CONFERENCE EVENTS

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PRAYER FOR YOUR CHURCH

Growth through evangelism

Lord, I lift up our church growth to You. Add to our number daily through new converts. Birth spiritual children through us. Let our actions win people over without words. Use us as Your agents to rescue people from darkness and bring them into Your Son’s kingdom. We long to be worthy ambassadors in this ministry You have entrusted to us: that of proclaiming Your message of reconciliation to a lost world. (Acts 2:47; 1 Cor. 4:15; 1 Pet. 3:1-2; Col. 1:13; 2 Cor. 5:20)
 
Home arrow July 2007 arrow A Little Child Shall Lead Them
A Little Child Shall Lead Them PDF Print E-mail
By Brad Jersak

Jesus once said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me” (Mt. 18:3–5, NKJV).
What if Jesus meant these words? And if He did mean them, how should we respond? If we really believed these verses, perhaps we’d be slower to dismiss children to the church basement when it’s time to “get serious with God.” I do wonder whether we see the irony of shuffling the children away after we’ve just sung, “Let your glory fall in this room.” It seems to me that the glory of God is abundantly manifest in their little faces; the sounds of the kingdom in their simple prayers. We ought not to treat the children of the King like extra kitchenware in need of cupboard space.

While specific children’s programming is wonderful, we’d best beware of marginalizing the presence of God along with the children. Rather, let us take Jesus’ admonition as a sincere invitation to make space for these little ones to minister. I’m excited to say that I see this happening more and more across the Body of Christ.

While pastoring in Alberta, my friends Tim and Sara Warriner noted that most of the life and worship in their church was expressed through the children. The question was raised, “Then why do we send them downstairs while the adults sit on their hands in the nice room?” They chose to flip this arrangement, letting the children take over the sanctuary until the adults were ready to ascend to the place where they could be led into
kingdom life. They took Jesus seriously, saying, “If we can’t hear Him in the children, will we hear Him at all?”

The more we acknowledge this truth, the thinner the veil between our realm and the heavenly dimension becomes. I am reminded of one little prayer warrior named Allison.
I attend Fresh Wind Christian Fellowship, where I enjoy receiving prayer each week at the communion stations in our church. Some of my favorite meetings at the Lord’s Table are with little Allison, a precious girl whose parents adopted her into their wonderful family. When she was not yet three years old, she was already serving communion with her mom. She would come to me and say, “You need prayer. I want to pray for you. I want to put oil on you.” I would kneel in front of her at the table (or wherever she tracked me down) and she would smear anointing oil on my forehead then lay her little fingers there and pray. I would get blessed significantly every single time. The last time she prayed for me, a migraine I was suffering for several days disappeared in the space of about one minute.

This type of story is not all that surprising given that God responds to faith-filled prayers and that Jesus illustrated such faith using children. The real test is whether we as adults can surrender enough of our time, control and tidiness to risk allowing God’s glory to be revealed through the little ones.

In our fellowship, the children and the childlike have led us on a path to healed hearts and healed bodies. Allison’s prayer ministry seemed to open a door for other children to use their gifts in the context of regular family worship. For example, little Erin prays and listens to God each week for what type of service He has planned. Then, she makes a point of sharing with us, whether through words or pictures or psalm-writing, what God says to her about that. She might report before the service, “Today is going to be a change-day” or “a fun-day” or “a rest-day.” The key is in not shrugging off this little girl’s revelations as if she was only in tune with some sort of “Junior Holy Spirit.” No! The same Spirit that rested on Deborah and Elijah and David and Christ Himself lives in her.

Not only have Erin’s prayer-thoughts been confirmed repeatedly, sometimes our church would not have entered what God had for us if we hadn’t taken a step of faith in the direction in which He had pointed through her.

Not that we are taking the prayers and works of the children seriously, other children are stepping forward—with a song to sing, with a dream to share, with a prayer to pray, or a story to tell—Nadine, a seven-year-old, just joined our regular preaching rotation. The great task in all of this is NOT to squeeze the children into miniature adult moulds. Rather, it is the adults, so prone to stiffening into “old wine skins,” who must learn to pray and serve like children, just as we are and without pretence. It is then and there that we see God’s kingdom come, His will done on earth as it is in heaven.

children_can_you_hear_me.jpgBrad Jersak pastors Fresh Wind Christian Fellowship in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He is the author of a number of books on “Listening Prayer,” including Can You Hear Me and a children’s book entitled, Children Can You Hear Me? (both are available from www.prayershop.org ).
 
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