A Bold Case for Joining the Children’s Ministry Team!
#Rescue2014
“God gloriously and graciously saved me from drug addiction, alcohol, adultery…at age six years old!”
I was shocked, TOO, when I read that line! As evangelicals, we seem to have become “addicted” to testimonies of rescuing grace that require incredible levels of depraved behavior so as to make more glorious the power of grace. We LOVE to celebrate the turn-around narratives of super-stars, big names, very public offenders. And, just to be clear, God ALSO delights in those! After-all, it was the Spirit who inspired the recording of the salvation of treasonous Levi/Matthew the Tax Collector, and the foot-washing with tears of the immoral woman, or the “go your way and sin no more” declaration of the lady exposed in her adultery. And who would not rejoice at the radical transformation of the neighbor lady who had failed five times in marriage and gave up on that institution finally, settling instead for a co-habitation relationship, only to find the one thing missing in her soul when she found Him who is the source of Living Water!
Yes, God delights in telling the stories of radical rescue! But there is an even GREATER story of rescue to be told. I distinctly recall a Youth For Christ speaker in the years of my teens declaring, “It takes immeasurable grace from God to save a sinner from the depths of their sin, but it calls out for an even GREATER grace to prevent a life from falling INTO such depths of sin!”
To Pastor Timothy his spiritual father wrote, “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus”—2 Timothy 3
Timothy could rightfully say, “God gloriously and graciously saved me from drug addiction, alcohol, adultery…at age six years old!”
That’s what I call a “BOLD case for joining the Faith Children’s Ministry Team!”
See you Sunday, Church!
Pastor Tom