by Ryan McAdams

Having spent the better part of the last three years in lessons upon the Old Testament, our curriculum will bring us to the incarnation of Jesus Christ at the start of April. Some may wonder why we spent so long outside of the New Testament, and I will certainly grant that our journey took a bit longer than we expected. But even so, it felt like we had to rush through certain books and skipped most of the prophets. In spite of all of that, I hope that our children have gained at least a small understanding of God’s hand throughout the entirety of history.

For myself, I grew up in the church and heard all about Moses, David, Daniel, etc. – the main Bible characters. I prided myself on my Bible page-turning speed and mastery of Biblical trivia (I didn’t learn the definition of trivia until later). But, I missed the forest for the trees, and had no sense of the unifying story of God’s redemption of man underlying all of the stories I knew. Now, not everything we do in our children’s ministry stems from experiences from my childhood, but these experiences do provide concrete examples of dangers to avoid.

In our not-so-brief jaunt, we started with God’s creation and how He saw that it was very good. And that since the day that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, humankind has spiraled further and further away from God and God’s perfect creation has suffered, and yet God promised a victor over the serpent. We came to Abraham and saw God’s promise to bless all nations through him and how God counts faith as righteousness, and through the son that God promised, God raised the nation of Israel. We read God’s covenant with the people of Israel, and that He would treasure them above all other nations if they obeyed His covenant. And we spent time reading through that covenant, seeing how God has chosen to set apart His people to himself, but then seeing that after the initial conquest of the Promised Land, the people quickly turned from the Law to their own ways, and the resultant suffering and oppression. We learned how after His people rejected Him as their king, God selected David as His king and promised to establish David’s kingdom forever, but that immediately the kings following David turned away from God to other gods and to their own might, resulting in a kingdom split and eventual destruction and exile from the Promised Land. Even still, God promised and executed a return for the exiles and never revoked the covenants He made. In fact, God continued to offer hope to the remnant of His people.

Taking the brief overview, most of us can observe the cycles of sin and corruption along with God’s grace and orchestration of the events of history. But lesson by lesson, we had to try to both learn from the lesson itself and also tie it back to this larger picture. If the children were tracking with the lessons and had engaged themselves in the story, they would have experienced brief moments of hope followed by crushing disappointment. And, if we ended our lessons with the end of the Old Testament, the children would find themselves in the same state of despair as the first-century BC Jews.

But, we have the New Testament, and we know what God did. God sent Jesus, His son, to take the sins of the world, to bless all nations, to sit on David’s throne forever, and to crush sin and death once and for all!

The Old Testament gives us greater depth and appreciation for all that Jesus Christ accomplished with His death and life. If we want to teach the kids the Gospel well, the Old Testament introduces and prepares us for the good news that comes as a result of the true main character of the Bible, the redeemer, the King, the God-man, Christ Jesus, the Lord.

So, we’re looking forward to our curriculum’s foray into the New Testament and hope that the lessons and unifying themes from the Old Testament can help our children to understand God’s redemptive plan and Jesus’s mission on Earth in a fuller way.

by Henry Shieh

I remember telling my small group leader years ago that teaching was not something God has gifted me with and I did not intend to seek it. But now, I have been a teacher for the LBCSD Sparklers ministry for the past two years and I truly love this ministry. Some of the things I love to do in Sparklers ministry are preparing / teaching lessons, playing with the kids, and seeing them excited that their parents have come back to get them.

Somethings that God has been teaching me through this ministry are how to:

• Make Disciples of Christ: I have the opportunity to come alongside their parents and teach them about God’s word and what it means to be a follower of Christ which includes encouraging and teaching them to make “wise-way” choices instead of “my-way choices.” It’s fun making disciples of Christ when you get to have fun with them through games and fun lessons. However, there is a responsibility for me to teach them about what sin is and that it leads to death. One of my first lessons taught was on Numbers 11 in which God sent fire down on the Israelites for grumbling against God. This was a difficult lesson to teach to three to five year-olds because of their limited understanding, but it is a necessary lesson to teach because the understanding of God’s call for us to be holy is such an important part of understanding our depravity and the need for Jesus’ sacrifice.
• Love God and People: I have the opportunity to actively love God in studying His word and breaking it down in a way that three year-olds can understand it. I have opportunity to show love to the parents at church who have children in this ministry through telling them how their child was during their class. I have the opportunity to love the children when I get to laugh with them and comfort (or distract) them when they cry. I have the opportunity to show God’s love when I have to take them aside for disobeying and talk to them about their choice to obey or disobey God.
• Hope in God through Prayer: Praying for my Sparklers has been one of my greatest joys as a teacher. We started praying for two Sparklers each Sunday based on prayer requests their parents have communicated to us (thanks Grace!). Some of these prayers I am able to see answered just by interacting with Sparklers once every couple of weeks. It’s been humbling and exciting to see God’s work at hand.

I’m truly thankful to be part of the Sparklers ministry because of the constant reminder of what it means to have childlike faith. I hope to be part of it for many years to come as long God allows me to stay in San Diego.

by Ryan McAdams

We generally discourage focusing a person on the ways in which a particular situation can benefit him or herself, but for a Christian, the greatest good is conformity to Christ and the praise and glorification of God. So, the true benefits of the service in the Sonlight (Sunday morning with the church’s K-through-5 children) ministry will necessarily result in edification of others and praise to our God.

I don’t intend for this list to serve as a recruiting tool for our particular ministry, but serving as part of the staff for the Sonight ministry confers many benefits upon the servant. Other ministries may share some or even most of these advantages, and this list will not exhaust the set of possible benefits for this ministry. Nonetheless, Sonlight is a wonderful ministry of our church. In no particular order, serving in the Sonlight ministry benefits you because:

• You learn to develop relationships with those whom you have little to nothing in common. Among the staff members, we share Christ in our lives, which gives us immense commonality even with no other similarities. We’ll cover it more in a subsequent point, but for most of the children, we do not have that essential unity. On top of that, most of us on the staff would have no clue about the latest toys or crafts or activities which occupy the children’s minds, and for many of us, we only have a fading memory of our formal educational experience. To that end, we’ve had to think and make effort toward building relationships with the children that we’re going to see week after week. It doesn’t come easily, but this effort can serve us well in the relationships we would seek to develop outside the church as well as we seek to spread the gospel to those around us.
• You have the chance to share the gospel with lost souls each time you serve. Salvation comes not by living in a Christian household, but by grace, through faith, according to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. So, even though most of our children have the tremendous advantage of parents who love God, most also have not bowed their knee to the Lord Jesus. According to the book of Romans, faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ, and each Sunday, God provides a chance for us to present and exposit this very word of Jesus Christ. The ministry also has helped us gain a broader sense of sharing Christ, since the children are watching our every move, so that even our attitudes and actions can help (or hinder) our proclamation of the gospel.
• You partner with the families of the church in the aforementioned evangelistic ministry and in the development of the next generation. The parents rightfully have the vast majority of the influence on their children, but for those with children in Sonlight, they give us a small slice of time to assist them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Because of this ability to partner with the parents in their family ministry, we on staff gain an extra measure of fellowship with the parents, and we certainly know the parents better as a result of our participation in this ministry. This fellowship and understanding helps the church as a whole promote the understanding of the body as a big family.
• More than just families, the ministry lets you serve alongside members from all walks of life. As our church grows, the difficulty of coming to know all of the members certainly increases, but the growth also tempts us to shrink our relationship focus to those around us in the same life stage. But, through Sonlight, each of us on staff can say that we at least know people outside of our age and life stage. We have the chance to serve next to each other and we aim to encourage development of those relationships with activities and meetings we plan, as well as encouraging fellowship with other members of the church who don’t serve in Sonlight by ensuring that we protect staff members from serving on too many shifts. This again helps promote the unity of the body in spite of the uniqueness of each member.
• You can learn to compose and teach a coherent, engaging message. For the men in particular, some of us have the responsibility to deliver the sermon to the children. While this does challenge us each time, we also can grow in our study and handling of God’s word, and our compilation and proclamation of his truth. We also learn about the necessity of illustrating that truth, because the children provide brutally honest feedback. When the quiet girl in the front raises her hand without prompting in the middle of my message and asks Did you know I lost my tooth?, I know I’ve lost her and probably the rest of the class. But, these experiences help to mold us and make us better expositors of God’s word.

Hopefully you can see how this sampling of the benefits which service in Sonlight imparts to an individual member leads to benefit and growth of the church body as a whole. As a ministry within the church, we would hope and expect that we do nothing except build the unity of the church so that the world would see that we follow Christ through our love for one another.

Essentially, Sonlight does not exist in isolation, simply to watch the kids or even only to teach the kids. It also fosters discipleship, fellowship, and unity within the staff and the greater church body. And by God’s grace, we have a church full of such ministries.

by Sallie Yang

As the end of the calendar year approaches, we are able to reflect on how God has been faithful to LBC and in particular to the Fireflies’ ministry. In Fireflies, we have seen a good number of babies born and enter into our care on Sundays. We have welcomed new families in with their little ones. We have seen helpless babies grow and develop to become curious toddlers. And, we have joyfully seen a good number of our little Fireflies become Sparklers. In addition to the children of Fireflies, God has been faithful to provide so many committed nursery workers from different affinity groups, all who love the Lord and the kids. Even as some of them have had to move on to other places or ministries, God has continued to be faithful to provide 33 nursery workers, including 7 teachers to our growing Fireflies’ ministry of 16 babies in N1 and 20 toddlers in N2.

While we have the privilege of ministering to the families and children of Fireflies, we have sought to expose the kids to simple truths about God and Jesus through Bible lessons, memory verses, and songs. We focus on one truth and memory verse for an entire month, ending that lesson with a craft at the end of the month. The truths we cover include: God is everywhere; God always wins; God knows everything; Only one God; God is good; Jesus is here; Jesus is a friend; Jesus is the boss; Jesus is alive; Jesus loves me; God made everything; and only God is big. As a teacher, I have loved watching the young toddlers start off N2 with blank faces, a little unsteady on their chairs, and not totally aware of what is going on during lesson/memory verse time to later seeing them as older toddlers, participating in lessons and enthusiastically singing the memory verse songs with hand motions. Although those moments will not be there every time I teach on Sundays, it is sweet to see them when I do. It is our hope that we would be able to share God’s love and the joy of the Lord with them.

As a parent of two children who have gone through Fireflies and moved on to Sparklers and Sonlight, I have appreciated the foundations of truth laid by the Fireflies’ ministry. Even now when I prepare for nursery teaching time, my kids love to listen to the Bible lessons and sing the memory verse songs with the hand motions. As fun as it is for them, I especially love that they love to learn about God and are hiding God’s Word in their hearts so young. We pray that what was true for Timothy would be true for the children of our church.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
2 Timothy 3:14-15

It is our prayer that the Fireflies would love God more and more as they learn about Him in His Word to the end that they would come to a saving knowledge of Jesus as their Lord and Savior. We thank the parents of our Fireflies for the opportunity to serve them and partner with them in this way. To God we give the glory, thanks, and praise.

by Kyle Grindley

I have been on Sparklers staff for a while, and now that I have a daughter of my own, more than a few people have commented “Being in Sparklers must have made you feel more prepared for fatherhood” My first reaction is usually to point out that being with pre-schoolers for an hour a week, is a lot different than providing 24/7 care for a helpless infant. However, when I step back I must admit that Sparklers has given me one great advantage as I become a father; godly examples.

God has built wonderful supports into the church, where believers sharpen each other and the older instruct the younger through shared joys and struggles, advice from experience, and candor through the day-in-day-out challenges we all face. But as the church grows, it becomes harder to have contact across life stages. I often find it awkward to have conversations with people not in my affinity group or small group, or to ask a question to an older brother or sister who might have a helpful perspective on something I am experiencing.

Standing by the Sparklers door, checking kids out and exchanging brief updates with the parents has served as a great ice breaker that allows me to have these sharpening interactions with parents who are ahead of me. It has allowed me to maintain relationships with people who I wouldn’t normally have much opportunity to interact with.

These interactions have given me years of insights on the challenges faced by different parents with different kids. I have heard God’s faithfulness, working patience and perseverance in the parents as they work to strengthen their kid’s weaknesses, and to show them their sin and the Savior.

Often times a discipline issue during class gives me a peek behind the curtain at how the parent is shepherding their child throughout the week. I have been privileged to see how parents adjust their counsel and guidance to suit the differences from child to child, even within one family.

Sparklers has also given me a familiarity with parents that makes it easier to ask questions, to get advice. Sometimes it is very practical, something that came up just this past week. Other times it is addressing some anxiety I have about the challenges parenting will bring. Sometimes I am affirmed in my thinking, others I am given something new to consider. In all of it I am encouraged to look toward God; His past faithfulness to them reassures me of His promise of faithfulness to me.

The view from Sparklers has also humbled me, no parent has ever communicated that they everything all figured out, even the most experienced. The variety in the children’s personalities and bents means that I can never expect to get to a point in parenting where I have everything figured out. I will always need to lean on God.

So, yes, being on Sparklers staff has made me more ready to be a father; more confident in assuming the role. Not because of any practice that experience with the Sparklers has afforded, but because of the wealth of wisdom and encouragement I come face to face with at the end of each service when I get to squeeze in a quick chat with the parents.

by Ryan McAdams

I grew up in a typical American church environment, hearing the familiar stories of the Bible many times over, and gaining a fair bit of facts that would serve me well in Bible trivia competitions later. I knew that David had gathered five smooth stones, and that Moses had heralded ten plagues before Pharaoh. I knew the books of the Bible and their order, and even that it contained history. But, I never really made any connections between the contents of the Bible and God, its author. To me, I treated the stories like I treated any other content in a school context: know the facts well enough to pass a test, and then move on with my life.

Today, part of my motivation to serve within the church’s children’s ministries stems from these errors of my youth. I can’t remember the last lesson I taught where the children did not hear a reference to 2 Timothy 3:16, that all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. I want them to understand that whichever passage we cover comes from the will of God, and that it has tremendous value for we who learn. This alone can explain why we would teach from books like Leviticus and Lamentations.

But the following verse, 2 Timothy 3:17 explains that the teaching of any part of God’s word benefits the man of God. So, until a child receives saving faith and bows his knee to Jesus, he will not receive the full benefit from a particular passage. More than an appeal to heed God’s Word for the potential benefit, then, I also want to confront each child with God, particularly through his Word.

I can do this with manifold verses and passages, but also by example with my approach to God’s Word, by rightly handling the word of truth, as Paul exhorted Timothy. The children can detect if I haphazardly spray verses around, or if I reverently treat verses with extreme care and precision, showing that I actually believe I am communicating the very words of God. With my handling of the Bible, I want to demonstrate to the students how a Christian interacts with God’s Word, that God deserves reverence and awe.

Placing salvation in God’s hands, I want each child at least to understand the relationship between a Christian and the Bible, that for a child of God, the Bible is the final authority on all matters it addresses; that the Bible does not err or fail in any of the history, facts, judgments, prophesies, or other claims. I want them to understand that to downplay the Bible is to besmirch the character of God, so when they would hear self-proclaimed Christians contradicting God’s Word, it would not confuse them, because they would be able to see the clear delineation between followers of Jesus and those who don’t believe the Bible. Unlike myself as a child, I want each of the children to clearly know where he or she stands before God.

by Mabel Tse

The end of each academic year allows us to reflect on what has taken place over the last year. In the Fireflies ministry, we have enjoyed many blessings in the last year. Through Bible lessons, memory verses and songs, our little ones are continuously exposed to the simplicity of the Gospel truth. It has always been our prayer that LBC’s Fireflies ministry would help to lay a strong foundation upon which to build the future. We thank the parents of all our babies and toddlers this year who provided us the opportunity to serve in this way!

Our roster included about 10 babies and about 25 toddlers this past year. The upcoming transition time when some of our Fireflies toddlers will be graduating is particularly rewarding for our family this year, as our oldest daughter will have gone through the entire nursery curriculum over the last 3 years and will be settling into Sparklers this next quarter. We have seen her learn to love church and to love other members and their kids.

More importantly, as many other parents of Fireflies-aged children can attest to, we are thankful for the nursery workers who have instilled in our children a joyfulness in the Lord that comes from constant exposure to the simple truths of God’s word. Their familiarity with numerous Bible passages and their interest in learning more about the people in the stories provides the Fireflies’ staff (and the parents) an opportunity to explain what the love, kindness, patience, and holiness of God mean.

The time we have with our children is precious, and the Fireflies ministry and our staff are thankful to the rest of the church body for giving us an opportunity to care for and instruct their children in the ways of the Lord. As this academic year draws to an end, we look forward to more opportunities to serve the congregation and the little ones.

by Brian Gin

Every Sunday Sparkler Staff all gather before service and go over the Bible lesson. The teacher shares the lesson, going through one last practice with whatever props they need, and the other staff are given a chance to provide input or advice. Finally Kyle Grindley usually ends with announcements. During one of these meetings, Kyle announced that we were no longer going to refer to the “Bible Stories” as stories, we were going to call it the lesson. This was to help the children understand that what they are being taught is not just a story, like fictional books, but a lesson based on real history, based on the Bible, the inerrant word of God.

This epitomizes a big part of what I’ve learned while being a part of Sparkler’s staff. We have to choose the words we use to teach and interact with the kids with care and consideration. Children at this age have a rapidly growing vocabulary. We have to make sure the kids understand all the words we use in our explanations of difficult concepts. We try to stay as close to the text as possible while teaching the lesson in a way that is understandable.

In each lesson we try to link the lesson with the gospel, in greater or less depth depending on time and appropriateness of the lesson. We explain that we all have evil hearts that result in evil fruits. But if we believe that Jesus came to earth, lived a perfect life, died on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins, and then rose again after three days, we can get good hearts and start producing good fruit.

Every lesson has one main point we try to get across to the kids. Some examples of points are: God is powerful, Jesus is God, or Jesus is preparing His disciples for His departure. We try to make sure we hit that point a few times throughout the lesson to make sure the kids can understand what we’re trying to teach them about God. Our hope is that by repeating the main point and presenting the gospel, we would plant the seeds that ultimately lead the children to salvation.

We also have a small group time to make sure that any difficult words or concepts are explained adequately to the kids. Normally the older kids have more questions, and it helps immensely to have parents who are teachers help us figure out what kinds of things the kids have a hard time understanding, even if the kids don’t say anything.

I am slowly learning how to choose my words, which starts with preparing my heart each Sunday along with the other teachers. I learn so much from the other teachers on how to interact with the kids and make sure God uses me to teach them the right lessons and words. I pray that God would lead any child that walks into Sparklers would commit to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

by Jacob Garcia

Kids are great…challenging at times…but wonderful nonetheless. It can sometimes be difficult to remember that, especially when in the midst of disciplining or a particularly rebellious stage!

Serving in the Sonlight children’s’ ministry, I have the opportunity to see some of the kids’ best moments, such as when they know the answer to a question, recite a bible verse, or volunteer for an activity.

However, despite my positive experience in Sonlight, I realize that parents can have truly challenging periods of time when it comes to raising their children. Seasons when exhaustion, impudence, or busyness make it difficult to count children as blessings.

Keeping all the different circumstances in mind, however, it’s important to turn to the Scriptures to discover what God has to say about the young ones in our lives. Hopefully, He will grow in us a greater appreciation and love for them! So, here are five fantastic facts concerning children:

1. They are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27)

We are all created in the likeness of God. Individually, we each bear the image of our Maker. Now, some image-bearers may be smaller and younger than others, but that doesn’t mean they’re worth less!

The littlest child is every bit as much of a person as the CEO of a major corporation, and the small kid playing ball on the street has the same intrinsic value as the greatest NBA super star. They are all image-bearers of the Lord God Himself!

2. They are a heritage from the Lord (Psalm 127:3-5)

In contrast to what the world might say, children really are a truly amazing gift from God. In fact, they are even said to be a reward!

This is especially relevant in a self-centered, career-focused culture, where children are sometimes seen as little more than obstacles to our own progress. God doesn’t think so! On the contrary, the psalmist mentions how blessed the man is who “fills his quiver with them.” What a great reminder!

3. Scripture addresses them specifically (Ephesians 6:1)

It can be easy to overlook the needs and desires of children. We might be tempted to wait for them to “grow up” before we concern ourselves with their spiritual development. However, in this passage, we see that God loves children in their current stage of life. They do not slip under His radar.

He truly wants children to believe and obey, and not just for behavior’s sake, but that they would obey “in the Lord, for this is right.” So, in essence, God wants them to obey for His sake and for the right reasons. He really is concerned with their heart in it all, not only their actions!

4. The way we live drastically affects them (Proverbs 20:7)

A righteous person can do much for their children in so many ways. Whether it’s by providing a safe place for them to grow up, teaching them the fear of the Lord, or just being a good example for them to follow, a godly parent is invaluable on a multitude of levels.

In contrast, a wicked person’s actions will have destructive consequences on their offspring, as they will be prone to imitate the errors of their parents (Deuteronomy 5:9). Therefore, we must be diligent to walk in integrity, not only for our own sake, but also because little ones constantly observe us, and what is observed will be copied, for good or for bad.

5. We must become like them to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:3)

Often, one of the most difficult things for us to grasp is the concept of a child-like faith. We may, in our pride, assume that the kingdom is for the wise and super-spiritual, not for those that are infantile in their thinking.

Yet, the Lord in His infinite wisdom has deemed that heaven is a place for those who are humble and child-like in their dependence on Him. This is an amazing reality, one that should break us of all arrogance, relying on God with all our being. Just like little children depend on their earthly parents, we should trust in the Lord!

Treasuring Children

We must be careful that young kids in a congregation not go unnoticed, underfed spiritually, or simply tolerated. That would be a great shame, because, children can be a huge encouragement to us in their love for the Lord if we would just take the opportunity to minister to them.

So, let’s make it our aim to pray for the young ones around us. Not just so that they would “behave well” or act like “good kids”, but asking that their lives would overflow with the love God, as He graciously pours it into their hearts through the Holy Spirit.

Thank God for children!

by Esther Cheng

If you’ve ever been to a flock group at Lighthouse, you’ve (hopefully) seen the flocks worksheet. There’s a question where it asks you to describe the sermon to a child in 1-2 sentences – which sounds like what we do for Sparklers! I’ve had the joy of being able to serve in the Sparklers’ ministry for the past two years, and I just wanted to share some insight as to what goes through my mind as I prepare a Sparklers’ lesson.

Just to give you some context (in case you’ve never observed a Sparklers’ class in action), all staff members are on rotation to teach and we present a 5-10 minute lesson to a group of 10+ preschool-age children.

Teach Accurately

We ought to rightly handle the Word of God. No matter the age of whom we are teaching the Word of God, we ought to prepare with care! At times, I even feel like sometimes I need to more deeply study the Word when teaching children, since it takes a thorough understanding of the passage to be able to find the right words to communicate it in simpler terms. With the Sparklers, it could be easy to think that they just want to play during lesson time, but they are listening! What they remember and their level of comprehension surprise me sometimes – and all the more, I am reminded to be aware of what I teach them.

Teach Specifically

With kids, we have to teach in a way that they can understand and would be helpful for them. For example – I could tell them all the details of the building of the tabernacle; however, with the kids’ short attention spans, it can be easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. A good question to keep in mind would be: “What should the kids take away from the lesson?” The Bible is thorough in its descriptions, but I have to focus on what would help the children understand the character of God more. When reading passages from the Bible, there may be words and concepts that are challenging for them to grasp, so we teachers have to be thoughtful about the illustrations and the words that we use to describe and explain what the Bible says.

Teach Historically

In Sparklers, we teach lessons of things that happened in history – moments that are not just fictional stories, but actual, historical, documented events in the Bible. This is something that we’ve been trying to emphasize lately, and although it sounds simple enough, it’s something that even we as teachers must remember and reflect upon. Having grown up with Bible stories myself, it can be easy to lump Biblical narratives with your everyday bedtime story, instead of seeing each Bible lesson’s characters as real people that God worked through. With events as intense as the ten plagues, it can be easier for me to visualize the Prince of Egypt movie instead of an actual devastating plague. As I read through the Bible to prepare my lesson, I need to take time to pause and meditate on the Word to dwell on the character of God revealed through these historical events; we ought to be God-centered in what we teach. This was pretty different from what I remembered growing up, since too often were the characters in the lessons championed as the heroes (whether it be Moses, David, etc.). When I teach now, I have to remember that they were people who the Lord our God used throughout history in His sovereign plan.

No matter how well I prepare a lesson, only the Lord can work in the childrens’ hearts. I could have the most animated expressions, the best illustrations, the best vocal impressions… and even so, it is only the Lord who works in their hearts. All the more do I need to depend on God for wisdom and patience, seeing these teaching times as precious opportunities to share the Gospel with kids!