New to Refiner’s Fire? I encourage you to read the FORWARD.
I will never tire of watching adults walk children into
the “experience” of a spiritual truth.
As the children intuitively grasp the truth, a light goes on in their eyes.
God gave me a great team of interns to train and direct. Together, we developed the Children’s Ministry.
Joe and I went out of town for a couple of days. I left instructions with the interns, “Create a “Reality Learning” experience to teach the wonder of heaven. Here are the keys to our house – go there to brainstorm and prepare.”
Saturday night as we pulled up to our house, Joe gasped, “What happened to our driveway?” It was covered in paint. The interns had created the New Jerusalem!
On Sunday morning, the joy of the New Jerusalem washed over the children.
At the end of the hour, the children ran to find their parents and dragged them to the New Jerusalem in the gymnasium, “You have to see this! You have to see the New Jerusalem!” I stood back and watched as the children explained why there was no light, except the one coming from the throne, the 12 gates with angels, the size of the space (if it had been real) etc.
Twenty years later as I led a KidTrek training on Reality Learning, a young woman gasped, “I was there; I remember it! I was one of those children!”
Little did I realize, as I trained the interns, that God was giving me the training tools I would one day use to train people across America.
An Awakening! If my first two bricks of passion and vision were to be fulfilled, it would take a lot more people involved in children’s ministry than what we had. I had just read an article about an African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child.” I immediately thought, “It takes a church to raise a child to walk into eternity with Jesus.”
Third brick of Passion:
(Go here if you missed the first two Bricks)
To give children what they needed, not what made adults
comfortable, meant bringing adults to the children, not children to the adults.
Challenge every adult in the church
to be a part of the discipleship
of the children.
Third Brick of Vision
I see a role for every adult in the church
to have a part in the discipleship of the children.
From the Disciplers who are with children every Sunday and
reaching out to them during the week to the invalid who accepts the task
to pray for a child every day, getting updates from mom and dad.
Deuteronomy 6:4–7 (ESV)
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”
The passion was pushing the vision to grow.
Vision Brick 3b Under Passion Three
A child needs to have Biblical truth presented so he can understand it.
God created children to learn in the concrete but the Bible is abstract.
If they experience the concept, they will have an intuitive understanding
even if they can’t explain it to you.
Create a Reality Learning experience for each teaching time.
(Picture of a Reality Learning experience on salvation) I have seen many ah-ha’s as children have tried this impossible task. The children must walk through the papers strewn on the floor without touching the paper. Most think they can make it across the paper without touching one piece. When they touch a piece of paper they “die.” Then they have the choice to stay “dead” (laying on the floor) or let the Discipler carry them to the other side. Great discussions occur after children have tried to make it across on their own but failed. How often do we think we can “earn” our way to heaven?
Vision Brick 3c Under Passion Three
Every adult serving children face to face will be trained
in child development and their area of discipleship.
There was no way the vision could be carried out if the adults weren’t trained. I heard things like, “This isn’t our culture.” “Maybe you could do this in the past when people weren’t so busy.” “You are expecting too much.” Gradually the training nights began to have more and more people attending. One participant said, “I tell myself all day I don’t have time to go – but always at the end of the evening I’m so glad I came.”
As all of the above was happening, few people in the church knew what I was living with internally. I didn’t dare talk about it much because a common response was, “Perfect love casts out all fear.” I felt condemned. I don’t know if those words were meant to condemn but that is how it felt – so I rarely shared.
I wonder if it would have been different
if I worked somewhere other than the church?
Take a moment and ponder how terror, passion and vision might intertwine to cause havoc.
The terror I’ve lived with for the past 40 plus years has affected every area of my life. I don’t know if the terror is caused due to physical or mental problems – I do know it leaves me an emotional mess.
Jesus was the only person I could trust. I talked to Him continually, He provided the strength to get through the next moment, the next responsibility, the next confrontation.
I never felt I could succeed, I felt like a continual failure; however, those negative feelings were good in a way because they drove me to Jesus.
John 15 reminds me that my Father is continually pruning off the branches in my life that don’t bear fruit. The constant terror gives me the impetus to cling to Jesus, to not depend on myself.
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.
2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away,
and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes,
that it may bear more fruit. 3
Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.
4 Abide in me, and I in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.
5 I am the vine; you are the branches.
Whoever abides in me and I in him,
he it is that bears much fruit,
for apart from me you can do nothing.”
He has done a lot of pruning; His refining has been tedious. He has never given up on me though I have been a slow learner.
Through it all, I am continually brought back to the blessing of the Refiner’s Fire.
If you have surrendered your life to Jesus Christ, know that He loves you. Your life isn’t about today – your life is about eternity.
Through It All Andrae Crouch and CeCe Winans
Next Page: What Drove Me; Triune God? Pride? Terror?
