One of the ministries that the Lord has blessed me with is a children's teaching ministry in the Sunday evening service. The pastor and I decided to reach out to local kids who come from a low-income area (not that we limit it to that area alone, but it is a central focus). These kids often come from families who could not care less about church, so those parents don't do much to see that their kids get to church nor do they encourage them to be ready in the morning for the church bus/van. So we figured that we'd start a special program, a little out of the box, where we'd pick them up for only the evening service (though they may also ride at any other time to a service, they rarely elect to do so because the won't get out of bed in time), and that portion of the evening service tailored to them would incorporate some non-traditional IFB teaching models like puppets, video, skits, object lessons, and a variety of other methods. We'd throw in ample game time that went along with the lesson theme, along with fun music and so forth.
One of those little boys sort of took a shine to ALAYBOY and they began to hang together at church, and shortly after he asked to come to a morning service, so we gladly obliged. That morning we had a couple of adult baptisms. He sat and watched along side ALAYBOY and when those being baptized came up out of the water ALAYBOY's little friend asked what was going on. ALAYBOY began to explain to him that baptism was a step of obedience to show the people what had happened inside them and the boy asked what it meant to be saved. ALAYBOY brought him to me right after the service and said "Hayden wants to be saved"! I asked him if he knew who Jean Calvin was and if He was willing to read John Macarthur's notes on Lordship salvation. Gotcha.
No, I was privileged to lead that little boy to the Lord. That's shoutin' material folks! As soon as he got saved he wanted to attend all the services, and became faithful for several months.
I was so excited, because one of my main goals in starting this ministry was not just to reach children who would otherwise not ever come to church, but to reach their moms and dads. I happened to have a tentative inroad to this little boy's family anyway as it turned out, because unbeknownst to me his mom had been friends with my niece growing up. I began to pray and occasionally invite her to church. Then out of the blue one day he stopped coming for a couple of weeks. I finally got ahold of him on visitation one day, only to hear his mother say he wasn't coming anymore. :'( I asked if we had done something wrong and she claimed nothing was wrong, but wouldn't say why he wasn't coming anymore. I left it alone. I've done various children's outreach for over 15 years now, and learned long ago not to let the highs get me too emotional, and not let the lows bum me out too much, but this one hurt. I figured I'd lay low and pray that eventually I'd get to talk to the mom and see what happened.
Fast forward about a month to this past Sunday. We were having a Thanksgiving dinner after the service so we usually get a few folk who aren't usually there, and this year was no different. But among those who was back this Sunday was little Hayden. I had the privilege to sit with him at the Thanksgiving feast. We talked about fishing. He loves to fish. We talked about the food and lots of other stuff, then took him home and told him how thankful that he came back to church. A real Thanksgiving blessing.
Here's where the good part comes in. After investing time, money, work, and prayer into that ministry, to have one of those "fruits" taken from me hurt, and I really wanted to figure out how to get him back. While I had been thinking of how to accomplish that, there was one of our sweet elderly sister in the Lord in the background visiting some of those kids who were still coming. She was going to take them to a little craft place to color and do some of that kind of stuff that I would have never thought about doing, on a Friday evening. She went to pick some of them up, and there was Hayden. He asked what they were doing, and the next thing ya know he was on his way with those kids to have some fun. She began to talk to him, telling him he was missed, and gently inviting him back to church. Another saint, unbeknownst to this sister, had also recently loved on the little boy and said we'd love to have him back. Those folks were doing ministry, sowing seed, investing in the next generation.
God uses us folk, and He don't have to do things like we would, nor on our time table, but it sure is good to see Him work, in our lives, as well as others, amen.
