Being a children’s pastor in a megachurch has its pros and cons. There are a lot of things that a church of 3,500 can do that a smaller church perhaps can’t do. At the same time, there are things that can happen in a smaller church that a large church just can’t facilitate.There’s one thing that I really, really miss from the days of my upbringing in a smaller church. On Sunday and Wednesday nights, our services included what we called a testimony service. During this portion of the service, individuals would stand up before the congregation and tell of God’s goodness. One person might tell of a healing that had taken place last week while another person might tell of a supernatural provision. As a child, these stories helped cement my confidence in an all-loving, all-caring God.
While I recognize that due to time restraints posed by having multiple services and also having the impossibility of an individual’s voice being heard in an auditorium that seats some 1,500, having a testimony service in a large church is next to impossible. And yet, I still long to hear those testimonies. I know the value of hearing what God is doing today among the people that I know and love.
Evidently David knew the value of a testimony service. Consider David’s instructions:
“Let each generation tell its children what glorious things He does.”
Psalm 145:4 (The Living Bible)
I’ve come to this resolve. While we may not be able to have a testimony service in the adult service, I can’t afford to allow our children to miss out on this faith-building tool. I must allow my staff and the children an opportunity to tell of the glorious things that God is doing. Each week, I will start the testimony service by telling of what the Lord has done for me or my family in the last 7 days and then allow a few minutes for my staff and then the children to testify of God’s goodness. After building their faith by hearing what God has done, it becomes easy to then trust God for as we go into our time of prayer for the current needs of that week.
David knew what he was talking about. Let’s bring back the testimony service and build faith in our children by showcasing God’s marvelous deeds. Let’s allow the children to see that God is alive and well. Let’s build an understanding in our children that what God has done for another person, He can and will do it for you.
