Happy Birthday & What is "About the Children's Department"?

In just ten days I'll be celebrating the third "birthday/anniversary" of About the Children's Department! Yes, I've been writing this blog for almost three years! First of all, I want to thank all of you who take time out of your day to read what I write; thank you! I also want to thank you for taking time to comment and share your thoughts and experiences as well; I love to hear from you!

I thought it would be fun to go back and see what my first post was - I wrote about why children's ministry mattered to me and why I was writing About the Children's Department. After three years my reasons are still the same, so I'm sharing my first post with you again today . . .

I believe there are a couple of things which are central to children's ministry. First of all we must have a commitment to being effective. If we do things simply because "we have always done it that way" - whether it is accomplishing anything or not, we are in grave danger of being ineffective. Children's ministry matters too much for us to not be effective.

When I was in high school I was a teacher's aide in our elementary school. I was also the Sunday School bus captain on one of my church's busses. Juan was a boy from my class at school who also rode our Sunday School bus with his four brothers every week. We had a real ministry on our busses with Bible stories, songs, and verses. Every year we had children put their trust in Christ for salvation on our busses! The last Sunday of my senior year, on the way home from church, Juan raised his hand and put his faith in Christ! The next day I went to a Christian camp to work for the summer before I went to college. Two weeks later I received a letter from my mom. In it she told me Juan and one of his brothers were playing with their dad's gun, it was loaded and went off, killing Juan. He was only seven years old. Children's ministry matters because these children matter - they are a treasure from God and we have no guarantee the children in our ministry this week will be here in two weeks. We must be effective now. It matters too much not to be.

About the Children's Department will serve as a tool to help you find the tools you need to be as effective as possible in your children's ministry. We will look at curriculum, resources, ideas to help your kids "put feet to their faith" by serving others at home and around the world and we will be a place where you can ask questions and share your ideas as well! I pray "About the Children's Department" will prove to be an effective tool for you. I'd love to hear from you!