KIDS MIN FOR THE WIN

My experience with ministry. Here is a little preview of some of my memoir. Let me know what you think.

Every sunday I would wake up, drank my black coffee and started my day.

I walk into a room, kids and babies screaming and laughing. The sound of children having fun and that strong smell of nasty dirty diapers, but then a hint of freshner at the end. You can see the building blocks toppling down as the kid pushes the castle over, race cars going down the loops, and hungry hungry hippo balls all over the place.

Welcome to kids ministry, probably the coolest and most captivating place to be according to my 9 year old self. Walking around meeting parents and giving kids high fives are my favorite part. I mean gosh I was just a kid myself, still wondering, dreaming, and just growing up. Church was always fun and always made me feel like I was making a difference in someone's life. I remember waking up every sunday at 5:45 in the morning so tired, but so excited for the day to come. My day would start by having a mini heart attack from waking up from my alarm, then brush my teeth, do my hair, and put my outfit on. Then a man named Luke which was the pastor at the time would pick me up and always get me a coffee (sidenote : the coffee was straight black coffee) and he used to tell me “real men drink black coffee” and in my mind I thought I was drinking charcoal. I always loved coffee, I've drank coffee ever since I was 6, so I was used to it.

Once we got to church it was about 6:15 AM and I would have his huge chain of keys and open the door. It would be pitch black in the room. Some mornings you could see the sun coming up from a beautiful pink sky, with birds chirping and the world seeming to wake up, including me. This was the start to a tiring, but a super fun day. I was a leader for the kids ministry, I know I’m only 9 years old, but my parents always told me “Don't let people look down on you because you are young, but set example in the way you live, speak, and love.”, so that what I carried. Anyway when I got there, before people started to come, I ran to the VHQ which was where all the tags and equipment was and scurried back to the room in time for everyone that arrived. Kids started coming by the bundle it seemed and it got super overwhelming sometimes. Music blasting, games playing, and kids screaming was the tune of the day. Hula Hoop contests and four square contests would happen all the time, and whoever won would get a pixie stick. Let me just say pixies sticks were a HUGE deals. If you got one, you were the coolest guy or girl ever.

To fast forward, 20 minutes of hanging out and having a blast, techno and lights start to go crazy. The countdown to the start of service was always intense. It was full of crazy lights, jumping, laughing, and excitement that always rose up in everyone. I would always get chills when the beat dropped and everyone would go crazy from the vibration of the bass. Then once the countdown was done it would transition into worship. That would happen for about 10 minutes, than we would sit down and listen to a message. Believe it or not the messages were the best. They were not your typical messages that were boring and excruciating to sit through. We always had cool videos or puppet shows that portray a message or story we can learn from. One of favorite videos we saw was about David and Goliath. I would imagine myself in the time period of Bible times. How David killed Goliath with a slingshot with only one hit. You don't have to believe in it to imagine it, but just think David was so young and seen to be inadequate compared to Goliath. Goliath was a very experienced soldier and he was nine foot tall, like what?, while david was about six feet tall. David was just a young shepherd boy, while Goliath was an experienced soldier. Just to think a inexperienced shepherd boy took down a beast of a solider. It always amazed me to think that actually happened. Like its amazing to think that the potential we possess can make a huge impact. So you are probably wondering “Why is he ranting about this?” “What is the purpose?”. Well the reason is, as a nine to ten year old in ministry, I felt like David at times. Where despite people telling me I couldn't do certain things, I rose up against the opinions of people and always set myself apart. When I read about David, he experienced people looking down on him because he was young and inexperienced especially before he was going to kill Goliath. I related to him because in life what I learned is that there are going to be nine foot goliaths in our life, but how am I going to defeat that? The question I ask myself is “Am I going to let people's opinions define me or stand up and be set apart?”. There’s your encouraging thought for today.