a guest post by Larry Hillman
Years ago I was asked to minister to the children for one night at the camp meeting services of a major denomination. The adults were meeting in a new 5,000 seat building while the children were meeting in a small church that seated between 125 and 150 adults. I had over 200 children sitting on old wooden pews with not padding. My helpers, used very loosely, were pastors attending the week long camp meeting who were unlucky enough to land on the children’s committee.
I knew it was going to be a challenging evening when the building was packed before service time and all the, “helpers” were visiting in the back corner of the room. I had no idea how challenging.
As the meeting progressed I had children climbing over pews, under pews and running across the aisle to other pews. I addressed the rules several times and refocused the children’s attention several times but the noise and commotion continued.
During a scripture scramble game the yelling became so bad that I had to stop the game. Once during a song I looked for my, “helpers” to point out some behavior that they needed to address and realized that I had no helpers. So while the song leader lead the children in a song, I walked out the front door of the church and found all my helpers standing outside visiting. I asked them to please come back inside and help. They came back inside but did little to help.
I had been ministering to large groups of children for several years, I had graduated college and taught school and thought I knew how to handle any situation, but this one had gotten the better of me.
I was told not to dismiss the children before 9pm, but I had all I could take and began wrapping things up at 8:40 I always end my services with an invitation to accept Jesus as savior. I asked the children to repeat a salvation prayer after me. This night as I spoke the words and the children followed, in my head I thought, I just want to say the “amen” to this prayer and get out of here. As I did, I heard the Holy Spirit whisper to me, “Someone just asked Jesus into their heart.”
My immediate response was, “How? How in the middle of all this chaos could someone ask Jesus into their heart?”
The answer was simple, I did my job. God did His.
From that day to this I have always remembered that no matter how bad things get, how unorganized things are or when things seem to all fall apart, I just need to do my job and God will always do His.
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Larry Hillman has always had a heart for reaching out and helping children. His career has spanned from school teacher to children’s pastor to national children’s camp speaker to author of children’s and leadership books. His encouraging words and unique way of approaching children’s ministry is a must read for every Kidmin worker and leader.
Catch up with Larry via his Facebook page & website!
Wonderful story Larry! Thank you!
Thanks for the reminder that even when we have “those” kind of weekends (and we all do sometimes) God is still more than able to work in and through us.