Lakewood Needs You

As you probably know, Lakewood is prayerfully planning to re-launch our children’s ministry in January 2021. Of course, one of the primary things necessary for a successful children’s ministry is – children! We have a wonderful facility in which a children’s ministry can meet, but we have been faithfully praying for the Lord to send young families and children to Lakewood. The Lord is faithful, and He will provide opportunities for us to minister to families with children in ways that probably never crossed our minds.

The other primary thing which is absolutely necessary for a successful children’s ministry is adult leaders. In fact, we need to have adult leaders in place in our children’s ministry before we can properly invite and welcome new families with children. A few weeks ago, we had a young couple with two young daughters visit our worship service for the first time. I was not prepared with ministry opportunities for the children that day. Since then, I have developed a “bridge” plan with a faithful Lakewood member to help us receive children for Sunday School or Children’s Church. This is good for now, but it is not enough.

So, I would like to challenge you. The challenge is simple. The challenge is to say a prayer, a specific prayer. I challenge everyone who reads this to say a simple prayer to the Lord that sounds something like this,

“Lord, I want to be used by You, for Your glory, to achieve Your will. I also want to see the children’s ministry at Lakewood Baptist Church to be revived and to thrive. Lord, please show me what I can do to help see the children’s ministry become successful for your glory. In Jesus name, amen.”

I challenge you to pray that. In fact, I dare you! A dare from your pastor! Haha.

In order to do children’s ministries well, we need to have a very minimum of six people at the ready on Sunday mornings, placing workers in pairs for accountability purposes. Of course, initially there will likely be several Sundays in a row when a worker will be ready and prepared yet arrive at church to discover that no children are present that day. I would encourage that person to spend a bit of time in prayer over their area of ministry, then slip into their regular adult Sunday School class. Eventually though, we’re praying that the Lord fill our children’s hallway to the max and we begin to experience the very opposite of our current challenge – so many children and workers hearing and teaching about Christ the Risen Savior, that we have to have multiple Sunday School times, and build new buildings. Maybe it will start with you?

Blessings,

Pastor Bruce