by Stephanie Chung

Fireflies, the nursery ministry of LBCSD, has one of the largest staffs of any of the children’s ministries, or ministries in general at the church. While this is in no small part due to the sheer number of children the Lord blesses our church with, it is also because of the hearts of the members to love, teach, and disciple our littlest ones. And every week I serve, I get to witness exactly that.

I joined the Fireflies staff about 6-7 years ago while I was in college. I was interested in the ministry because I wanted to serve in an official ministry and I enjoyed working with kids – teaching them God’s Word, shepherding their hearts. I was trying to choose between joining Fireflies or Sparklers, and Carol, our ministry coordinator, got to me first. So here I am.

A few years later, I joined the teaching staff. As an aspiring teacher, I believed I would be a good fit for the ministry. I thought the transition from classroom instruction to teaching nursery lessons would be an easy one; I thought I had the merits needed to be an engaging and effective teacher; I believed myself to possess the necessary qualities to be able to do this well. While these things weren’t untrue, I quickly realized my mistake of depending too much on my own strength to accomplish something only the Lord can do.

Since then, I’ve learned and experienced that teaching the Fireflies is so much more than trying to calm a screaming baby or changing a few smelly diapers, and more than managing a roomful of children with the many different ways they disobey or get into conflicts, and even more than telling a Bible Story in a way that just keeps the children’s interest and then producing a craft to have something to show for the day. Rather, the call of being on staff is an act of worship and glorifying God, through the teaching of His Word in order to make disciples.

One of the main priorities of the ministry is to teach God’s truth, and that comes with the weighty responsibility to handle it accurately (2 Timothy 2:15). Every lesson teaches the children about the God of the Bible – his sovereignty, his goodness, his love. This requires studying and meditating on the passage of scripture from which the lesson is found. The children learn to love God’s word as they learn and memorize scripture through songs and hand-motions, as well as to contemplate the characters and events of the Old and New Testaments. Often, the lessons that we teach about God and his attributes are good and timely reminders for the staff and me as well, and my own love for God and his Word is deepened.

Through the teaching of God’s Word, the staff and I are intentionally carrying out the MVP, particularly the M – to make disciples of Christ (Matthew 28:18-20). We teach a Bible lesson on an attribute of God and appeal to the children to make choices and live lives according to the Lord’s will. Sometimes, the lessons learned aren’t even during the formal lesson time. By interacting with the staff and other children, they are learning to listen and obey the first time, to be kind to others, make wise choices, to share, to be peacemakers.

Serving in nursery is an extension of our worship to the Lord. It is one of the ways we get to glorify God on Sunday morning. We are speaking truth each week, and yes, even starting at this early age because we do not presume on what the Lord can or cannot use to fulfill his kingdom’s work. We are simply called to be the faithful servants to carry out this mission. We plant the seeds of the gospel so that one day, when they can understand the weight of the Lord’s message, the soil will be ready to receive it. This is our prayer and this is our hope. We do this, not because we have the power to save or only because we are called to, but out of love for the Lord and His precious little ones. And we trust that the Lord will work mightily through us in the hearts of the children and accomplish his will.