Kids

Inviting children to grow in their relationship with God is important–and it can be intimidating for parents or teachers. But don’t let that stop you.  God can help, and His message is simple enough for children to understand and believe.  God has more things to say to you and your child, and He’ll bring you to those truths as you grow and ask for His help.  Tips for Grown-Ups.

God’s Love.  God loves each of us and wants to adopt us as His children.  (John 1:12)
Sin. Each of us does things that are wrong.  These wrongs are called “sin,” and God has a rule that sin must be punished (aka justice).  Having sin in our lives makes it impossible for God to adopt us–unless our sins are somehow removed.  (Romans 3:23 and Romans 6:23)
Jesus.  Jesus is God’s Son.  He had always lived in heaven with God until about 2,000 years ago.  At that time, He was born as a baby on earth.  God sent Him here to carry out a special mission.  His plan made a way for our sins to be removed so that we could be adopted into God’s family.  Here’s how the plan worked: Jesus grew up without ever sinning.  Since Jesus is perfect, He’s the only one who could take the punishment for our sins.  He did this by dying on a cross, and after three days, He came back to life.  This showed that He had power over sin and death.  (Later on, He went back up to heaven to live with God again.)  Jesus gave his life as a gift to us so that we could be adopted into God’s family.  (2 Corinthians 5:21 and 1 Corinthians 15:3-4)
Adoption.  We can be adopted into God’s family.  Some good things about being adopted by God are:
1. You can still keep your family on earth, too. (Yes, you get to belong to two families!)
2. God forgives us of our sins.  This means the wrong things we’ve done and sometimes continue to do won’t get us kicked out of God’s family.  (1 John 1:9)
3. God sends us His Spirit. (You can’t see Him, but He’s there) His Spirit guides us as we make choices and He helps us in our lives. (Romans 8:16 and Galatians 5:22-23)
4. When our physical bodies die, the invisible parts of us (our spirits) go to heaven to live with God – forever!  (John 3:16)

If we want God to adopt us, we need for our sins to be removed.  This happens when we do the following:

• We tell God that we’ve done things that are wrong.
• We thank Him for allowing Jesus to take our punishment for us.
• We ask God to forgive us of our sins.
• We invite God’s Spirit to guide us and help us for the rest of our lives.

Right then, God takes our sins away, and we become His adopted children!

Prayer.  Ask the child if they would like to pray with you to be adopted into God’s family.  Together, you can pray something like this:

Dear God,
I know that I’ve done things that are wrong.  I’m sorry; I want to change.  Thank you for sending Jesus to die in my place, for forgiving me of my sins, and for adopting me as 
your child.  Amen.

Celebrate.  If you prayed and asked God to adopt you, the angels in heaven are now celebrating!  God delights in adding you to His family!  (Luke 15:10)

(taken from What God Wants for Christmas by Amy L. Bradford)

We want the most current information in our system for every child in Kids Ministry. Whether it’s physical, behavioral and mental health information, or parent contact information–we want parents to trust that we have all the necessary information on-hand to help your child(ren) to the best of our ability.

Parents, you will have full access to your child whenever you want it:

• Parents are welcome to stay with their child in the classrooms, if they’d like.
• Kids Ministry area is locked during service for the safety of the kids; however, after visual confirmation, any parent who wants to enter Kids area during service, will be let in.  A volunteer is stationed at the check-in desk throughout the service; parents should knock on the Kids door, and once the Kids Check-in volunteer identifies you through the window, they will open the door and connect you with your child.