I'm so sorry it's been so long since I last blogged - it's been ridiculously busy here the last few weeks.
In my last blog, I talked about how I was going to be going through the whole "how to become a Christian" thing with the kids at Extreme. I'm really happy to say that because of this session (which I ended up running twice cos some kids missed out), there are now 4 kids who know exactly what it means to be a christian, and have decided they want to be one! And on top of that there are 5 other kids who prayed the prayer with them, so that they wouldn't feel weird. What an amazing feeling I had over those two nights. And with confidence that those children had made a well-informed decision to hand their lives over to Christ, I was able to hand them over to Phill to enrol as Extreme Soldiers. What an honour!
At Hillsong, I was involved in a Children's Ministry seminar, and the speaker at that seminar said that 85% of people who give their lives to Jesus are aged between 4-14. He also said that after the age of 20, there's only a 6% probability of becoming a Christian. Yet despite these figures, our children are lost to most churches because they don't tithe!
What a travesty! We spend most of our resources on trying to reach 6% of the adult population, when if we turned our resources to children, there is a probablility of reaching 85%!!!
I'm fortunate that our church has decided to pour its resources into the "little" because we value them and realize that investing in the "little" now, will reap BIG rewards in the future. Whilst the tithe my not be big, the impact will be huge.
As we enrolled our new Extreme Soldiers (all 10 of them, with another 3 yet to enrol), I looked across at them, with great pride, and with great hope. Amongst them were the future leadership team of our church. Amongst them were future teachers, doctors, lawyers, plumbers, administration clerks, mothers, fathers and leaders. Then I looked out to our congregation, and prayed, begged God not to let us adults fail these little ones. As I got up to preach, I felt compelled to share this urging with our church. So I reminded them that it's our responsibility as adults to believe in them, even when they don't believe in themselves. Not to look down on them because they are young. Not to tell them "you won't be able to do that", or "you're not very good at that, maybe you should do something else" but instead to cheer for them. To make a way for them to achieve their dreams. To pray fervently for them.
Over the past few weeks, as God continues to take me further and further out of my comfort zone, I've been having my eyes opened to the little ways in which we can make such a huge difference to a child.
One of my newest friends is Amelie. She's 2 years old, and one of the most gorgeous little cherubs I've ever met. When Amelie is around, it's hard not to smile. Amelie has taught me a great lesson. She's taught me that I speak a million words with one look. When she walks into the room, it matters to her that I smile, that I say hello, that I look at her when she's speaking to me, even when I don't understand what she's saying. I once saw an episode of Oprah and one of the guests said the most important thing to remember when raising children is to "let your eyes light up"... and Amelie has taught me the importance of that. When she's around, she causes my eyes to light up. And as I've taken that lesson into my new ministry, I've noticed the difference in my relationships with the children. You see it doesn't matter that we don't have our own space (yet!!!), it doesn't matter that our program is not whiz-bang brilliant (yet!!!), or that I'm not the most creative leader they'll ever meet - they don't need any of that. They need to see my eyes light up when they walk into the room. They need to see that I believe in them, care for them, love them.
So my newest lesson, is that the little - are big. And I have a big responsibility, to do the little things.
