If you have been in children’s ministry for any length of time, you will agree that this is an on-the-job training ministry. At the beginning, mistakes are plentiful. As you continue through the School of Hard Knocks, you soon earn your bachelor’s degree and the mistakes become fewer and fewer.
One of the dangers of being a graduate of the School of Hard Knocks is that, after a while, it is so easy to begin to operate off of previous experience. There is security in having done things before. In our ministry, we know what works, what to do/what not to do, etc. There can’t be many mistakes made if we always follow the lessons learned from experience. The downside of experience is that it can cause us to develop a cruise control mentality. In our ministries, we can begin to work off of an auto-pilot mentality. What is the end result? Instead of being Charismatic, we can become cruise-a-matic.
Thank God for the experience and formulas. But, to accomplish our ultimate call, at times, we must push the safety net aside and, having heard the voice of the Spirit of God, leave the comfort zone behind and walk into uncharted territories.
For those who see true moves of God, vulnerability, or perhaps best said “sensitivity”, will cause us to join the ranks of the Abrahams who will leave family behind to go on an uncharted journey of faith, the Moseses’ who will dare to lead an at times uncooperative group to a land of promise, the Esther’s who will risk it all to stand in the gap for her people.
Today, there is an inward voice calling for us to push the safety net aside and step out of the boat, walk on waters thought impossible by man. There is a voice crying out for us to become dependent upon our sensitivity to the Holy Spirit’s voice in our services. There are places in the Spirit that our children haven’t been. There are things that they haven’t seen. There is a freedom that they haven’t experienced. There are Gifts of the Spirit that they haven’t operated in.
Remember, the greater the sensitivity, the greater the power!