This past Sunday our team was on for Kids' Church. The organization of it all has been shaken up and redrawn this year. It's much more group-orientated, and it's working well. My group is the "Superdudes," and is made up of 6 kindergarten and grades 1-3 boys. This past Sunday, only one little guy came out. It was a great morning, though! Last year, this little guy, Tyler, was quite the handful. He'd spend his time running around, climbing on other kids (or leaders), ripping up whatever we gave him, throwing stuff around, and being generally disruptive. He'd usually end up informing us at some point, "I hate kids' church! I'm going back to my parents!" And so we'd let him go. Why force him to stay if he hates it this much?But this year, he's a totally different little man! We've had a great time so far this year. He's very attentive, loves to share stories, and loves to participate with whatever is going on. There are a number of factors that I think may have brought about this change, but whatever those may actually be, I'm really glad that he's having a better time!
This past Sunday, specifically, I was really impressed by his grasp of the story we were going over. We were covering the Beatitudes (all in one Sunday -- how is it possible to do that well?!). For sanity's sake, I just focused on one aspect for Tyler and I to talk about -- Jesus' parable of building a house on the rock or on the sand.
To illustrate this as we talked about it, we built two houses out of Lego. He built the strong one, firmly routed on his Lego platform, and I built the weak one, just built on the table and (purposefully) not well connected so we could easily smash it later...
While we were building, Tyler came out with some great stuff! He said, "The guy who built his house on the sand didn't care about God." Or, "He didn't built his house on the rock of God; he built it on the sand of Satan!" Wow! This little guy in grade 1 with a speech impediment has some pretty good wisdom for his small age. Or any age, really. I'm sure God is pleased to watch this little guy working away and thinking about his young life. Ty's words actually felt like an exhortation for me: In all my busyness, thinking about grad school and finances and other things, where am I routed? Better make sure that I'm actively giving the Lord my trust and not setting out to accomplish all these plans myself. Otherwise, I don't think the end of my story will be all that different from the sandman's story at the end of Luke 6. "And its destruction was complete." Luke has some stinging words there for anyone who thinks they can go about their business with no concern for what God demands of us. As the Creator and adhesive of creation, I think ignoring God is probably the worst idea anyone could ever have, and most likely the worst way to spend your time.
Take it from Tyler -- upon what sort of ground is your foundation built?
