“All in the Family”
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Children and Youth Service
…holding this church, this entity exist to help us mobilize and become the arms and the hands and the extensions of Jesus as our head. This week I am going to preface a group that I think might be the best example of the body. It might be the best example we can give you guys of Family Ministry. I work here obviously. I am in charge of Family Ministry. Someone apparently thought I was at some level an expert on this topic of Family Ministry and I could probably talk to you guys about a lot of things of Family Ministry. But, one thing I have continually realized in my life is that we don’t worship a God of talking, we worship a God of showing. He shows himself. He makes apparent. He presents things for it and I believe he asks us to do the same. So instead of me talking to you guys for the next fifteen minutes or so, we thought we would bring up our experts on Family Ministry here at this church. So I would like to invite up our children first, as well as Joanna and Kathy. I have asked a few of my friends to come up and speak, so where are you guys? Don’t leave me hanging now. Megan and Evie, then Eleanor if she made it. We didn’t see her this morning. Nope, just Megan and Evie, our experts.
Joanna: We are going to unwind ourselves here. Evie, you can have a seat. We are going to start with Megan, if that is O.K. Is it O.K. if we start with you Megan? Now Megan, first of all, pretend there is no one out there. O.K. There is nobody there; just you and I and Kathy are just having a conversation. O.K. Just relax. I am going to get out of the way. I know I am not much taller than them, but I am going to stand over here. Hey! That’s not supposed to be that funny. Alright, so Megan, I am going to ask questions. We have prepared a list of questions now just to let you know the kids got these questions ahead of time and have had some time to think about them and work on them just so we didn’t throw them at them just this morning. So, Megan I am going to ask the questions and Kathy will hold the mike for you. Nice and loud.
Joanna: So the first question, Megan, tell everyone your name and how old you are.
Megan: Megan Gunstenson, 7.
Joanna: Excellent. So, Megan, why do you go to church?
Megan: Because I believe in God.
Joanna: Excellent, not because your parents make you. No, I know that is the first answer everybody was going to say, so I am just going to get it out of there. That’s good. Because you believe in God. Excellent.
Second question. Do you think it is important to grow in your faith, or your understanding of God?
Megan: Yes
Joanna: O.K. What things to you do to grow in your faith?
Megan: I listen to the service.
Joanna: O.K. What about the service do you listen to or like? Do you listen to the whole thing? Do you try to listen to all of it?
Megan: Yes.
Joanna: What do you like about it?
Megan: I like the kids’ service.
Joanna: O.K. Excellent. What is your favorite part about church?
Megan: The kids’ service.
Joanna: Why is that your favorite part, the kids’ service and the songs?
Megan: Because I am a kid.
Joanna: Because you are a kid, right! O.K. Good. Are there any things you don’t like about church?
Megan: No.
Joanna: Wow! Good job, Megan! It is ok, it is alright if there was something you didn’t like about church. Alright. What do you do to help our church here grow?
Megan: I invite friends to come to AdventureQuest.
Joanna: O.K. by inviting other kids they can go home and tell kids and you bring friends and stuff.
Alright. Thank you Megan. Let’s give her a hand.
Alright why don’t you introduce yourself, since I gave Megan away, and how old you are.
Evie: Evie Raymond, 7.
Joanna: Excellent. Same questions. Why do you go to church?
Evie: To worship God.
Joanna: Excellent job. Now, this isn’t on there, but do you think we can worship God outside of church too?
Evie: Yes
Joanna: O.K. What are some ways you worship God? I know this wasn’t on there…
Evie: I’m home schooled and we worship God at home school.
Joanna: Excellent. Alright. Cool. So now do you think it is important to grow in your faith?
Evie: Yes.
Joanna: Then what do you do to grow in your faith?
Evie: I come to church.
Joanna: And how does that help you grow in faith?
Evie: I learn about God.
Joanna: Excellent. Good job. What is your favorite part of church and why?
Evie: Sunday school because it’s fun.
Joanna: O.K. Good. Is there anything you don’t like about church?
Evie: The long service.
Joanna: You can clap for that, too, because you know, when I was that age I had the same answer. You know, it gets a little long sometimes, doesn’t it. What do you do to help Faith Church grow?
Evie: I invite friends on Wednesdays.
Joanna: Do you tell other people about things we do here at church and what’s going on and things they can do?
Evie: Yes.
Joanna: Alright. Great answers girls. Let’s give them a hand. You can head back to your seats.
Denny: Alright, I will take this time to invite up our next three experts. They are from our student ministries. That’s Charlie, Evan and Renae. Can you guys head on up here? Just for the record, those were some good answers. You guys got some big shoes to fill. I expect at least as much alliteration from you guys. So Charlie is in our Lighthouse ministry and he has also been playing drums for us this morning and Evan is his older brother and Renae is one of our senior girls. Charlie, it looks like you are up first. You walked forward and they walked back. Alright, do you want me to ask you the questions or do you have your own thoughts. Alright.
Denny: So Charlie, why do you go to church, besides this morning when I told you you had to show up?
Charlie: It’s a mix of what everybody else said. I believe in God and I grew up in the church. I mean that is what I have known all my entire life .
Denny: Charlie do you think it is important to grow in your faith?
Charlie: Definitely, what else are we doing here if we are not.
Denny: O.K. What things do you do to grow in your faith?
Charlie: I guess, I go to Wednesday’s, I participate here, to everything and all that stuff.
Denny: O.K. What is your favorite part of church, Charlie?
Charlie: Definitely the music, like the worship, the Wednesday night worship, and all that because I like music so I connect better with it, I guess.
Denny: O.K. Is there anything you don’t like about church, Charlie? I promised them immunity from their parents.
Charlie: I mean, I don’t like waking up early, but other than that, I don’t have a lot of complaints.
Denny: Alright. Last question, Charlie, what do you do to help the church grow?
Charlie: I probably don’t bring friends as much as I should, but I try to. I had my friend Josh over for the lock-in. Just tell people about what we do.
Denny: O.K. Cool. Thank you, Charlie.
Denny: Are you up Evan or is it ladies first? Tell us your name and who you are.
Renae: I am Renae Eddy and I am a senior.
Denny: Alright. Renae, why do you go to church?
Renae: I go to church for the same reason as Charlie; like I have been coming here ever since I was like four, or something, so I just have grown up coming here.
Denny: O.K. Do you think it is important to grow in your faith?
Renae: I think it is. I mean, I come to praise God and everything and there is not a reason that you shouldn’t because God is so awesome.
Denny: What is your favorite part of church and why?
Renae: My favorite part is Focus and the retreats because everyone is really, really close to each other and then we get closer on retreats.
Denny: Renae, are there any things that you don’t like about church?
Renae: I mean, I like coming to church but I guess, I don’t know, not really.
Denny: What do you do to help church grow?
Renae: I bring a lot of my friends to church, or to like Focus and they have come since last year and I think I have brought about three or four people and they still come. So.
Denny. O.K. Thank you, Renae.
Denny: Last but not least, your name, sir.
Evan: I’m Evan. I’m a junior.
Denny: Do you have a last name, Evan?
Evan: It’s Hurrell.
Denny: Are you related to Charlie Hurrell by any chance?
Evan: No (laughter)
Denny: Alright Evan, why do you go to church?
Evan: I go to church partly because of my parents. I think it is a big reason, if I am being honest. I guess another part is it is kind of like what you do, what you grow up doing, and so it just feels kind of routine. So if I don’t go it is kind of, I don’t know, Sunday feels kind of weird.
Denny: O.K. Do you think it is important to grow in your faith?
Evan: I think it is really important. It is kind of an obvious question, I guess. Like, kind of like what Charlie said, it’s something like just you know if you don’t grow, then you are not doing it right, I guess.
Denny: What things do you do to grow in your faith?
Evan: I think something that really helps me is like praying a lot and being more like on an individual level versus like worship and when you are altogether as a group I think is more of a distraction for me.
Denny: What is your favorite part of church and why?
Evan: O.K. So I can’t say this happens all the time, but my favorite part of church is that you can be in an intellectual setting sort of outside of school so you can have smart conversations, you can debate about stuff, you can really get engaged in something but you don’t have to worry about the stress of school. There’s no grades, you can like think freely, I mean you are always kind of judged but it’s a little more less structured than school, I guess.
Denny: A+ answer! Is there anything you don’t like about church?
Evan: umm. Well, I mean, waking up early, long service, blah, blah, blah, but one thing that kind of bugs me sometimes is like the worrying about like the political aspect and the like structured stuff. Sometimes it is kind of annoying, like, I hear my parents worrying about it all the time.
Denny: O.K. Last question, Evan. What do you do to help the church grow?
Evan: Not much. (laughter)
Denny: Would you like to elaborate on that?
Evan: Well, I am being honest. I mean, you can invite friends but you can bring a friend and they come back like once and that is about it. I mean, I don’t really do anything to help the church grow, if I am being honest.
Denny: Alright. Then that’s O.K., we appreciate that.
Denny: All right, let’s give our students a round of applause. Thank you.
Well, I did tell them they could be honest. As I mentioned before the students came up, I believe that our God is a God of showing and he calls us to do the same. If we are as a family to be known and to be noticed and invite more people into our family, we have to do what our kids do and we have to invite friends. We have to talk to each other. We have to come and even force ourselves to wake up when it is so early and force ourselves to listen when the service gets so long. I asked these students to come up and I could have asked twenty more and they would have all had great answers. I asked them because our students do a good job of being honest. They say what they like; they say what they don’t like. Most importantly it’s, I think, they show us their faith in action. I invite you, if you have never come on a Wednesday night just come to observe what is going on around this church. See what is happening in AdventureQuest and Lighthouse and Focus. Once you get past the games and the loud music and screaming and articles of food and what not flying across the room, you will notice that these kids are living out their faith on a weekly and on a daily basis. A familiar verse I am sure most of you know, it comes from James, Chapter 2, starting in verse 14:
What good is it, my brothers and sisters,* if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
18 But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith without works, and I by my works will show you my faith.
I don’t think it is coincidence that the name on this building is Faith. I don’t think it is coincidence that our monthly publication is called Faith in Action. I am pretty sure they got the title from somewhere in that chapter. As we work and move and live as a family, my challenge is that you don’t just be people of words that you would be people of action, that you live by your faith, that this church is mobilized and moving and in action by its faith. Just like the promises you made when you baptized a child here or the promises your parents made for you when they baptized you here, to be a person of faith, just like the promise you make when you come up to this communion table, to be in the body, to be united in Christ; that’s an action. Just like Buck said last week, when we are working in and throughout and moving forward in the Church, that we would be mobilized and we would be the hands and the feet of Jesus. And just like our kids said that we come to church to grow. We come to church to learn more and to do more. My prayer for us is simply that what we say in here matches what we do outside of here. I have the blessing week in and week out to see our kids from the littlest ones to the oldest ones doing that. So my encouragement is that we would follow their lead as we live all in the family.
Would you just bow and pray with me?
Lord Jesus I thank you so much that you gave us this body and you called it your own. You took a people that were once slaves to sins, that were outcasts and away from your presence, and you made the sacrifice to make us sons and daughters, brothers and sisters and a family. You built us up. You built the foundation of your church around love. Lord, I pray that you would do what is necessary in this church to show us how to follow through on that, to have faith that is action and to have love that passes outside these walls; that invites people in but also goes out and meets some where they are at. We lift this church up into your hands, Father, asking that you would show us how to be all in our family and all in yours. In your name. Amen.