Let me paraphrase one of the most powerful ministry tips found in the Bible and possibly eliminate your #1 ministry roadblock. In fact, I’ll give it in the beloved King James language … Thou Shalt Maximize Thy Time. I’ll even give you the reference for this teaching tip.
“Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”
Ephesians 5:16
I know that this doesn’t sound spiritual, much less supernatural. But, believe me, it is. Most ministry opportunities operate within a defined time frame. In other words, your service begins and ends at specified times. And while we know these boundaries and that we only have a predetermined number of minutes with our children each week, many leaders and workers fail to maximize the opportunity and eliminate the Holy Spirit’s ability to fulfill His supernatural assignment.
There are two ways to maximize your ministry time.
1. Start on Time. It is amazing how we put restraints upon the Holy Spirit because we have crowded our ministry time by starting late and shorten the limited time available for Him to move. Because of our tardiness, items in the service become check-off bullets on your scheduled agenda, teaching becomes rushed and blurred, and altar time becomes non-existent. Then, we face the impatient parents who wait for us to “get ‘r done” or, even worse, barge in to get their children.
2. Redeem the Time. It’s high time that we evaluate what we place in our service. Many children’s workers try to cram 120 minutes worth of activities into a 90 minute service. We rush. We push. Our over-packed agenda hasn’t a second to spare and consequently preempts any deviation prompted by the Holy Spirit. What if we placed LESS into the service and made time for Him to talk and demonstrate that He is in the room? Honestly, there are things that we all do that are time eaters, things that push us to the time that parents are impatiently waiting for us to finish the service. Let’s maximize those few brief minutes that we have with the children and make them count by making room for the Holy Spirit to move.
