testing... check, check... are you listening?

All I can say about yesterday's service with the kids is... WOW!

First of all, I'd like to brag on Mrs. Rebecca a little bit, who is just downright awesome! :) I'm so thankful for her energy, her laughter, and her heart for the kids. She's the perfect worship leader for kids' ministry and I honestly don't know how I got along without her before. It's so awesome to be a part of such a neat team of leaders who really do love your kids and want the Lord's best for each one of them. The worship time during Kids Church was great yesterday and the kids really responded to the presence of the Lord. Usually, we do a couple of fast songs to get the kids jumping around and excited, then slow it down at the end with a song where we can focus on the Lord. Sometimes the kids aren't too excited about the slower songs, which is understandable, so when Mrs. Rebecca said we were gonna do THREE slower worship songs yesterday morning, I thought, "This is going to be interesting." We all got in a circle in the front of the room and started singing "All I Want" by Planetshakers (check it out, it's a fantastic song). We moved into "Mighty to Save" and I began to see some of the kids lift their hands, kneel, or just sing out with their eyes closed. How that blesses me! Kids' worshiping is the purest form of worship I have ever seen. One of the kids told us after the song that he could feel the presence of the Lord every time he lifted his hands to worship. For the last one we sang our favorite, "The Same Power". We all got into groups of three or four and spent time praying over each other. The kids really responded to this and I saw boys and girls laying hands on one another asking the Lord for peace, healing, help, and encouragement. What an amazing time of worship we had! I so want the kids to have an encounter with the Lord and His goodness every time they spend time in His presence and the Lord was so good to do just that yesterday morning!

The focus of yesterday's lesson was "Prayer is talking and listening to God", with the emphasis on 'listening'. Preparing for this lesson has really challenged me this past week. How much time do I spend listening to the Lord? Can I recognize the Lord's voice when He speaks? These are questions I asked the kids, but while asking them, I was asking myself the same questions. So many times when I pray, I do all the talking, but what would happen if I started listening as much as I talked? Or if I spent more time listening than I do talking? Our story was about Samuel and Eli in 1 Samuel 3 and we talked about the many ways that the Lord speaks to each of us - His still small voice, thoughts, other people, pictures, nature, etc. We ended the lesson with a short 'exercise'. In order to recognize the Lord when He speaks, you have to know what He 'sounds' like... How do you know what he 'sounds' like? You have to listen to Him. And the more you listen, the more you'll recognize Him when He speaks. So we ended the lesson by asking the Lord to speak to each one of us, just like Samuel did when he heard the Lord's audible voice, and we spent about a minute in silence, just listening... I didn't ask the kids if the Lord said anything to them, but I believe that the Lord spoke in that minute to many of them.

So this week, encourage your kids to spend time listening to the Lord. And I'm encouraging you to spend time listening to the Lord, because I'm going to take time to listen to Him more this week too. I'm excited about what the Lord is going to say to us!