Please Consider "Listening" to This Sermon

On behalf of the elders, I would like to invite you to consider volunteering to serve in children’s ministry this fall, particularly for Children’s Church - the time when kids up to third grade step out for separate instruction during the sermon. 

“What? And miss the sermon?! I’m not a ‘kid person’. I’ve been there and done that, when I had kids.”

I’ve heard these and other objections to serving in this way, in this time slot. And I understand them; they’re all legitimate in some way. But allow me to briefly offer some points that perhaps you’ve not considered. 

If you miss the sermon, you will miss the piece for which you are most drawn to our church, no? That is, understandably so, just a few degrees off from “true north”. The reason each of us should come to church is to “behold God”, to “see Jesus”. And yes, that often happens most clearly in the sermon. 

But what if I told you that the most consistent place we “see Jesus” is when we are serving children? I won’t say that; Jesus did:

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them 

[At this point, I imagine Jesus just stopping, and waiting a moment, letting everyone just look at this helpless, unimportant, probably afraid, dependent child.]

and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

God designed us to grow up, and have extended periods of dependent, humble childhood, to give humanity a living picture of what kingdom citizenship, and kingdom greatness, looks like. And in children we see a living picture of Jesus, who himself was “gentle and lowly of heart”. Those who serve in Children’s Church are not missing a sermon. They get a vivid one, if they have eyes to see it. 

We’re not looking for “kid people” for this ministry, but “Jesus people”, who want to see him, and also to serve him, by talking about him, to children like themselves. “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” 

If you have questions or would like to respond, contact Kristin Kiehn, our Children’s Ministry Director (801-879-7409, kristin@slcevfree.org), or Bob Hill, one of our elders (801-989-4361, bobhill3201948@gmail.com).