move-up Sunday

For the past 5 years or so, I've been a counsellor in the 3rd & 4th grade Sunday School class at my church. I started helping out in there after several weeks in a row of dropping off some rowdy kids from the bus ministry and then leaving. I felt bad that the counsellors in there had to deal with these kids I was bringing to church, still a bit rough around the edges :-)

And I've got to say, that as challenging as it is, dealing with kids that I only get to see for a short time each week, it's really a great place to be. I love the kids...even the ones who continually test me. Maybe I love them more. They certainly get more of my attention than the "good" kids! But I so appreciate the good kids, too!

I grew up in the church, just as these kids are doing, so I can relate to the culture they are experiencing. And a big challenge lately is trying to figure out how to really help these kids desire God. Not just want to do the right things, and not just able to give the right answer—it's "easy" to teach the kids how to look good. How to make it look like they have lives that really have been changed by a relationship with Christ. It's much, much more difficult to get down into the heart of things, and explain the concepts of being born again...regenerated…made new in Christ; repentence from sin and what salvation really is and does.

I've always had a hard time teaching pretty much anything. Partly because when I learn something, I can rarely trace back the steps that I took to learn it. I feel like many things just "click" with me, and I don't know how to get things to "click" with others in the same way. And since I can't remember how I learned things, I can't always figure out good ways to teach them to others. My father was a born teacher—never missing an opportunity to help others learn something. I wish more of that quality had come through the genes to me!

A few weeks ago, we had a time of fun and games outdoors during the Sunday School hour to celebrate our last Sunday in our "old" church building. It was the day kids change grades and move up to the next class, so we kept our going-into-5th-graders and welcomed the going-into-3rd-graders, so we had quite a crowd as we headed outside for tug-'o-war and dodgeball and playground fun. We then presented our 5th-graders with graduation certificates as we escorted them next door to their new class.

I will truly miss some of our kids moving into 5th grade. Their sweetness and eagerness to learn has encouraged my heart many times. I'm also looking forward to these fresh new faces growing up in our class over the next 2 years...we've got a ton of new girls, and I now have the challenge of learning all their names...help!