Another kids ministry

I have been working on some Sunday nights with 3 - 5 year olds at Seacoast. I love it. There're no special needs kids, but it's fantastic to have this opportunity.

However, there's been a problem. One of the songs we sing goes: "I'm going to take God's promieses and hide 'em in my heart, hide 'em in my heart, hide 'em in my heart. I'm going to take God's promieses and hide 'em in my heart, hide 'em in my heart, hide 'em in my heaaaarrrrt." And of course there are accompanying motions.

There are other lyrics but I can't remember them. Now I have that one line and the hand motions running on the hamster wheel of my mind. Fortunaetnly it seems to override the squeeky sound that I normally hear.

Burn out?

For about 4 - 6 weeks straight now, I've either been working w/ the kids on my regular weeks, taking over for someone that could not work, and one week I was out of town.

I'm getting a little burned out, but then I realize that every time I work with these wonderful kids, God is just so awesome.

I may need to take some time off soon, but I love these kids.

Worship

I do NOT update this blog often enough.

My church holds a special service on the first Wednesday of each month. This past Wednesday some cool things happened:

1. Our children's pastor, Scott, was ordained. Scott is a very special man. Our church has over 1000 members at our main campus, and I think that Scott has most of the kids names memorized. I don't even know my own name at times. Thank God for Scott's commitment to kids.
Another cool thing about Scott is that, as the name and pronouns imply, he's a man. Churches like the one I grew up in did not encourage men [nor did they outright discourage] to work with kids. It was almost always some little old ladies.

2. We had some new twists on the worship experience:
A. One of the children's departments came out and sang two songs with us. The lyrics to one of these songs goes: "I am free to run...I am free to dance...I am free to live for you...". Those kids ran, danced, jumped and wiggled around for God. Which brings me to...

B. We are to worship God WITH EVERYTHING. The Bible says that: "David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the LORD with all his might..." Look up EPHOD here

C. What we did differently was that we were encouraged to worship God differently than our "normal method". In other words if you were a quiet worshiper, you were encouraged to be loud, if you're loud then you were encouraged to be quiet and reflective. If you raise your hands, fine, add some dancing to it. You get the picture.

I tried to add jumping to mine as an outward expression to God and my great joy at being one of His. However, when a 5'5", 180 lb, uncoordinated man jumps up and down it is NOT pretty. I kept running out of breath and almost ran into someone while I was jumping in place.

I am posting this here because I need to point out something. The Won by One ministry [or as I call them, The Purple Plastic Piano People] are special needs kids. They often have their own way of expressing love. Some are very open because they do not have those internal mechanisms that tell them it's not always appropriate to hug and kiss. Some are very open to music and not any other stimuli. Others do not like music because it's too loud etc. but, they can express love just by being sweet or by building something out of Legos or wood blocks.

Take whatever God has given you and use it to express your love for Him.

Twins

We had the twins this weekend. They've just turned 5, but they're on about a 3 year old level. I may be off on that a little.

They're cute boys. They love to sit in laps and give hugs.

That really makes this minisistry worth the effort.

Drive by Blessings

I was to take over this past Saturday for the Won by One kids. No one showed up. I was hoping to make it to church services but I was detoured. My friends the Kinneys' have 3 and 1/2 great kids [the 1/2 is going to be here in a few months]

The youngest-so far-is Princess Coleman. She is abour 1 1/2 years old. Anyway last week, I was walking past the nursery at the church and a very unhappy camper was in there. I held my arms out and Coleman came right to me. I got a few sugars out of her, and got her to calm down a little.

See, she has Down Syndrome. DS kids are the most loving kids in the world.

Her daddy, Scott, is our children's minister. One night at a special function at the church, he mentioned Colman's situation. Two-well intiontioned--elderly ladies in front of me had that "OH NO!!! Poor baby..." reaction. What they don't know is that DS kids are a true blessing. They do not know "hatred". Of course, it can be argued that no one knows hatred and that it has to be taught, but it's different w/ these kids. They just love. PERIOD.

I thank God for this "side effect" of DS. Maybe we can all learn something from them.

In fact, I think I'll cut and paste this into my other blog.

How many kids was that again?

I was able to work with the WXO kids at church last night. It was wonderful as usual. We had two. They're 4 year old twins. They're autistic.

Towards the end of the service, they got just a little anxious looking for their daddy so they kept running out of the room. One of the adult leaders for a different department had to make like a hockey goalie to stop them from getting out of the children's area.

Sounds bad right? Well not really. Not when both kids kept giving the grown-ups [yes that includes me] hugs and kisses.

I love these kids.

Won by One and that alone...for now

I've been working with the Won by One [Special Needs] class at my church's main campus for about three years now. For the past 7 - 8 months I've also been working with 2 year olds at our North Charleston campus. This past Sunday I decided to quit the 2 year old's ministry.

I love the kids. But, my heart isn't in it. It's fun, it's good but my hear is with those special needs kids.

Maybe we'll get something for special needs kids started at North Charleston...if so I am SO there.