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NEW! Thoughts from our District Superintendent:
Here is some inspiration concerning an issue we are all praying about:
"The Sunday School rooms had been abandoned many years ago. There were still maps of ancient Israel on the walls and chairs made for little bodies around the tables. They were on the third floor – 23 steps up from the sanctuary – and these days, there were no kids and only a couple people who even might teach them. Many in the church were in their nineties and could not have made the stairs even on the rare Sunday when a child did visit the church.
The new retired clergyman and spouse came in and worked at two things – getting to know the kids and adults in the neighborhood and getting to know the town clergy. The pastor, knowing he needed to be a participant instead of always being the worship leader, started attending the local Seventh Day Adventist Church on their Saturday worship services regularly and joining in their after-service luncheons. The largest church in the area was a Nazarene church in the next town and a strong relationship soon developed between their pastor and the Methodist couple. The couple ran a Small Group workshop for the Nazarenes which was well received.
Meanwhile the Methodist clergyman started walking the streets of the town and getting to know the kids and families. Across the street from the church a family of seven children and two parents moved back home to the wife’s mother’s house. The pastor started making it a habit to stop and talk with them when they were out in their big fenced in yard – keeping a healthy distance from their three pit-bull dogs. After a few weeks, the pastor asked the mother what she’d think of an hour a week when the kids would be well cared for and would be introduced to Jesus. She said that sounded like heaven. The next Sunday seven kids walked into a church for the first time in their lives.
A tragic fire displaced twelve families and the church raised over $25,000 to help them get back on their feet – and trusted coaches from the church were assigned to walk with each family personally on that journey. The church wasn’t trying to get them to come to church, but some of them did anyway.
By the summer of 2022 there were enough kids and connections to have a Vacation Bible School – but the parents of the kids were not ready to be teachers and most of the rest of the church was too elderly to try. So instead, the pastor and a few Methodist members, provided rides to the Nazarene VBS. It was a great VBS and the Nazarenes invited the families to church there. The Methodists didn’t try to stand in their way.
When September of 2022 came, the Methodists realized that they had lots of kids, but not enough teachers for Sunday School and so they tried to do Junior Church during worship. The few volunteers who were young enough gamely took the children out after the children’s sermon and they did their best – but they quietly admitted that watching the worship service on Facebook the next day was OK but not really satisfying. Plus, they were the ones already doing 90% of the ministry in the church.
Henry Blackabee writes in his landmark book, “Experiencing God” that Christians do best when they look around to see what God is already doing in their area (rather than trying to come up with something wonderful to do FOR God themselves). When they see God doing something, they adjust their lives to be part of what God is already doing. This always requires sacrifice and a leap of faith. Only after we make the adjustment do the miracles begin to happen and we “experience God.”
The Nazarene’s have a program much like boy and girl scouting – with badges and handbooks and “Blue and White” ceremonies – but that is totally Christian. The Methodist pastor could see that God was working through the Nazarene church. The Methodists decided to offer rides to any children in town who wanted to attend this Wednesday evening program called “Caravan.” The Methodist Pastor agreed to be part of the Caravan team and to organize the caravanning of town kids to the Nazarene Church. Since then, the Methodists have more than doubled the size of the Nazarene program and the kids love it.
The Methodist pastor’s wife leads a daytime small group on Wednesdays and her group decided to offer a monthly free family dinner at the Methodist Church for all the families who have kids going to Caravan. This dinner is held in the Methodist Church on the second Wednesday of the month. After dinner, the pastor and his team transport the kids to the Nazarene church. The parents of the kids are invited to stay after the meal and get to know each other.
At the Seventh Day Adventist Church, the Methodist pastor explained his concern that his church could not provide sufficient teachers even to offer an age divided Junior Church. Three teams of two each from the Adventist church agreed to come three weeks out of the month and use those old Sunday School rooms upstairs for Junior Church. The Methodists cleaned the rooms and put down some new rugs (with the help of some of the new parents and their older children) and bought a downloadable curriculum for all the Junior Church teams. The response has been wonderful. The kids come to Sunday worship in the sanctuary until the Children’s Sermon and then go upstairs for 45 minutes of Junior Church. They seem to love it and the Adventists report that they are enjoying being missionaries to the Methodists.
It's colder now, so the Methodist pastor is busy going to basketball and swimming meets and meeting families. He wonders if all the kids will end up being Nazarenes or Adventists and then he stops and shakes his head. It doesn’t matter. They are getting to know Jesus. Jesus will know where they will grow best. We’ll just adjust our lives to be part of what God is already doing. That will certainly mean sacrifice, but we get to see the miracles."
THANK YOU to the writer of this article.
Blessings,
Ted Anderson
District Superintendent
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