Congratulations to:

Tammy Jones

Amanda Cooley

Manley Palmer

for winning the “God’s Story for Me” Bibles from Equippingkids.com!

Scripture

1 Thessalonians 2:2-9 (English Standard Version)

²But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict. ³For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, ⁴but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. ⁵For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness. ⁶Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. ⁷But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. ⁸So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.

⁹For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil: we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.

Devotion

Start out by giving your volunteers each half of this paper. Provide them with 2-3 minutes to fill it out. You do not necessarily have to get them to call out the answers, but ask them what criteria they used to select certain people. Ask them how they would want those people to make decisions in some of the areas.

The point is that God entrusts us to be a part of His ministry, not because we have some inherent goodness (unlike the way they may have selected people for tasks above), but because He is good, loving, and gracious. It is a joy to be a part of His Kingdom building work with kids. Just like you would expect your caretakers above to elicit decision making with a certain type of wisdom, God desires for us to carry out His work with characteristics which honor him. Let’s take a look at some of those characteristics that Paul and his associates exemplified toward the Thessalonian church.

1. Perseverance (v. 2)–Paul ministered in spite of strong opposition. He did not let the dark spiritual acts of Satan get in his way of what God called him to do. Satan can use all kinds of instruments in the church to distract us and his impact on volunteer attrition rates is insane. We need to push ahead and minister to these sweet children no matter what comes in our way.
2. Be on mission (vv. 3-4)–Do you see your work with children as a mission from God. Every second of your life, God has a purpose for you to impact His Kingdom in some way. God has entrusted you, like Paul, with a sacred task–the task of placing the gospel into people’s lives. In that, your duty is not to please your co-teacher, your pastor, or the children, but to please God with the way you fulfill His mission.
3. Have a humble character (vv 5-7)–Humble people do not seek their own glory, but seek to be praised by God for their faithfulness. Humble volunteers have children and their spiritual nurture as their number one priority.
4. Dedicated (vv. 8-9)–Paul understood that the Christian life was not lived in a vacuum and the act of evangelism was not isolated from relationship. Are Sunday mornings all you commit to or are you actively seeking to pour your life into these kids and families as part of your calling for ministry?

Scripture

2 Timothy 2:10 (English Standard Version)

¹⁰Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

Devotion

To start things off, call one person out of the room and assign them a task to do that would take them a minute or so to accomplish. You choose the task. It could be folding several shirts, sorting papers by color, or building a Lego structure. Whatever it is, it should require their concentration. Tell them that if they complete the task, you’ll give them a $5 gift card (so have a gift card ready). Have them wait outside while you tell the rest of the group their assignment. Assign the rest of the group the job of trying to distract the person from doing their job. Tell some to be very negative toward him. Have some noise making implements for others to use. Give a few more some feathers to tickle the person’s nose or ears. Be creative.

Obviously, the person will complete the task, but it will definitely be with some setbacks. Award the gift card (or prize) and ask a few questions:

1. What made it hard for him to complete the task?
2. How did you feel being one who was a distractor?
3. Why do you think he finally completed it?

Paul has some very good insight to the young pastor Timothy. Paul chose to be one who endured hardship for a greater purpose.

• Paul’s motivation to push on in ministry was the risen Christ (v. 8).
• Paul endured ALL things with this motivation. Christ is bigger than any distractions in our ministry.
• Paul knew that his endurance was beneficial to the “chosen” (those who would believe in Jesus)
• Paul endured with an eternal mindset

Children’s ministry can often bring great opportunities to endure. Kids can get rowdy, parents can get angry, and other volunteers can gossip and make life hard. Often people let all of those distractions get in the way of ministering to kids and at it’s base, that is selfish. God wants us to endure through those things based on the example of Jesus and for the glory of others knowing Christ.

So as volunteers embark on a new season of ministry, gearing up for the fall, they need a reminder that it’s not going to be a journey on a feather bed. There will be some distractions from Satan that push one to give up on enduring. It is at that point that remembering the endurance of Jesus and the potential for little one’s to know Him as Savior bolsters your calling and empowers your ministry. Be a Paul and endure!

Scripture

2 Corinthians 5:18-20 (English Standard Version)

¹⁸All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Devotion

This opening illustration can be used with odd or even numbers of people. Have pieces of construction paper ripped in half prior to the meeting. If you have an odd number of people, give everyone a half piece and another person a roll of tape. If you have an even number, give two people rolls of tape and the rest a ripped half of paper. Don’t give them any instructions, just tell them they need to figure out what to do next. Hopefully they will figure out that the tape people are supposed to help the torn pieces of paper be rejoined. The point is that the people with the tape had the tools of repair in their possession. II Corinthians 5 really harks on the fact that we are God’s agents of reconciliation between sinful man and God.

Our main task in children’s ministry is to be agents of reconciliation. Children who have not yet been saved are at odds with God. They need to be reconciled to Him. God made a way for that reconciliation to be accomplished through Jesus Christ. We also serve unsaved parents and siblings. They all need to be reconciled to God. II Corinthians 5:18-20 provides two insights about this reconciliation with which God calls us to help.

1. Every believer is given the ministry of reconciliation. The evangelist is a special called office (Ephesians 4:11-13), but the call to evangelize is a calling on all believers. Our teaching in children’s ministry, our relational development, our curriculum design, should be structured around this calling.
2. God equips us for this ministry by giving us the “word” of reconciliation. The word of reconciliation is very simple. It is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sin. Kids are reconciled when they place faith in Jesus’ ability to forgive them.

God does not need us, but God chooses to use us out of His grace. It is a privilege and honor to serve as His ambassadors. You are not in children’s ministry because you have some inherent gift that God was grateful to have you serve in His kingdom. You are in it because you are an ambassador, a servant of God that He uses to spread the word of reconciliation to many children and families. Take the role seriously and utilize the emotion of “pleading” that Paul encourages in verse 20 to lead kids and families to Christ.

Scripture

1 Corinthians 15:3-4 (English Standard Version)

³For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁴that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

Devotion

Have a bag of 3 normal objects (examples would be a pencil, watch, dollar bill). Get 3 volunteers to secretly see one of each of the objects. Their role is to describe that object to the rest of the group and get them to guess what it is as quickly as possible. They just can’t say the name of the object. Group members should be able to guess pretty quickly.

Explain that the gospel really needs to be this way. We don’t need to put some kind of cutsy explanation to it, we just need to be clear about what the gospel message is with kids.

Read the passage from I Corinthians and note a few things:

• Paul notes that the gospel message was of “first importance.” Our ministry should never get to the point where we lose sight of the fact that this message drives everything we do.
• The message focuses on the DBR–Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus as prophesied in the Scriptures. The message is simple and it includes those three vital components. Children need to understand that Jesus took their place in his death. They need to believe that Jesus was buried helping us to understand that he suffered death for sin so we don’t have to. Kids need to be taught the resurrection. Paul later says in chapter 15 that if Christ is not raised, your faith is worthless, you are still in your sins” (v. 17).
• When we leave out the resurrection in our gospel presentations, we leave the hearers with a dead Jesus. But that’s just half of the message. He is a risen Savior, proving that He has the authority to offer us new life in Him.

Since the gospel message is so simple, this is probably a good time to speak to some ways we communicate the response to the gospel that are not so simple. Let’s be very clear with abstract thinking children about how we lead them to salvation for fear that they misunderstand and don’t experience salvation in the first place.

• Ask Jesus into your heart–This one is not right on so many levels, yet it is probably the most popular way used to talk to children about salvation. If you would like to see an argument against this terminology from a practical and theological perspective, go here.
• Ask God to forgive you–Don’t forget the message. This one can easily leave out Jesus. I can get a kid to pray and ask God to forgive them without any effort. The problem is that they are simply asking for a favor and have not directed their faith toward the work of the cross and resurrection.
• Confess your sins–Many base a salvation response off of I John 1:9. The problem here is that I John was written to believers, and this verse speaks to confessing individual sins at the moment of commission so that your current fellowship with God can be restored. No unbeliever can actually confess ALL of their sins. They need to repent of their lack of faith and turn to Jesus in faith.
• Believe in God–James says that even the demons believe in God. Demons are monotheists. Simply being a monotheist leaves you no better than one of Satan’s minions! Again, don’t leave out Jesus!

Let’s allow I Corinthians 15 to be a great encouragement to the way we choose to share the gospel with kids. Make the presentation clear and to the point. Let’s be careful not to allow any hindrances to a child understanding and accepting the gospel!

Scripture

1 Timothy 4:16 (English Standard Version)

¹⁶Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Devotion

Paul gives young Timothy some incredible advice that applies to all those who desire to teach. He touches on two things that those who teach should pay close attention to:

1. Yourself

2. Your teaching

A teacher must first pay attention to her life as a disciple. If she does not, she will loose effectiveness as a teacher and her ability to portray herself as a role model. “Keeping a watch on yourself” can be aided by some diagnostic questions:

• How is my prayer life? Am I seeking God for things that are beyond my daily circumstances? Am I praying for those under my teaching?
• Do I study God’s Word regularly and allow myself to be transformed by it?
• Can I translate my own life transformation (molding to be like Jesus) into what I teach each week?
• How are my relationships? Is my heart in the right place, do Iview people as Jesus views them?
• Am I actively repenting and open to the conviction of sin in my life?

After a teacher is satisfied that the direction of their life is pleasing to the Lord, they can begin to focus on the nature of their teaching. Keep these points in mind:

• Teaching should be in depth and challenging.
• Teaching should focus on the needs of the students rather than how the teacher “likes” to teach.
• Doctrine should be double checked. Students should be challenged to go deeper than they already are.
• Test every statement you make by the question: “What does the Bible say about that?”

The second part of this verse provides the result of a teacher paying close attention to her life and teaching. That is, she ensures salvation for herself and those under her teaching. The word “save” here is the same Greek word often used for “eternal salvation” (sozo), but this word does not always speak to the terms of living forever in heaven because of forgiveness. In fact, theological salvation is a secondary meaning to that word. “Save” can sometimes mean to deliver, heal, or rescue.

This provides some great insight on the role of a teacher. When a teacher pays attention to themselves as a devoted follower of Jesus and then considers what they actually teach of paramount importance, they offer rescue, healing, and spiritual safety for themselves and for those under their teaching.

A similar metaphor is the role of a taxi driver in New York City. They must pay close attention to what they are doing and be concerned with their passengers. Not paying attention in New York can cause some serious damage. The taxi driver, in a sense, holds their own and your life in their hands. Teachers hold a piece of theirs and their student’s lives in their hands. This provides some great challenge to us as teachers as we seek to be godly in our living and effective in our teaching.

Congrats to:

1. Vanessa Small
2. Tammy Jones
3. Holly Von Apeldoorn
4. Philip Biles
5. Caleb Johnson