation. We have this event where parents and adults were bringing babies and children to Jesus. Now Luke uses the word for infants or the word for newborn babies. So to me, we definitely have mothers in all that is going on here. And then Mark uses a general word for children. So to me, there were children there as well as babies. And in this event, Jesus had a two-fold purpose. He was explaining who belongs in the kingdom of God and how they are to come into the kingdom. And then also, Jesus was blessing the babies.

He was putting His hands on them and blessing the children. And as I have meditated on these verses, and as I have meditated and prayed on this particular event, I think there was a lot of commotion going on on that particular day. You had adults, you had parents, they were bringing babies and children to Jesus. That's clear. And things get chaotic when the disciples get involved. Mark tells us that the disciples began rebuking the parents and those adults for bringing all of the children and babies to Jesus. And this was no soft rebuke. The word Mark uses here, it speaks of a strong reprimand.

Jesus used a similar word when He rebuked the demons. Now think about that. And it seems pretty chaotic to me. Seems like a wild event and a wild situation to me. Let me give you an example. Let me speak to you men for a minute. Men I tell you what you do. You get yourself up and you go down that hall to the nursery and when mothers start bringing their children into the nursery, you start rebuking them and you start telling them what to do. There will be chaos in that hall. And I will not come defend you. You're on your own brother. Of course you have Jesus who's in the center of all that's going on here.

You may have noticed that Jesus wasn't sitting there in silence. Jesus was rebuking the disciples because they were rebuking the ones who were bringing the children and babies to Him. And to me this sounds more like an argument than a ministry event. In Mark's account the ESV says that Jesus was indignant. This is a very strong word which means to be angry, even irate, even outraged. So Jesus was angry. He was outraged at the disciples because they were keeping the adults and the children from coming to Him with their babies and their children.

Simply Jesus strongly rebuked the disciples all while welcoming the parents and the adults, the children and the babies in great love. And I think this is an interesting event that we can overlook but there is a lot that we need to learn here and there is a lot here that applies to vacation Bible school as well as other children's ministry. Now at this point in the message I want us to examine the event and those a little more in detail. This will be rather easy for you to follow. So first notice those who brought the children. First notice those who brought the children. Look back at verse 13.

This would be parents and adults were bringing children to Him that He might touch them and the disciples rebuked them. Now there is a little more going on here than we may see at a surface reading. We may not relate to this but it was a common practice in their day for parents to seek out a spiritual blessing for their children. It was common for parents to bring their children to respected teachers so that they could pronounce a blessing over them or on them. We see that fathers did this for their own children in the Old Testament. Noah gave a blessing to his children in Genesis 9.

We studied that here a few weeks back in our small group Bible study. Remember that? Isaac did the same thing in Genesis 27. Jacob did the same thing in Genesis 49. So a father laying his hands on his children and pronouncing a blessing upon his children was a common practice in their day. And parents bringing their children to respected spiritual leaders for a blessing that was common in their day as well. But we need to ask a question. What were the parents' motivations here? Why were they doing this? It is safe to say that they were seeking some type of a spiritual blessing.

But truthfully the text only says that they wanted Jesus to touch their children. But I believe it is safe to say that they wanted more than this customary spiritual blessing. Think about it. Jesus had already been healing all sorts of diseases. He had been performing all of these great miracles. So I believe these parents brought their children to Jesus for a blessing but more. They had seen Jesus as a loving, kind miracle worker because of the way he had healed the sick even touching them while performing great miracles. And this was in stark contrast to the religious leaders of their day.

Now for us, what is the lesson for us right here in the message for us in our day? First of all, we need to honestly examine what we bring our children to and who we bring our children to. We really do this all of the time. I give you a few examples to help you see this. We take our children to a coach and to a team to be instructed in sports, soccer, baseball, softball, football, volleyball, track, cross country. Whether it is a team sport or an individual sport, we take our children to be instructed. Isn't that right? Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. We take our children to teachers to be instructed in academics.

Whether we are homeschooling or private schooling or public schooling. We are taking our children to be instructed by a teacher as well as through the authors of those books and the experts that are in that field. You see what I mean? Now I could go on with some other examples. But I want us to see that in our day we take our children to particular people and to certain environments to be taught and to be instructed. We do that for a purpose or various purposes. Now at this point we need to ask ourselves a particular question, a more specific question. Are we bringing our children to Jesus?

Now personally, are we bringing our children to Jesus in our own lives? Now I want to start with you dads. Leadership in the home starts with us. We've been learning that in our study in Ephesians 5. So my question for you is this. Dad, are you bringing your children to Jesus? Are you bringing your children to Jesus? You might say, "Pastor, I'll lead them in a Bible study." You know you can lead them in a Bible study and not bring them to Jesus. Jesus is not a Bible study. Jesus is a person. He lives within us through the power and the work of the Holy Spirit of God.

So we relate to our children personally and we relate Jesus to our children personally. Do we share with them how we came to faith in Christ? Do we share with them how God is working in our lives? Can they see that before you ever speak that? Are we bringing our children to Jesus in our home, moms and dads? We can sit down and have family worship. There's nothing wrong with that. We can lead our children through Bible studies and materials. All that is good, but we can do that without personally relating Jesus to them. And are we bringing our children to Jesus in the life of our church?

I think you know me well enough to know that that is my goal and my desire with all of our children's ministries. In everything that we do, we want to take them to Jesus. In His Word, as we relate to them, that's why we pray fervently over our children on Wednesday nights. We pray for those who lead in those Bible studies because we want to take them not just to the Scriptures, but to Jesus who is the author of the Scriptures. So we see those that brought the children to Jesus. But second notice, those who blocked the children. I want us to notice those who blocked the children. Again, verse 13, we see it at the end of the verse.

Notice the verse. "And they were bringing the children to Him that He might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them." Now we've already seen some of what the disciples were doing. They were rebuking the parents, any who were bringing kids and babies to Jesus. But if we pay a little more attention, we will see that they were doing a lot more. First, they were rebuking adults and parents. This word rebuke means to reprimand. It means to censure. Jesus used a related word when He rebuked demons and when He rebuked the storm. Peter used this word.

He used this word when He rebuked Jesus after Jesus told the disciples that He was going to the cross. So here the disciples, they stepped forward and they strongly reprimanded those who were bringing children to Jesus. But there is more. In rebuking the adults for bringing the children to Jesus, they were actually blocking the children from coming to see Jesus. Do you see it? So the disciples were really doing two things. They were rebuking and blocking. Now think with me here. Why were they doing that? Why did they rebuke these parents, these adults? Why did they put up this massive roadblock between the children and Jesus?

We really do not know. We can only speculate why. It could be that they thought Jesus was too busy or too important to be bothered by children and babies. It could be that they did not see children as very important. Maybe they saw the children and babies as a nuisance. We know that there were times when the disciples saw certain people as less important, even a nuisance. When Jesus thought otherwise, I think about the Samaritan woman. Sometimes she is called the woman at the well. We know that story is in John 4. The disciples, they did not want to be in Samaria. They did not want to have any contact with that Samaritan woman.

And they did not want Jesus to interact with her. But whatever the reason, in this situation, the disciples rebuked those parents and they tried to block the children, the babies, all of them from getting to Jesus. Now for us, what do we need to learn right here? I see this as applying in two ways. As individuals, we can block our children from coming to Jesus by the way we live. And not just our children, but also other children who are around us. Look with me. If we have sin, if we have hypocrisy in our life at such a level, we can even prevent our children from coming to Jesus. We can have secret sin.

Christians can have secret sin that block their children from coming to Jesus. And so my question for you is this. Sir, ma'am, do you have secret sin? Is there hypocrisy in your life, in your home, in such a way that it would hinder and even block your children from coming to Jesus? I told this story last week. It needs to be stated again. I heard the story of a pastor who died, passed away. They had his funeral. And just like with a lot of other pastors who passed away, several pastors got up and eulogized that pastor and they bragged on his ministry and all that he did is a pastor. Well you know how funerals are in the South.

After the funeral was over, the family and friends went over to the church fellowship hall to eat a meal. And a friend of mine happened to be sitting with the family and one of the pastor's children spoke up and said, "I wish I would have known the man they talked about." See? Somehow, someway, there was hypocrisy in that home and in that life and it blocked that son, that daughter from coming to faith in Jesus. Let me show you something else. External Christianity can block the children from coming to Jesus. When you have moms and dads, they come to church but they're really carnal. They're just professing Christians.

They're cultural Christians. They can block the children from coming to Jesus. External Christianity that is burdened with rules and legalisms, that can block the children from coming to Jesus. We're going to get into that when we get into Ephesians 6. Another thing, a terrible commitment to the work of the church can block children from coming to Jesus. When moms and dads drop their children off, what kind of a message does that say? When moms and dads farm out spiritual things to the church, what does that say? Now we can continue on.

We've also been studying Christian marriage and the role and responsibilities of the Christian wife and husband in the marriage in Ephesians 6. Of course, no husband and wife can live out these things that we've been learning perfectly. But we must see that if we fail at a level where that failure prevents our children from coming to Jesus, our sin and our dysfunction in the home and in the marriage, look, that has become a barrier to our sons and our daughters. But also, children can be blocked from coming to Jesus by certain things that go on in the life of the church.

Here some churches, they don't want to spend any money or allocate any resources or manpower to children. Some churches devote all of their energies, all of their monies to adults and the old people and the children are ignored. I can tell you how I can identify that. Let me see the copy of their budget. Let me see their budget. I know churches they'll put far more money in a cemetery account, but they won't allocate any money for babies and children. I know churches that have savings, but they're not going to spend money on children and babies. We're not going to do that.

I'll cut my salary to be able to minister to children and babies in the life of this church. And I've seen churches that do that and then they wonder why there are no babies in the nursery. They wonder why the halls of the church are quiet and there's no chaos from little boys and little girls. I'll tell you something else that will block children from coming to Jesus. Church fights and hypocrites in the church, I've seen that.

I've watched children and teenagers grow up in churches where they fuss and fight and divide and they basically graduate from high school and their attitude is this, if that's Christianity I really don't want it and I don't blame them. I don't want that either. So we see those who block the children from coming to Jesus. And then third notice, the one who blessed the children. I want us to see the one who blessed the children. Let's look back at the verses. Verses 14 to 16. But when Jesus saw it, what did He see? All of this commotion. He was indignant and He said to them, the disciples, let the children come to Me.

Do not hinder them for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. What does He do? He took them, babies and children into His arms and He blessed them laying His hands on them. Now we have touched on this blessing some but actually there is a lot more happening here than we may know. First we see that Jesus rebuked the disciples. We have seen that this is a very firm rebuke. Now this can be hard for some to accept. I know but Jesus was angry. He was outraged at how the disciples were blocking the children from coming to Him.

But He did not sin in His anger. And then second, we see that Jesus received the children. In verse 14 Jesus says, "Let the children come to Me. Do not hinder them." One important detail is this word hinder. It is a present tense verb which speaks to a continuous action. This means the disciples were to continue to allow them to bring the children and babies to Jesus. Now here is where I kind of use my, I call it my Holy Spirit imagination. I kind of envision this large group of parents, all of these adults, we have all of these children and all of these babies and the children and the babies they just keep coming. They keep bringing them.

They keep coming. Maybe the disciples they go from blocking the children to bringing the children and they keep coming. They keep coming. They keep coming. So Jesus rebuked the disciples and He received the children. But after Jesus sets things straight, He gets to the climax of the event which is the teaching. I want us to look back at this because this is extremely important. Look at verse 15 to 16. Jesus pivots here, I am going to get into the language here in a minute.

He says, "Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." And He took them into His arms and He blessed them laying His hands on them. Now notice what Jesus does. First Jesus uses the children as a teaching analogy to explain salvation. He starts off by asserting Himself. That's what this phrase, "Truly I say to you." That's what that means. Jesus was asserting Himself so as to say something of great importance and look at what He is saying in verse 15. One must receive the kingdom like a child otherwise they will not enter into the kingdom. Listen to what the Amplified says in verse 15.

"I assure you and most solemnly say to you." It captures the emphasis Jesus is placing there. "Whoever does not receive and welcome the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all." Now we need to ask what this means. If Jesus is teaching and illustrating salvation then we must get it. Isn't that right? Let me start by saying what this doesn't mean. This does not speak of innocence. No person is innocent of sin. No person. Even the little boys and girls that Jesus was ministering to. So this does not mean that only children can enter the kingdom.

Simply Jesus was saying for one to enter the kingdom they must come with a childlike disposition. They must come with childlike characteristics. For one to receive the kingdom they must have a childlike disposition. They must come completely dependent and trusting. They must be completely submissive and completely humble. Another way to put it is to turn it around. One must not be prideful is what Jesus was saying. They must not be self sufficient is what he is saying. They must not be holding on to sin self in any religious efforts. That's what Jesus was saying.

And it is not that these childlike characteristics make someone a Christian like some kind of magic ingredients. No. These characteristics are centered on Christ. They are directed at Christ Jesus. So Jesus is illustrating how someone comes into the kingdom. He is illustrating salvation. Now at this point before I continue I've got to ask a question. There's some of you here you know you're not converted to Christ. You're holding on to sin. You're holding on to self sufficiency or you could be holding on to your religious efforts. Sin, self sufficiency, that's sin. And religious efforts, that's sin. What could be your hang up is this.

You refuse to humble yourself and be like a child. Trusting in Christ, depending on Christ, looking to Christ, dying to your efforts. You're never going to get there until you come like a child with these characteristics with this disposition. And so many people never get childlike. And you know when you get childlike you get all the way to the bottom. And second, Jesus actually blesses the children. We're not going to read the text but the text says he actually took them into his arms. This phrase means to wrap one's hands and arms around someone and to hold them close. Just like you would do with a baby or a small child that you love.

We all know that Evan and Devon just had a baby girl, AJ. Ali Jane, he called her AJ so I call her AJ. I know some of you cannot wait for Ali Jane to be in this church because you're going to scoop her up just like Jesus and you're going to squeeze her and love her and kiss all over her. You are. I think I said Wednesday night I'll do that when they can take hard candy. And then Jesus laid his hands on them and he blessed them continuously. Remember Jesus said to let the children come and do not hinder them until they were all blessed. And I believe he did this until all the children on that day had been blessed and in his arms.

Now we need to ask what the blessing was. The language tells us this was a strong blessing, a fervent blessing. Jesus would have been praying for them I believe. I believe he would have been asking his father to bless them. I believe he would have been giving them assurance that he was the Messiah of God. He owed little boys and girls and tell them about Jesus. He owed these little boys and girls and told him he was Jesus. And this would have been done with great intensity and seriousness and with great emotion and with great love. Now for us what do we need to learn here?

Of course we need to understand this illustration on salvation which shows us how one enters into the kingdom. We come to Christ with a childlike disposition, trusting Christ, depending on Christ, submitting to Christ, believing in Christ completely. But we must see that we are to bring our children to Jesus so that he will touch them and he will bless them. Now this is not physical. Jesus is not going to come here physically and do these things. May we bring our children to Jesus spiritually through the work of the Holy Spirit of God in our lives.

We bring them to Jesus so that through the person and the work of the Spirit Jesus might touch our children and bless our children. And look we are his agents. We are his conduit. God has entrusted this work to us Grace Life Church who is going to touch the little boys and girls for Jesus. We do this through prayer. We should be praying for our little boys and girls. We do this through teaching the word of God. When we teach the word of God with the power of the Spirit we are opening up their eyes to who Jesus is.

We do this through evangelizing our children, sharing the truth of their sin, sharing the truth of Christ, sharing the fact that they need to be converted. Look I have told you this. Girls and dads don't raise your little boys and girls to be Christians. They're not. They can't be. Education without salvation always leads to damnation. You teach them the truth of God's word but you must tell them who they are by their very nature they are dead in their sins. You might say my little boy and girl is dead in their sin. If you have them for five minutes you're going to find that out. But we do that by sharing the truth of their sin. Yes.

And we do this with the love of Christ Jesus. A love that He has put within us. Now let me tell you if you're not born again and you don't have the love of Christ Jesus in you, you can't love them with something that you ain't got. Don't tell my mother I use the word ain't. And look we do this in the life of our church every week. We do this Sunday night and Wednesday night. We have classes for our children. What do we do every Wednesday night? I do the same thing. I pray over those little boys and girls wanting God to do this work and then you go out and you minister to them. And we do this in vacation Bible school.

We're going to do this in other ministry events. There may be a day when we do a kid summer camp. You up for that? Children's ministry can be done this way. But we see the one who blessed the children. Now as I wrap up this message I said that I would answer the question. Why do we do VBS? Why do we put forth all of the effort? I know the church of Jerusalem and Antioch and Corinth and Ephesus they didn't have VBS. But simply we do VBS to bring little boys and girls to Jesus. Your children, my children and the ones that the Lord brings our way. We want our Lord Jesus to touch our children and to bless them.

Ultimately we want God to save them and to use them for kingdom work. Moms and dads don't raise your children for your purposes. They're not yours. They're long to you. Raise them for God's purposes. It could be that your little boy and girl needs to go to a foreign land to share the gospel in a dark place. And you need to be willing to put them on an airplane to do so. So we want salvation for our children. We want the Word of God to be planted down deep in their hearts to govern them and to form them. We want God to mark them out for kingdom service all of the days of their life. Now for me as your pastor, here's where I get personal.

I do VBS. It's because I love little boys and girls. I love little boys and girls with the love that God has put in me. I love this work wholeheartedly. Now I have to make a confession. This love for little boys and girls has not always been in this pastor's heart. Most of you know that I was a student pastor for 10 years. I loved it. God called me to do that work. I enjoyed every minute of it. You know I heard someone say find what you love to do and you'll never go to work. Well as a youth pastor I never went to work. And I don't know it was something strange. I could load up 75, 80, 100 kids, take them anywhere. No problems.

Now I might have wanted to beat a few of them. I could have a youth camp with seven or eight churches and you know 150, 200, 220 teenagers. And I could be in charge and I loved every minute of it. But one day when I was serving a rather large church as a youth pastor they asked me to do children's church. And I said yeah I'll do it. I prepared a little lesson and I went in children's church and I stood behind the podium and I started teaching. In about 15 seconds I had eight panic attacks. I thought Lord whatever I got myself into. I broke out in a sweat. I thought I got to get out of here.

I didn't have a love for little boys and girls like that. But you know something changed in me when God called me to pastor. I started seeing. I see little boys and girls different. So what am I trying to show you? God has put that love in me for these little boys and girls. And I want to take them to Jesus. So let's love on little boys. Let's love on little girls. Let's love on their babies. And let's love on their parents. And let's do it just like Jesus did. And with the help of the spirit we can. So let's pray and let's commit all of these things to the Lord. And we'll sing of closing hymn of worship.