by Melissa Ho

Six years is a long time. That is how long I have been serving in Fireflies. I started in 2012 as a regular staff member and have been a teacher/helper since 2013 till the present. Fireflies is the youngest of all the children’s ministries at Lighthouse Bible Church for little children ranging from newborn babies to toddlers who are 3 years of age…or until Sparklers is ready to receive them. Any given Sunday, eight ladies (teacher, helper, regular staff), provide not just “childcare” for over 40 kids in our ministry but so much more. You may be curious as to what goes on while you’re sitting in service, listening to the Sunday Morning sermon. No need to be worried; the screaming and crying you might hear when the music for praise fades does not take place all the time. Usually, two of our staffers will help with N1, which is our program for newborn babies until they are walking. The rest of us stay and serve in N2, which is for the children who are walking. The following is a taste of the fun, the tears, and the lessons that are experienced within our ministry. At the end, you will find some of my own personal reflections as well.

So we begin with drop off, which can be crazy. Therefore, in order to ease the flow of traffic during drop off, our parents are encouraged to sign their children into nursery prior to the start of worship. Some days, there may be crying and there may be extra reminders from our staff that we need to be patient and wait for mommy, that mommy will be back and that while mommy is not here, God is always with us.

Once the tears fade, we have the chance for a little bit of play time. Contrary to what you may think, play time is more than just having fun. While it’s fun to play with whatever we want, play time for kids at any age, typically lends itself to conflicts. When I hear “noooooo!,” or “someone took my toy,” or “they hit me,” or “that’s mine,” I find these to be teachable moments of how to peace-make even at this young age. These conflicts are great opportunities for our nursery kids to realize that life is not just about them, that sharing is non-negotiable, and that ultimately, we may not always make good choices but that we can always ask for forgiveness to make things right.

We continue with snack time, which is a time when, of course, the kids get to eat. Usually Goldfish crackers are the winner. However, during this time, we also intentionally use it to review our monthly Bible verse song and our rules. It works out for the best, since they are all busy eating and there’s not much else to do but to eat and listen. Each month there is a specific song with simple hand motions that we teach and sing with the kids. After singing, we review our rules. Our rules in nursery are: Listen the first time and be kind to one another. We then pray and “wash our hands” with some hand sanitizer before we eat our snack.

After snack and cleaning up, the kids go back to play time, and we usually take some of the kids to use the restroom. When all of our staff is back, we transition into our teaching time. The first reminder about teaching time is that toys do not get to join us at the table. They may, however, remain under our chairs while we learn. Our teaching time includes a lesson that is taught every Sunday for the whole month. While it sounds repetitive to re-learn the same lesson week after week, I have seen firsthand how beneficial it is, especially for kids at this age.

Recently, back in the month of April, I had the opportunity to be on staff as the teacher for three consecutive weeks. It’s not typical to be the teacher for nursery three weeks in a row, but it actually worked out because the consistency of being able to re-teach the same lesson and follow up with the kids allowed me the opportunity to share a mini-version of the gospel with them. April’s lesson is called “Jesus is Alive.” The lesson is about Christ’s death on the cross and his resurrection, which was the perfect basis for me to tell them why Jesus died. The simple reason being that we make mistakes, and we don’t always make good choices, meaning that we are not perfect and we need Jesus to save us from our sins. It’s amazing how these children are so young but how much they can understand as shown by their answers to questions during a lesson. Our lesson concludes with a coloring page along with a memory verse paper for the children to take home to their parents. If we are feeling ambitious, we get the chance to complete a craft (usually the last Sunday of the month). The rest of the time in nursery is spent with more time to play, clean up, and wait for mommy or daddy to pick us up.

As part of my full-time job being an early childhood special education preschool teacher, I am constantly dealing with discipline and behavior issues, both good and not so good, in my classroom every day. One thing that I’ve come to realize from witnessing the partnership between our nursery ministry and our parents is that this particular partnership rooted in the gospel is not a luxury I have in my own classroom. Discipline is necessary in any classroom and within our nursery class. It is reassuring that discipline issues are rarely taken lightly by our parents. If there are any issues that arise, we are able to partner with our parents by letting them know what the issue is and having them deal appropriately with the situation. I recently encountered a situation in which I had to inform parents of a discipline issue with their children. To be honest, I was very encouraged by the way these parents handled the situation and the fact that they genuinely sought to teach their children what obedience means, not just to their nursery teachers or mommy and daddy, but first and foremost to God.

Thank you to our past, present, and even future nursery parents, for allowing our staff to come alongside you as you strive to teach obedience to your children in accordance with the Bible. Thank you for trusting our ministry to teach your children. Last thing: for those of you who have a heart to serve the youngest of our church, and if what you have read about our ministry sounds like a challenge you would like to take on, please come join our staff! I promise we make it easy!