Week 1 was all about Splash night.
Week 2 was all about the Summer Olympics.
Week 3 was all about VBS.
Week 4 is going to be all about Outreach.
I am so blessed to serve at a church that understands and emphasizes the importance of evangelism and outreach. My heartbeat is to reach out to every child that I can and share with them the love of Christ. (Visit here to learn more about my calling to #KidsMin.) I am a firm believer in missions. Throughout my life I have been on several missions trips and even completed a 3 month long internship to Africa and Asia as part of my Senior year at College. When I came back home from that trip my goal was to look at everything around me as missions. There are far too many times that we get too caught up in the belief that for something to be considered missions it must happen somewhere far away with people who don't speak our language. While that is certainly important we cannot as Christians ever forget that we can serve in missions every day.
Right now I spend the majority of my time in a small town in the South and I have realized that my missions field is my own backyard. While there are lots of definitions for missions I like to make things simple... To me, missions simply means service. Last year I attended the Catalyst conference in the ATL with the staff from my church. During the conference we heard a speaker who spoke specifically about #KidsMin. I remember being pleasantly surprised when he started speaking because #KidsMin is absolutely vital yet so quickly forgotten or downplayed. I wish I could give you the exact quote but I didn't think to write it down at the time. The speaker said that it was our responsibility to get out from the 4 walls of our church and go to save the kids in our neighborhood, and that if we didn't go out and save them who would. I have to tell you, that pierced my heart like it hadn't been pierced in a while.
That night as I was reflecting over everything I had heard that day I knew that the Lord was still speaking to me about this. Once I get an idea in my head I tend to want to throw myself into it, plant my feet, and make it happen. However, the Lord was very clear. He wanted me to wait and pray. Catalyst happens at the beginning of October. I waited and prayed all through December and still the words I kept hearing were wait and pray. It wasn't until I was planning my summer schedule at the beginning of April that I got the green light to make it happen.
I'm so thankful that this summer my #KidsMin got out from behind the 4 walls of our church and made an impact in our community. For us this looked like grabbing a water hose, sprinklers, a few games, and popsicles and heading into our local community for a night of water fun. We went out twice during the summer and had a blast both times. We played simple games, sang easy songs with lyrics that could be quickly memorized, had short devotions and times of prayer, and ate popsicles. Each time that we left, despite the simplicity of our events we had kids wanting to know when we would be back.
If I could give you one piece of advice with regards to outreach it's this: Don't get caught up in creating a complicated event. So many times with kids simple is best. Kids don't care about how flashy your equipment is, or that you have the latest media, or best music. Kids care about your heart. They care that while you are there that you are playing games with them, telling jokes, sharing Christ's love.
Outreach wraps up how we spent our summer in my #KidsMin.
What did you do in your #KidsMin this summer?
For questions about anything from our Summer Event series feel free to e-mail me at kidsmincalling@gmail.com. I love hearing from Blog readers and from fellow #KidsMin workers!
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