Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

PASTOR'S PENS 2009

February 8th “Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted.”      Garrison Keillor I love our Men’s Bible Study. I find that I leave each study refreshed and stretched. These guys who are willing to get together to dig into God’s Word, to pray for and with one another, to encourage one another and to spiritually stretch one another are just a continual blessing...that is until last Monday. I found that I left our Bible study last Monday with a very heavy heart and almost in shock!             Currently, we are studying, The Unchurched Next Door: Understanding Faith Stages as Keys to Sharing Your Faith by Thom S. Rainer. One of the observations of this last chapter is that God often uses a positive spiritual childhood experience with an unbeliever to later bring them to Christ. They either went to VBS or Sunday School or a youth program, or just knew a committed Christian when they were a child. This study showed that because it made a positive impression on them about Christianity, later when they were an adult they were open to accepting Christ.             But what literally broke my heart is that we had a couple of guys who could not remember ever meeting a Christian during their childhood or teen years. They had no positive Christian experiences. To their recollection during their childhood, they had never even met one. Now they went to church and knew people who went to church but they did not know anyone who truly knew the Lord and talked about their faith. Please understand that these men did not grow up in New Guinea or Bangladesh or some 3rd world country. They grew up right here in America, in this “Christian” country. What a tragedy!             What a contrast to my experience on Tuesday. I had the privilege of attending a few sessions at Founders Week at the Moody Bible Institute. One of the wonderful experiences for Jane and me was watching one of our young people who is attending there sing and play before that audience of thousands. Hanna Riddle grew up at Grace (at least during her teen years). She is now a Junior at Moody and is a member of one of their women’s choirs. What a joy to watch Hanna sing and play handbells in service to our King! And I thought, “What a contrast?” Here was a young lady who grew up in a Christian home, grew up in a Bible-believing church and is now on fire for God! But there were others in our church who now know the Lord but had never met a real “Christian” during their critical formative years.      God has recently been growing my own view of young people’s ministries. Through the years I’ve seen kids coming from horrible, godless homes have their lives transformed because they met the Lord.  I’ve also seen unsaved homes transformed because a child from that home, visited our church, and this opened the door to reach the entire family.             But what I had failed to see in God’s bigger plan is that often we are just seed sowers. What we do in our Sunday School classes, Children’s Church, Children’s Music Club, Tweens Ministry and Senior High ministries may only be sowing seed for fruit that we will never see and may never know about it UNTIL we see Him, we see Christ. And there we will learn that that night we gave up when we were tired from work, or that class of juniors that we taught, or that Children’s Church session was used by God to sow a seed and bring a life to Christ...sometimes years later.             All of the studies for the past hundred and fifty years demonstrate that most people find Christ before they reach the age of eighteen. God has given you and me the privilege of investing in eternity in our young people’s ministries, of seeing the lives of young people and their families transformed by the power of regeneration. Sometimes, though, we’re just sowing seed for a future harvest.             Sadly, there are individuals all around us, some children...some adults in “Christian” America who have never heard the Good News that Jesus Christ came to this world to die on a Cross for their sins so that they could be forgiven and go to Heaven. They don’t know that we are real “Christians.”             Please share your faith...where ever you are, wherever God has placed you to be His missionary. And get involved with the future. Volunteer to serve the Lord here at Grace in our nursery, Sunday School, Children’s Church or one of our midweek ministries. There are still far too many who have never heard the Gospel! They are waiting for us to share the Good News with them, to live out our faith before them! Hopefully, we will see the harvest now but we may just be seed sowers. The most important thing is that we are faithful! Will you serve the Lord by ministering to the next generation today?