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23 February 2012
I was only 19 years old when I started preaching to children. I got my start in the 3, 4 & 5 year old class at Faith Christian Fellowship in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The church had experienced rapid growth. We had eighty kids in the preschool class and only 40 chairs. I walked in the classroom and fear struck my heart.
Jeanne, the lead teacher, recognized my apprehension and asked, “Do you want to you just watch this week?”
“Okay,” I said, as I nodded my head in agreement.
After observing the first week Jeanne gave me some homework for my
second week.
“I’d like you to take this filmstrip and to rewrite the story. I like the art, but the story can be told better.”
This was 1978, before Mp-4s, DVD’s, and VHS.We used these things called filmstrip projectors where you put a roll of film in the projector and manually turned the knob when the record player went beep.
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19 February 2012
It has been said that “success is a journey, not a destination,” so I thought I would share with you my ministry journey and the lessons I’ve learned along the way.
I remember the first time I met a children’s pastor. It was October of 1978. I was attending my second year of Bible College at Rhema Bible Training Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. One of my classes was entitled, “Ministering to Children” and was taught by Willie George, a children’s pastor at a local church in Tulsa.
Today, Pastor Willie George is Senior Pastor at Church On The Move – one of the largest churches in the country, but in 1978 I didn’t know who Willie George was.
Even though I had no desire to minister to kids, this became my favorite class and I looked forward to it every day. I still have my handwritten notes from that class. One of the things that I never forgot was this statement, “God calls people to children’s ministry.” I didn’t know that God could anoint people to minister to children. I saw children’s ministry as babysitting – taking care of the kids so parents could receive ministry.
Pastor Willie changed all that for me as he began to teach on the ministry of a children’s pastor. Many churches had youth pastors, but I had never heard of the concept of “children’s pastor” before. God used Pastor Willie to pioneer the ministry of the “children’s pastor.” He wasn’t the first guy to think of the concept; however, there is no doubt that God used him to spearhead the calling of the “children’s pastor” and to bring it to the forefront in the body of Christ.
I’m not sure at what point I felt called to be a children’s pastor. I just knew that I needed to learn everything I could from this man – Willie George.
One day after class I approached Pastor Willie and said, “I’d like to get involved with your children’s ministry.”
