Feed My Sheep

For years, I volunteered to do children's ministries in church. Can I tell you something? They are my people. haha. Kids are absolutely the best. Their sincerity, their honesty, their innocence. If you ever want to get to know yourself, have a conversation with a kid. God has used them to deeply encourage me, help me see things in a different perspective and even correct me. They're not prideful and looking for an applause from man. They just enjoy life and say what they see. We could learn a lot from them!

What I loved about kids' ministry is that I didn't feel like I had to be "super-spiritual" because they were going to see through that anyway! haha! And I didn't need a 7 page sermon planned because I would lose them after 3 minutes if I thought lecturing would be effective. No, I understood that my job was not to take them through a religious routine. My job was to feed them -- to get them to understand what God says in His word. And how do you that? How do you get a kid to understand 'complicated' scripture?

Well, first you need to understand that God never intended scripture to feel complicated! (Deep, yes, but not complicated.) His word is equated to bread. Bread is not hard to eat. It's soft enough to tear, easy to chew and easy to swallow. So, I had to break it down for them. You can't get a baby to eat steak when they have no teeth. I had to think like Jesus and think about how He taught people (both adults and children would listen to His teaching). He used parables, everyday concepts that people could relate to. His goal was not to sound religious. His goal was to make sure that people were eating what He was presenting. If you read the gospels, you can see how much effort He took to make sure that happened. Sometimes, He even had to tell multiple parables of the same concept to get all the people to understand. 

My thought today is this: Jesus hasn't changed. He still has this same goal for His sheep: to understand His teachings and pull them closer to the Father. 

Do you feel like a nourished sheep? Do you understand what the word is saying when you read it or when you hear a sermon? 

One thing that is super important to remember is that we need His Holy Spirit to illuminate God's word to us. He leads us into all truth. So ask Him to help you. Welcome the Holy Spirit into your reading time, into times when you are hearing a sermon or teaching. Ask Him to bring it alive to you and make it personal. I promise you, He will. 

A question now to all teachers and pastors out there: Are you making it easy for people to eat? Or hard? Are you keeping your goal simple: Feed His Sheep.   

If I can say this... Though I have never been a pastor, I have probably sat through thousands of hours of sermons and teachings over the years and my favorite sermons always came from the youth pastors. Why? Because they made it easier for me to understand. They didn't water down the word, they just presented it in a way that I walked away with something to chew on. They made it understandable!

Jesus wants His people to understand His teachings. Don't be afraid to dig in and learn and get to the bottom of it!

And if you're a teacher, do all you can to get the sheep fed. No one needs to walk away hungry.

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