by Mike Hasegawa
This may sound a bit strange, but my service in the preschool ministry traces back to Rick Holland’s DTR series. “What!?” you might say. Well, read on.
Like many college students, it took me a while to stop “church hopping” and commit to a local church. For me, this was during my sophomore year at UCSD. At the time, I had been listening to Rick Holland’s dating series. These sermons were helpful in learning who God wanted me to be, and the kind of woman I should be looking for. But more than thinking I was ready to date, the Holy Spirit convicted me that I needed to develop relationships with older “Pauls” in the faith who would challenge me with the truth, and younger “Timothys” that I could encourage to better follow Christ.
At the time I was going to a church in El Cajon, but it was difficult to cultivate these discipleship relationships since I didn’t have a car. Given this newfound conviction, I began asking friends where they were going to church. One of them, Tia Han (former LBC member), had nothing but good things to say about Lighthouse so I decided to give it a try.
I was hooked after just one service. On that Sunday, before Pastor Patrick gave the offering prayer he said, “Here at Lighthouse, all the other parts of our worship service such as praise-time or meet-and-greet have a set time (e.g. 15 minutes). But the main part of our worship service is the preaching of God’s Word. So we don’t really have a time limit on that; we just let Pastor John go!”
On a side note, not much has changed since then.
Besides the solid preaching, the main reason I settled on Lighthouse was due to the opportunities I had to get to know the older, godly men at church. I am thankful that God gives both the desire to learn, and to serve Him by ministering to others.
The preschool ministry is the first ministry that God allowed me to be a part of. Although I still enjoy being challenged by the older men at church, I am thankful that God has allowed me to invest in the next generation by teaching them about our awesome God and His glorious gospel.
The preschool ministry exists for two main reasons. The first is that God has called parents and the church to pass on the greatness of God to the next generation (Ps. 78:4-7). The preschool staff seeks to accomplish this by making every lesson about the person of God, and the gospel. We are using the Children Desiring God curriculum which is great because it covers the entire OT and NT. The second is that the preschool ministry exists as a help to the preschool parents. By teaching from God’s Word, we seek to give the parents more opportunities to discuss God’s Word with their children during the week.
The preschool staff hopes to help the children develop a good foundational understanding of God, the gospel, and their sinfulness so that one day, God-willing, they will be able to turn to Him to be saved.
If you ever walk down the hall and hear screaming and laughter, please make sure to poke in your head and say, “Hi!” to these precious members of our church!
Editor’s Note: To find the (in)famous “Rick Holland’s DTR Series” (complete with commentary on “sturdy Czech women” which caused drama with my fiancee!), please click here and then type “relationship series” (without the quotes) into the search box.