The Next Generation

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

In the opening events of World War I, the nation of Serbia faced what can only be described as an unimaginable future. In 1914, they survived an Austro-Hungarian invasion on their own soil. They were invaded. It was very, very costly. In the next year, they had what is known as the Great Typhus Epidemic, and it claimed 150,000 people. That next winter, this is the three years in a row, that next winter they experienced what is now known as Albanian Golgotha, where their army in their own country was overwhelmed by a joint invasion, Serbia, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria, and they refused surrender. They were seized. They refused surrender. And so 400,000 Serbians retreated across the frozen roadless terrain of the mountains of Montenegro and Albania to reach Allied forces. 400,000 left, 160,000 survived. By 1916, Serbia had lost 28% of its total population, 60% of its male population, and over 70% of

men of fighting age. Other countries talk about a lost generation. Other countries talk about, oh, man, we were really ravaged by war. We really went through a tough time. They've got nothing on Serbia. Serbia, this is 100 years ago, and they are just now getting over the repercussions of losing an entire generation. JFK said that children are the most valuable resource of any country and its best hope for the future. And when Serbia lost a generation, it lost hope for decades. On a smaller level, this same thing is true for churches, even for this church. I want to show you some pictures. These pictures are anywhere from 15 to 20 years ago. This is circa 2007, 2008, 2009. Chisenhall Fellowship, it was known as South Burleson Baptist Church back then, way back then. For those of you who don't know, we changed our name this January, so that's kind of why

it's funny. Okay. Back then, we had two services. We had a thriving ministry. We had gobs of kids everywhere. We had a student ministry that was thriving. We had, I mean, there were lots of people here every Sunday. Although many things contributed to this sharp decline, a big factor was that they had lost their children. They had failed to reach that next generation in a meaningful way. That they might have had events. They might have had things happen, but over time, they didn't invest or they couldn't invest in that next generation. They had to turn over things happening that some of them were beyond their control, and they had lost their children. They had not invested. The Bible is clear that children are a gift from God. In other words, God literally gives children to people. They are a gift from God. And although there are obvious ways that God gives children to people through birth or through

adoption, right? That's a really obvious way. God actually gifts children to us in multiple ways. Friends, children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren. And for us today, it's really, I think it's very easy to see inside our own church family the connections that we have. I know your children. I know your children. You know my children. I'm not going to cry, but we just dropped our last two off. I know we had five children. The last two went to college. Literally yesterday we dropped them off. We drove home. So last night was not an easy night coming home to a house that we are now rattling around in. However, that doesn't diminish the fact that you have known them well and you've known them in a meaningful way. My children were given to you in a significant capacity and you honored them. You honored me and my wife by investing in them. Many of you loved my daughters and my sons extremely well.

And so thank you. And this is really what a church should be. A place where we understand that we don't have parental rights over every child in our church, but in a really significant way, your children are mine and my children are yours. That we owe one another to invest in those children. We owe one another to at least, at the very least, know what's going on in their lives, to know their names. You don't have to know favorite color. That sometimes changes too often to know. But you can try to know their favorite color. When we look at today's text, which is Psalm 127, Psalm 127, we are going to see the value of children and we are going to see the staggering consequences of losing our children. We're going to see the value of children and we're also going to see the staggering consequences of losing our children. And as we do this, as we look through, I want you to just be considering, just as we're

reading these verses, considering the children that you have been given in your own life. You might say, I don't have kids, Pastor. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying what children have you been given? Even if you do have biological children of your own, even if you have adopted children of your own, what are the other children that you have been given? Who are they? What do they look like? Picture their faces. The children that you've been given. All of you have been given children. I don't care if you're 13. You have been given children. I don't care if you're 80 million years old and all your children are grown and gone, you've still been given children. People that you should steward, that you should care for, that can't defend themselves, that can't know what's coming around the corner, that can't figure out life on their own. They need you. We're going to see the value of children.

We're going to see the staggering consequence of losing our children. In Psalm 127, that's where we're going to be today, Psalm 127, it's only five verses, and all of them are going to be up here. If you would like to follow along in a Bible, there should be one maybe close to you-ish in a seat. There's also one on your phone. I know, it's wild. You can get the Bible on your phone. Okay. Psalm 127 begins, it doesn't begin talking about children. It begins with three comparisons first. It begins with the staggering consequences of losing children first. It says in Psalm 127, unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. So building a house, got a metaphor going, building a house, the Lord here is the master builder. The Lord has the master plan going. And if you do not build it with the Lord, if you do not build it according to the Lord,

it will not last. You are laboring in vain. This is one of my wife's favorite things to quote to me whenever I want to rush through something. She says, Drew, unless the Lord builds a house, and I know the rest. And it's wise words. It is good. The Psalm keeps going. It gives us the second one. Psalm 127:1b, unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. Okay. So we got building a house, we got protecting a city. Watchmen were like an insurance policy. Pastor Daniel can have an amen. Okay. We got some insurance going in the house. Watchmen were like an insurance policy. Okay. The more watchmen you had, the more protected you were. Right? All kinds of evils against all kinds of people trying to sneak up on you, anything like that. The watchmen were your insurance policy. But what it's saying here is saying if the Lord himself is not protecting what you've

got going on, then no amount of insurance is going to cover it. No amount of vigilance is going to somehow make up for the fact that the Lord is not watching over your city. It's in vain. It doesn't work. It doesn't actually protect. It looks like you're being protected because you've got some watchmen over the city. But what it's saying is, I don't care how many watchmen you've got up there. I don't care if your whole town is watchmen. If the Lord is not doing it. If the Lord is not watching over, it's in vain. So we got building a house, we got protecting a city. We got verse 2 now. Psalm 127:2. It says, it is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil for he gives to his beloved sleep. So we got building a house, protecting a city. Now we got working hard. The Lord controls success and failure. I know that I am preaching in America right now.

I'm aware of that. And I'm aware that in America we have particular ideas about success and failure. Okay. I do. I understand that. However, however, the thing that we are working for, the rest that we seek, the hard-earned whatever that we are going for, that if we are not doing that, if we are not looking for success in the Lord, then it's all failure. I don't care how much money you're making. If it's not a success according to the Lord, then it is a failure. And really it's also talking about the control in your life. It's to rest in the Lord's blessing and direction and control in your life. So we got building a house, protecting a city, working hard. I want two observations. I want to make two observations very quickly on this. The first is that in vain is repeated three times. In vain. This is literally something that is of no substance, of no weight.

It is weightless. It is meaningless. In Ecclesiastes, this is called a chasing after the wind. You ever chased after wind? No? Good. You wouldn't catch it. That's the point. Okay. You want to chase after wind, you're never going to catch it. It's not ever going to happen. It's something that's meaningless to do. If I said to you, what did you do today? And you said, I chased after the wind, either you're joking and you're giving me a metaphor about how you did nothing that day or you are foolish. Okay. Don't chase wind. It's not a good idea. It is in vain. So what it's saying is, unless the Lord is building a house, you might as well not be building it all. Unless the Lord is watching over the city, you might as well not even be watching over it. If nothing is happening, because what you are doing, the effort that you were putting forward, especially in the third one, it says like in vain, you toil and you labor

and you work and you swing the hammer and you're ready to go and you're, oh, and you're sweating and you really want this thing to work and you've planned it all out and you've coordinated the people. And if you have not done that with the Lord's direction, then you have done it in vain. You have done it to no effect. It's not going to equal anything. It would be better if you had not done it. Twiddling your thumbs would have at least given you some exercise. But this, nothing, vanity, meaningless. In vain you do this. And when you see, when we're reading Old Testament, you should know this. When things are repeated in the Old Testament, when the same word is used in the Old Testament several times over, the idea is that it's amplifying it. OK. In fact, you know, in English we have like good, better, best. OK. We have the common and then we have the comparative, which would be better.

And then the superlative, which would be best. Right. So we got a comparative and a superlative. In Hebrew, there is no comparative and superlative. In Hebrew, it's just repeated twice. It's comparative, repeated three times. It's superlative, which is why when the angels are singing to God in heaven, they sing, holy, holy, holy. They're singing it three times because they're telling God, you are the holiest. Right. This is how Hebrew works. We've just read in Psalm 1 and 2, two verses we got in vain three times. It is the utmost vanity here. And the second thing I want to notice here, besides in vain, is that there's a contrast. The contrast is not in the ability, but it is in who is directing what is going on. Let me say what I mean a different way. These verses are not telling us build a house well. They're not telling us watch a city diligently. They're not telling us work hard.

That's actually not what they're telling. If you think that that's what it's telling you, we need to read it again. It's not saying that. It's saying that the Lord has a plan for all of those things and that we must cooperate with that plan. It's not about ability. It's about who's directing it. You can have all the plans you want. You can do all the research you want. Man, you can do, I just bought a car and it is a grueling experience. You bought a car in the last six months? Anybody buying a car? Oh, what a beat down. Yes, Brody, feeling my pain this morning. I mean, it is hard. It's hard to do because you're, you know, is it worth it? The mileage and the used car. Anyway, it doesn't matter. So it's just hard to do it. And many times I would think like, man, it's so much effort. Like I wish I had just some expert, just some person who buys cars all the time.

If that's you, then you're just late to the party. Okay, I needed you like two, three weeks ago. Okay, but I was just thinking, man, if I had somebody who understood all of it and who could control kind of account for all the variables and just point me to like, Drew, that's the car, go get it. Yes. Because I had the money, I had the ability, I had the desire, I had all of those things going, but I didn't have a car because I didn't know, I didn't understand the process enough. I didn't have that confidence. What it's saying is the Lord has the confidence. The Lord has the plan. The Lord knows the beginning and the middle and the end and all the details in between. The Lord knows that. And the Lord is leading you into that. Whether it be watching over a city, which is really important, building a house, really important, working hard, really important. It didn't matter what it is, but you must cooperate with that.

The Lord is leading us to work with Him, to follow Him. To imitate Him. And if we fail to do that, every time we fail to do that, it will end in nothing. It will be meaningless. Now, all of this in the first two verses of Psalm 127, we should feel the despair. We should feel it. That's what it's intended for. We should understand that we now have before us a wall we cannot scale. You can't effort your way forward on this. This is just, we are now cooperating with the Lord.

Okay, that's how we should feel. Let's read verse three. Psalm 127, three. Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb, a reward. Children are a heritage from the Lord. Behold. So we are gonna switch from these things that people try to do in vain, and then we're gonna switch. Now we're gonna talk about children. We're gonna see how they're related in just a minute. But you can probably already see it. That the idea that, man, we want to plan out everything.

We want all this kind of to happen. What he's saying is that the Lord gives you children. Well, we'll just kind of talk it out before we get on that. We just got in vain three times in the first two verses, and now we're gonna get, also, we're gonna get something about children three times. Okay, so this is the first two, actually, in verse three right here. So behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, and the fruit of the womb, a reward. So children are a reward. And they are a heritage. So we'll talk about heritage first. Children are a heritage, okay? Children, how are children a heritage from the Lord? Children are a heritage because they preserve the stories of God's faithfulness.

Okay, and not just Bible stories, okay? Now that's good. We actually, all of our children that are fifth grade and younger are now in a different spot right now. Kindergarten through fifth grade is in grade school, and then a little bit younger than that, if you can walk and crawl in or potty train, you're in preschool, and then you've got infants, okay? So we've got three classes going on right now, and those children are learning about the Bible. Those children are seeing the Lord like demonstrated before them in care that is being given, in attention. My wife is the grade school team leader, and so her and Drew Ivey are actually out there now, and they are teaching children. And I don't know what Drew's doing. I'm sure it's some wild story. I'm sure he's giving it to them like full blast, and they're just drinking it all in, like are we gonna be okay after this?

But my wife is also helping him, which is good. Christi's helping him. But what Christi's doing is she's asking questions and listening about their week. They go through their week when they sit down. They talk about like what's going on in their lives. It's not just the stories from the Bible that they're getting, but it's also, they're also learning about what the Lord is doing now. All the things that happened to you in your life. I would like for you to try to recall one of those right now. Go ahead and try. One thing that you're thankful that the Lord did in your life. Just one thing, okay? Not a whole lot of qualifiers on that. Think of one thing that the Lord did. It happened to you. Okay. I want you to understand that that thing that happened to you is not just for you and your blessing and your enjoyment. I'm sure it was a blessing and an, hopefully, a blessing and an enjoyment for you.

Hopefully it was shaping for you. Hopefully it showed the Lord God, like a sliver of his character. Hopefully it showed the Lord God to you. Hopefully it was a blessing to you. But do you know that was not just for you? That's not, that's not even close. The Lord has done things in your life, not just for you and for your encouragement. The things he did in your parents' life, the things he did in your grandparents' life, it's not just for their encouragement. It's not just even for your encouragement. It's for the encouragement of what is in front of us, of who is in front of us. Your children, our children, need to hear stories of God's faithfulness to us. Personal stories. They need to know about Gideon, but they also need to know about you. They need to know about Abraham. They need theology, yes and amen, but they also need to know how the Lord met you at a really dark time.

And they need to hear you say it. They need to hear you talk about how God was faithful to your parents. They need to hear you talk about how God was faithful to your grandparents. Why? Because children are a heritage from the Lord. There's a man named Max Barnett. You don't know who Max Barnett is, most of you. If you do, then great. If you don't, it's fine. Max Barnett dedicated his life ministering to college students in Oklahoma and the greater area for 50 plus years. And Max did not labor in vain. Max actually just went on to be with the Lord a couple of months ago. I think June, he passed away.

Max built a heritage of God's faithfulness to countless people. He did have children of his own, but he had many other children in the Lord. People that he just invested in, poured in, shared the gospel with, encouraged, told stories of God's faithfulness, relayed stories of other people's, God's faithfulness to other people, told them to read books about missionaries that would talk about God's faithfulness to them. And he ministered to those people and those people went on to minister to many other people. I don't know how many spiritual great-grandchildren Max Barnett has, but I think it's somewhat ironic that a titan in heaven is a name that you and I barely know. I think this is the kingdom. The kingdom's not about being an influencer. It's not about being big on Instagram. It's not about being, having the biggest church, having the widest reach. Listen, man, that's stuff that gets clicks

and that's stuff that people pay for, but it's not real, man. In the kingdom of God, it's about being faithful with what you are given, about the children that you have in front of you. And not just your own biological children, but our children, the children that the Lord has put in your life. For some of you, that might even include siblings. Max has a vast heritage in the Lord.

He has spiritual children, spiritual grandchildren. And Max's story doesn't end with his death. It didn't end in June. Max's story continues as we tell that story, as we share stories like his, as we share stories of people that quit their job and did what the Lord called them to do and just went on this super amazing ride. And some of you might read that story and you're like, I wish I could quit my job, but I can't. And it's fine. The Lord's not calling all of us to quit our job. What the Lord's calling you to do is to cooperate with him. Because you know what? The Lord's not calling you to quit your job, then you will quit your job in vain. If the Lord's not calling you to do this other thing, then you're gonna do it in vain. You're gonna plan, it's gonna look nice. You're gonna have like the whole prep going on, but it will be nothing. It will be zero. It will not amount to anything.

So many others have spent their lives just like Max and we don't hear about it. We don't often tell those stories, but when we do, when we tell those stories, when we hear those stories of God's faithfulness, it fills our souls to trust him more. It inspires us to try great things for the Lord. Whenever I was at the previous church I was at, I don't say this very often because it sounds weird, but I'm going for it. When I was at my previous church,

career-wise, I was a made man. I could have stayed there forever. I had a lot of like connections. I had a lot of trust built up within the church. I had the ability to stay there really for as long as I wanted to stay there. Now, obviously I'm speaking in only human terms, I understand. The Lord can do what the Lord's gonna do. In fact, that's why I'm here because the Lord did what the Lord's gonna do. But what I'm telling you is in a worldly way, in a worldly way of speaking, I left a lot of security to come here. I took a 60% pay cut to be here, right? So whenever I'm talking to you about quitting your job or not quitting your job, I know what I'm talking about. It's not always time to move. I felt like the Lord was drawing me away four years before I made any kind of move, four years.

For you, the Lord might be calling you to kind of do something really crazy, but I want you to just think of this. I didn't invent that idea of going and like jumping to obey the Lord into something really crazy and unknown. I didn't invent that. I'd heard stories about that. I'd read stories about that in the Bible. Abraham did that. Moses did that. A lot of people did that. But also people that I knew did that. I heard their stories. I knew their lives. We need to tell these stories. And specifically teaching children about that.

If we're telling children about these stories, we need to tell them about stories from Scripture so that they know and they need to know Bible stories, but they also need to hear firsthand, God has been good to me. God has been good to me. If I'm talking to Seth Haley, I see little Seth with his new haircut, his new summer, or new, whatever that is, that haircut. It's cool, it's a cool haircut. He's not here. We're talking about him behind his back. When I see Seth, man, I can say Seth, like here's something that happened to me. And Seth knows me enough to believe me. And if he doesn't believe me, he's gonna ask Levi. And Levi's like, he's telling the truth. I know it's wild, but he's telling the truth. Look, Seth needs to hear that from me, just like I needed to hear from somebody else.

Our children need to hear that from one another. And when those stories are not told, it can become hard to remember what God did, because there's no living connection between what God did and you today. There's nobody telling that story. Or the person it happened to never told it and then passed away, and now we're not, we don't know anything about it. It's just gone. Heritage preserves stories. So children are a heritage. Children are also a rewarding fruit. Children are something to enjoy. Look, I could show you a thousand photos on my phone. No kidding, a thousand, probably more. That bring a smile to my face. They've got memories attached. It's just straight, unfiltered joy. And in that moment when I see that picture, when I see my kids being, I don't know, like eight, four to eight, and they're doing this little human pyramid, I'm like, man, how great is that?

I'm really excited. They were really excited to do it. I don't remember the sleepless nights. I don't remember the regrets. I don't remember the time I lost my temper. I don't remember all that. I don't remember the bad, right? I just look at that and I just smile. I just like, ugh, how good was that? How good was that when they made that game? How good was that whenever we spent the Christmas doing that? How good was that? There is a reason that children laugh a lot. Speaking of Seth Haley, that kid will laugh at the drop of a hat. I mean, about anything. I don't know if it's nervous or what, but he just laughs. I love it. I listen to Seth laugh all day long.

There's a reason that kids laugh, and there's a reason that makes you laugh. There's a reason that they bubble up in joy. There's a reason for all that, and it's because they are a salve. They are a healing. They are a comfort to us. Because in adult world, it's hard to remember to laugh. It's hard to be happy all the time because you got a bag of regret. You got things that you're fighting through. You got a season of doubt. You got a hard week at work. You got things that are weighing down on you, and I'm not saying to feel bad about that. I'm just saying when a kid laughs, just laugh with them. What a joy. What a salve. What a comfort. I've been a part of some amazing ministries in my life, and one of them is a church that, about 18 years before I got there, they had begun investing in their children in kind of a different way. And while I was there, and this church was rather large,

but while I was there, they celebrated the first group of kids to go all the way through their children's ministry, from birth all the way to 18. And they, look, they were excited. I can't even describe the joy that they were. They were people that would have done back flips had they been physically able to do a back flip. There were people that were very excited about that time, and they got to see that. And they also celebrated. There was the first batch of seniors that had gone all the way through their small group ministry. So they started in seventh grade, and they had the same small group leader all the way through senior year. So same leader kind of went up with them. And that same year, they were celebrating the first crop of kids that had been graduated with the same small group leader the whole time. Now they were very clear, that doesn't happen all the time,

it's not, you know, but they wanted to see it happen more. And so they made decisions pretty early to invest in kids that way so that they could, in 18 years, reap a benefit. Now there were people on the beginning of that that helped make those decisions that were not there for the 18 years, they moved away, they passed away, some, maybe God called into a different church. They didn't see the fruit of that, but it doesn't make their investment any less awesome. Right? They got to invest then so that later, 18 years later, they got to see fruit from that. It's so rewarding to look back and to be able to say, we invested, we invested, we're not perfect. We did a lot of things wrong, but we invested. And we're seeing some fruit from that. I wanna look back in 18 years and I wanna see, I wanna see Jane Simmons, just born. I wanna see Texas Duran, just born. I wanna see little Grace Fry,

now I didn't hear yet, but I wanna see her, right? I wanna see no name, baby Jamison, who doesn't have a name yet. Baby Jamison's coming, we're excited. I wanna see those kids. I wanna see those kids, not just here, but I wanna see those kids invested in, mature, growing in the Lord, secure in their faith, able to minister to others, able to disciple others. That's what I wanna see.

When I look forward, I wanna see those things and be able to say, I know we didn't do it perfect, but man, we invested. Children are a heritage and children are a reward. Here's the last description of children. Verses four and five. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth, blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them. He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. And for this metaphor, there's a lot going on in that verse. We're just gonna kinda tighten it up real quick and say for this metaphor, we need to focus on the fact that arrows go further than you can. That when you shoot an arrow, you are going further typically than you can run. Typically farther than you can see very well. You're shooting an arrow into the future, as it were. Neil Postman, not a Christian, said, he called children living messages

that we send to a time we will not see. Arrows, children are arrows, they continue our work forward. They might not continue it in a way that we want. That's okay. We didn't continue it in a way that our parents wanted either. But they continue the work forward. It's a similar idea to planting a seed in the ground or investing now and seeing something kinda happen 18 years from now, right? You don't know quite what's coming, but you're investing because you believe that what's coming will be good. You don't know exactly what it's gonna look like, but you plant nonetheless, okay.

I could just stop here and just say, let's invest in children. Following Jesus is not just doing something hard and trying to baptize that. The first two verses of Psalm 127 reminded us of that. So let's not make that mistake. Following Jesus is built on Jesus keeping promises, Jesus directing, Jesus controlling and moving forward. So what's the promise here? The promise here is this, that when we as a church invest in children, it will not be in vain.

When we invest in our children, it will not be in vain. It will be hard work. It will require patience. It will require long suffering, lots of long suffering, emphasis on the long and the suffering. It will require diligence, but our children can be a building standing strong because the Lord has built it. Our children can be lives that we can actually enjoy. We can look upon them and know that we didn't do it. No, it's not perfect. No, the Lord did it, but we can just say like, yes and amen. I'm really glad that I can see my children as adults, that our children will continue on into a future that Jesus will multiply.

Not that we'll go according to our plan, but that we'll go according to his plan. Children are a blessing from God. From the Lord, Jesus will take our meager effort and be faithful. That is our promise. Not that we can work hard enough to see our kids do whatever. You can't. Like, look, let's just take baseball. I don't care how much travel ball you do. If your kids not get a baseball, they're not gonna baseball, okay? It's okay. Like you can't travel ball them into the major leagues. Okay, you can't do a Braden, I promise. But what you can do though, is say I see something good in you. I'm gonna invest in you. Look, I'm gonna take you on a team. It's gonna be great. Let's see what you can do. You don't know what that ending is gonna be, but you can invest in joy. You don't know what that's gonna look like, but you can invest in joy. Jesus is going to take that effort

and he will be faithful. He will multiply your loaves and fishes that you're bringing in an effort to your children. And not just, I said, not just your physical children. Again, I need to hammer on this. It's the children that you have been given. It's all the children, right? Braden, you've been given to me just the same in some sense that you've been given to your mom. Your mom's more accountable than me, that's fine. We'll just leave it like that. But I still belong to you that way, right? Like I still owe that to you. You saw it to me. Look at you playing it so cool. Look at you. Jesus will take our effort and be faithful. We have hit and miss attempts and the investment is going to happen. He will make it fruitful. And so our invitation is clear. Let's invest. Let's invest in hope. Let's preserve the heritage of God's faithfulness. Let's have an absolute blast doing it.

And let's send our children forward into the future with a bright hope, not because they're so brilliant, but because the Lord is so good. We can take joy knowing that the Lord is good, not that our kids are perfect, that the Lord is better than anything that we can imagine. The future that he has for us is more than we could ask. So it says in scripture, more than we could ask or believe that the Lord has plans laid up for us practically. Let me just spend a few minutes on how, I just wanna cast a little bit of vision for you. I just want you to see how you can invest in children here.

And you know what? If this is like, if you're just here and you live in a different state and you're just here one Sunday, awesome, really glad you're here. That's great. The Lord has still given you children to invest in. So take that with a grand soul. Okay. Here's practically how to invest in our children. Get to know their names. It sounds so small. Get to know their names. It's right here on the tag. Just call them by their name. Learn it, get to know them. Get to know their parents' names. Learn to love kind of who they are.

Doing that in a practical way. Our church every Sunday morning works to present and share the gospel with children in an age-appropriate way. I think, I think that we're all excited that babies with particular needs are being cared for together where they can all be the volume of baby that they need to be and not necessarily in here. Okay. We love your children. We're real excited. Hearing them cry for an hour straight is tough. Okay. As you well know, it's tough to do. So we have an infant ministry. In that infant ministry, we care for your children. We change diapers. We sing songs to them. We play with them. We engage them. Okay. We do that as a church body. Everybody doing that together. Even people who don't like kids. Okay. Don't get me started on don't like kids. Okay. So infant ministry, that's what we're doing in infant ministry. Candace Oster is our infant team leader.

Candace, if you could raise your hand just a little bit. Okay, there you go. Candace Oster right here. Good job. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Her son erupted in applause. I think that's what happened. Okay. So we'll just say that's what happened. Okay. It might not have been what happened. We have a preschool ministry. Okay. Eliza Simmons is our preschool team leader. She's not in here, but her husband Patrick is. Patrick, would you raise your hand? He's back there. There you go. Okay. And we're getting claps now. Okay. Fine. Candace and Eliza. Okay. We're clapping for everybody. Sorry. I'm just, it's not on my radar. Okay. My bad. We have Kristy Caperton, who is our grade school team leader. You don't clap her because she's not here. She can't hear you anyway. No, go ahead and clap. We're fine. And then we have, we have Clay and Robin Rickard who are over our student ministry. And they're right here.

Clay and Robin, would you raise your hands? Very me. Yes. Okay. All right. So guys, we have people. We have people that serve every week. The same people don't serve every week, but you know what I'm saying? We have people every week that love and serve our children in a way that they need. Okay. And babies need it different than preschoolers. Preschoolers need it different than grade schoolers and so on. But they serve kids in the way that they need. Okay. Here's my challenge to you.

My challenge to you is, I want you to consider how you could serve our children. You might be like, this is my first time here, second time here. That's not, I understand if it's gonna take a bit of an on-ramp for you. That's not, I'm not trying to like yank you forward. It's fine. But I wanna just give you some practical next steps. Anybody that works with our children, anybody that works with our children needs to go through Gospel Course first. Gospel Course is a four week class. And when you go through those four weeks, it's a way for you to get to know us and for us to get to know you. Okay. We don't wanna throw strangers in with our children. That's not how we do it here at Chisenhall. Okay. That gets you in trouble. That tends to lead to bad things. We got some amends in the back. Probably walk through that. Okay. We know. So Gospel Course, good news, Gospel Course

starts next week. We barely planned it that way, I swear. We did, but barely. So Gospel Course starts next week. Okay. We have a sign up on our connections desk, which is immediately through those doors and on the left. Okay. It's a big, big desk. Can't miss it. And it's in that room right there. You can sign up for Gospel Course. It is free. It is four weeks long. It starts at nine o'clock in the morning on a Sunday. So it's from nine to 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning. And it's a really great way to understand, like learn more about the church. You don't have to become a member after you've gone through Gospel Course. Although if you want to become a member, you have to go through Gospel Course. Okay. So you can go through Gospel Course and not join the church. That's not, it's not like we're, it's not a bait and hook. But if you want to work with children, you do have to go through Gospel Course

because we do need to get to know you. Okay. So are you cleared if you're not signed up for Gospel Course? How are you gifted? Look, there are plenty of ways to serve. Like I said, we have infants, preschool, grade school, and students. Even within those infant, preschool, grade school, student ministries, there are plenty of different ways to serve. Many of them, as you can imagine, are you're dealing with children. But some are not. And so my encouragement is, if you've ever thought about it, and then think, well, I don't know about, I don't know if I can teach. It's not all teaching, like classic teaching. It's not all that. There's actually a lot of different ways to serve. And so I would encourage you, if you're gifted, if you're interested, you can sign up for that. What we have is, we have next to the Gospel Course sign up, we also have a sheet where you can indicate interest.

So let me be really clear on this. When you sign up for that and you circle, whatever you're interested in, infant, preschool, grade school, students, whatever you circle, that's you indicating interest. That's not you automatically getting in. Okay. So I'm real clear with that. Okay. And he's like, I thought I signed up. And like, you're there to work the next week. Nope. You need like training. We need to vet you. We need to do background checks. We need to do all that. Okay. And I'm not trying to put up a bunch of barriers. I'm really just trying to help you understand. Like we have a responsibility as a church to love our children well. And that means vetting people that are in their lives. At the same time, I'm saying the Lord has given you children to invest in. What are you doing with that? What are you doing with that? Okay. By my count, we need 15 people. One, five,

15 people to sign up for this semester. If we got more, that'd be gravy. But we need almost a bare bones. We need 15 people to sign up that are not serving in children's ministry right now. So if you're already serving in children's ministry, awesome. Really glad you're here. That's cool. However, we need different people to sign up. We have just gone through, it's great actually. We've had some great teams in place and we have leadership in place already. That's really great. We're not asking you to lead any kind of team or anything like that. We're just asking you to serve. And we've had several people that have served that have just gone to college. So that's great. We're not just barely limping along, but we're about to be. If we don't start to think about, okay, who's the next group of people that are serving in our children's ministry? Okay. So we're not trying to squeeze everybody through a door,

like all quick. What I'm doing now though is helping you understand the Lord has commissioned our church to care for our children and invest in the future generations. Okay. To invest heavily in that. It's gonna take sacrifice and service on your end. Here's what we did for this week. This week, we just installed these. We just installed speakers in the infant room and the preschool room and out there at the welcome desk so that whenever you are serving back there, you can still hear what's going on in the service. Okay. So we're trying to make it easier, right, to serve and still hear the service and be kind of connected to what's going on. We feel like that's maybe a very small step forward. Candace Osher's idea, so good. So good, sister. Smart.

We need 15 people. My encouragement, it's gonna be out for a couple of weeks. My encouragement, if you're kind of not sure if you've got questions, that's fine. You can indicate interest and receive answers to those questions too. We're not gonna hound you to death. But we do wanna know if you're interested and then we can at least start that conversation, okay.

I'm gonna leave you with this. I'm gonna invite Jan to come back up. I'm gonna leave you with this. We know that a lot of, yeah, thank you. We know a lot of children, that there's a lot of information out there that tells us that a lot of children leave their church after high school. That that's a common thing. That it's like, I don't know, 60%. It's a lot. And it's just, I'm not, you know, like I'm out of my parents' house, I'm going to college, I'm not gonna go to church anymore. That happens a lot, okay. That happens a lot. What the research is now, they've started to ask that question. I wanna get my numbers correct here.

They said, they went back and polled these people, okay. They said, like, did you leave church right after your senior year? Yes, okay, tell me why. Tell me why you left church. And this is like within two years of them leaving church. So the answers were kind of fresh. 71% of those who left church said it was not an intentional choice. They just drifted away as the routines changed rather than walking away in anger or protest. Let me say that one more time. Of the people that are leaving, 71% said it was just not paying attention to the changing routines and how that was adjusting what I was doing on a Sunday morning. That I just drifted away. I wasn't angry, I wasn't mad. There was no church hurt involved. There was nothing like that. It was just drifting away. Guys, children that are invested in turn around and invest. Jesus has invested in us and has discipled us

and he wants us to disciple others. What better place to begin than with the children that he's already given us? Won't you pray with me? Jesus, we know that your goodness goes well beyond our ability to comprehend it. We know that your faithfulness to us is boundless. That you've proven that on the cross. That you've given what is most precious to you. And you did it so that we could be yours. And you did it so that we could have others that we would bless. That we would walk in the same path as Jesus. Jesus, we thank you for the opportunity to invest.

We pray that you would just impress upon our hearts what you want us to do. That's your name that we pray, amen.