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Table of Contents
Preparing For A Spirit-Filled Children’s Ministry
By Billy Burns
The Pentecostal movement’s future leadership is now sitting in our children’s ministry. It is imperative that our children learn to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s presence.
As a child growing up in a small South Texas Assemblies of God church, I witnessed the early days of children’s ministry. In those days, children’s pastors and Christian education directors were nonexistent. The ministry methods were primitive by today’s standards. Puppets often had a missing eye or a mouth that wouldn’t open. Bible stories were told using small pictures recycled from outdated Sunday school curriculum. Who can forget the children’s church booster band with maracas, bongo drums, triangles, and tambourines (with most of the metal pieces missing)?
During my 21 years of full-time children’s ministry, I’ve witnessed an evolution that has catapulted many of today’s children’s ministries into a high-tech, multimedia extravaganza. In some churches, the children enter a theme-park environment each Sunday. Today’s children’s pastors and Christian education directors are striving to reach today’s child with today’s methods.
In an age where children’s leaders feel driven to produce high-energy, sophisticated productions each week, it is important for us to evaluate the effectiveness of our ministries. Are we impacting a generation of children with a Holy Spirit-given, heartfelt message, or are we just tickling the five physical senses? If we are honest, some reading this article will admit that their desire to draw big crowds and have great programs has replaced their desire to allow the Holy Spirit to be in total control of their services.
After being a children’s evangelist for 10 years, and then becoming a children’s pastor in 1989, I thought I had all of the answers. I could produce a good, fresh service each week. I changed our children’s church name to Pneuma (the Greek word for Spirit) Force to reflect a new image. Things were going great until the day I had a heavenly interruption.
While I was driving back from a conference, the Holy Spirit spoke words that changed my life and ministry: "Change your actions or change your name." What was He referring to? My first reaction was to challenge Him. After all, I had been in this ministry for 15 years. People were coming to observe and study our ministry. Was He talking to the right person? Then the Holy Spirit crystallized His instructions: "If you call yourself a Pneuma or Spirit-Force church, then the Spirit has to be in control." The Spirit was telling me to back up our name with the proof of His presence. I began to make major changes in my life and ministry to facilitate the Holy Spirit’s work.
HOLY SPIRIT-EMPOWERED MINISTRY
The above story doesn’t apply only to my ministry. Many Pentecostal children’s ministries are Pentecostal in name only. Occasionally, the Holy Spirit is allowed to move if time permits. If your church is a part of a Holy Spirit movement, then there should be a movement of the Holy Spirit. It isn’t an "adults only" concept. Acts 2:33 tells us that the Holy Spirit has something He wants to do and say every time we come together. Like the apostle Paul, we should anticipate and prepare for a "demonstration of the Spirit and of power" (1 Corinthians 2:4, KJV). Many children’s leaders have settled for good services with good lessons when God is calling them to allow His Spirit to have freedom to move as He desires. We can no longer settle for just being good. We must strive for a move of the Holy Spirit.
We need to desire a children’s ministry where the Holy Spirit moves freely because:
1. It is biblical.
God’s Word promises that the Holy Spirit will move on our children.
- "This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy’ " (Acts 2:16—18*).
- "Peter replied,…‘And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off’" (Acts 2:38,39).
God wants to make this a reality, not just a promise.
2. It is historical.
What God has done before He can do again. Here are examples of the Holy Spirit touching and flowing through children.
- Cane Ridge Revival, Kentucky, 1801. "Little children, too, were brought visibly into the kingdom of God, like the 7-year-old girl, sitting on her father’s shoulder, who exhorted the crowd for a time and then slumped down in weariness."1
- Maria Woodworth-Etter, St. Louis, Missouri, 1890. "One day, a helpless little girl was brought to me. She could neither talk nor walk. After I prayed for her, I told some of the folks to take her out and let her try to walk…. After a while, they brought her back. She was walking and talking, but they couldn’t understand a word that she said. Praise the Lord. She had the use of her whole body; she was walking and talking in a strange language or tongue. She was filled with the Spirit and was bold as a lion. I stood her on the platform, and she began to walk about and preach. With hands uplifted...she preached to the astonished multitude, showing what great things the Lord had done for her."2
- Welsh Revival, Evan Roberts, 1904. "While this was a revival of youth, children were so taken up with the things of God that they held their own meetings in homes, barns, yards; many from about the age of 10 would exhort, sing and pray with great power. Many young children took part in public meetings as well."3 "Children began to pray and sing for hours."4
- John G. Lake. "I was sitting one day in the home of the DeValeras in Krugersdorp, South Africa, when a man arrived who had...been following me from place to place, trying to catch up with me. He...had developed a large cancer. He came into the house and...in a little while a 6-year-old child who had been sitting near me went across the room, climbed on the man’s knees, put her hands on his face, and prayed. I saw the cancer wither. In half an hour, the thing had disappeared."5
3. It is essential.
The Pentecostal movement’s future leadership is now sitting in our children’s ministry. It is imperative that our children learn to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s presence and know how to flow with Him. It is critical that they be allowed to see and hear Him work in their services. During these foundational years, it is our responsibility to create an atmosphere where children echo the psalmist David’s words, "I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory" (Psalm 63:2). This ensures that future generations will desire to flow with the Holy Spirit.
How can the typical children’s ministry change into a Spirit-filled children’s ministry? It is not a matter of what you know as much as who you know. No curriculum or Spirit-in-a-box methodology will produce a Spirit-filled children’s ministry. No conference will produce this type of ministry. It comes from what I call the "know and glow" principle. After Moses had been alone with God, his countenance was changed. After spending time on our faces in His presence, we won’t be able to contain His glorious presence.
I readily admit that I don’t have all of the answers. While I acknowledge that our children’s ministry isn’t where I want it to be, I’m thankful that it is not where it used to be. We are changing, one child at a time, into a Pneuma-Force church that allows the Holy Spirit to flow freely. Children are learning how to go after God in their worship and how to allow the Holy Spirit to flow through them during times of prayer. While I strive each service to have excellent ministry techniques and methods, I continue to strive to be sensitive to His leadership. All preservice plans and curriculum are subject to His promptings. We want to see demonstrations of the Spirit and of power and be a Pneuma-Force church in name and action.
*Scripture references are from the New International Version, unless otherwise noted.
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Billy Burns is children’s pastor, Trinity Church International, Lake Worth, Florida. |
ENDNOTES
1. Bernard A. Weisberger, They Gathered at the River (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1958), 33.
2. Wayne E. Warner, Revival! (Tulsa: Harrison House, Inc., 1978), 55,56.
3. Mary Stewart Relfe, Cure of All Ills (Montgomery: League of Prayer, 1988), 86.
4. Wesley Duewel, Revival Fire (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995), 165.
5. John G. Lake, Adventures in God (Tulsa: Harrison House, Inc., 1981), 15,16.
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