Over the past five decades I have worked in all manners of ministry. I have worked with children, teenagers, and adults. As a Hospice Chaplain I worked with the dying and the grieving. I taught adult Sunday school, mid-week services and women’s groups. I have been an associate and a senior pastor.
I guess I could just say I have seen and done most of church ministry. If someone were to ask me what I enjoyed most, I would have to think about it. If someone were to ask me what I consider the most important work in the church, I would not have any problem sharing my opinion.
I woke up this morning thinking about someone who died many years ago. Someone who left an imprint on the lives of so many. She died far too young, but what she did while she was with us still resonates.
Her name was Pam. She was the head of Children’s Church in our church in California. She loved the LORD. And each Sunday Pam and her husband shared that love with a room full of kids while the adults had Sunday service in the big church. My kids were part of that group.
Many (if not most) of the children who were part of that children’s church are serving the LORD today. I credit Pam and her love for God and for His smallest ones.
The most important work in any church (in my opinion) does not happen in the main sanctuary, it happens in the children’s rooms. It happens in a ministry that is often overlooked. But teaching and loving God’s littlest ones can change the course of a life for all eternity.
Proverbs 22:6: “Teach a youth about the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
