Let's go to Matthew chapter 18 tonight, and I want to preach about the importance of children's ministries. It is Mother's Day, and so there's some relation to that, but just been thinking through Elmira Baptist Church and our vision for the future, and I wanna share some of that vision for you. It was good to see three families dedicate their children to the Lord this morning. you realize that these little babies are, if I can use some analogy here that isn't particularly Christian, they're a bet on the future. In other words, these parents think that they have time to raise these children for him, and by the way, I think they're right. We don't know when the Lord's gonna return. If they really thought the Lord was gonna return tomorrow, Why dedicate your children to the Lord? We're all gonna be gone tomorrow. I'm grateful for that kind of faith. When my wife and I were first married, there was some talk among people that we knew, not necessarily Christian people, well, not people close to us, but talk among people we knew, maybe we ought not to have kids, the world is getting so evil. Well, I'm glad we didn't listen to that advice. I'm glad we went ahead and let the Lord give us some children, and we're grateful for the four children God gave us. Children are very important, and the children in our families and those children that God brings to Elmira Baptist Church, they are the opportunity for us to impact the future. We can't get in a time machine and go into the future, but we can certainly train the next generation. and they will be in the future. So keep that in mind as we talk about the importance of children's ministries. Matthew 18, follow along as I read out loud verses one through six. At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus saying, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Now, boy, the disciples, it always amazes me how God chose really poor people to be disciples. Why are they interested in who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Who wants to guess? Why are they interested in that? One or two-word answer. Pride. They want Jesus to say, it's John. Oh, yeah. Right? They want, it's Matthew. Oh, me? Oh, yes, I knew it. Right? That's what they want. They're proud. They want to be recognized. They want to be exalted. And what Jesus does in verse 2, Jesus called a little child unto Him. Notice it doesn't give us the name of this child or its parents. The child is not important. The individual there is not important. He calls to Himself a child and He sets Him in the midst of them and said, "'Verily I say unto you, except you be converted and become as a little child, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.'" Whosoever therefore shall humble himself. The question came out of pride. He says, therefore, whosoever shall humble himself as this little child. The same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones, which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck. and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." Father, this is a serious passage with implications for us as a church, for me as a pastor, for those that are the teachers of our young people, of our children, has implications for parents. And I know it has implications for the church, so I ask as we look at this passage tonight, you to open again our minds to the truth that our ministry to children is very important. And give us a heart to minister not only to those children that belong to the families that are members of Almira Baptist Church, but children from the community as well. And we pray these things in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen. So the importance of children's ministries. The first reason that children's ministries are important is because children are unusually receptive to the gospel. Here it says that, except you be converted and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Notice that he's giving precedence here to children. Children actually enter into the kingdom of heaven easier than you guys do. And it's because of their humility. Children naturally, well, children are naturally sinful, but most of them recognize that they're dependent on other people. It's like the little boy who decides he's gonna run away from home. So he goes to his mom and says, can you make up a couple sandwiches? I'm getting ready to run away from home and I want something to eat for the first day, right? They recognize they can't do these things themselves. And so children's ministries are important because they're unusually receptive to the gospel. Children can become Christians at a very young age. Never discount the faith of children. Now, I don't, when a child comes to me and says, I wanna become a Christian or I wanna be saved, I don't just pat him on the head and say, oh, that's great. No, I believe that if we take the word of God, Show them that they're sinners, and I've dealt with children before, and I've said, are you a sinner? No, I don't do anything wrong. Okay, that child's not ready yet to be saved. I get that, but they can understand their sin. They can be sorry for their sin, repentant, decide that that's not the way they ought to be acting. They can recognize that Jesus died, was buried, and rose again for them. They can receive that gift by faith. And additionally, children who become part of God's family at a young age, boy, what advantage they have. Because from a young age, the Holy Spirit begins to work on them to conform them to the image of Jesus Christ. And they can establish some of those habits of righteousness, those spiritual disciplines that will be profitable to them in the work of the Lord later on. But also, children who become Christian at a young age, they can avoid many of those sins that leave scars in our lives. And God's good. He can take even the scars and use them for His glory, and I'm grateful for that. But God doesn't want us scarred. And so anytime we can lead a child to Christ and get them on that road, developing those spiritual, not the road to heaven, they're going to heaven, they've got that guarantee, but help them develop those spiritual disciplines from a young age. Help them avoid some of those scars. That's a benefit to us as a church in our ministry. So children's ministries are important because children are unusually receptive to the gospel. But children's ministries are also important because children are developing lifelong views about morality and character. They're forming in their minds how the world works and what is right and what is wrong and what's worth living for and what's not worth living for. Psalm 3411, come ye children, hearken unto me and I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Here's the psalmist saying, I'm going to teach children to fear the Lord. Now, you know this, but let me remind you that we have an enemy, right? Be sober, be vigilant. For your adversary, the devil is a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. We have an enemy. And he's a very clever, very crafty enemy. And he specifically targets our children. Now I don't mean our children like children of Elmira Baptist Church, I mean children everywhere. He targets children. Think about social media and the influences of the internet. Do you think that in general is a positive for our children? Let me just caution you, and we've wrestled with this too, I don't have, a dogmatic answer, be very careful about giving your children unfettered access to the internet. Because the internet is not their friend. The internet is not your friend. And I don't mean by that that as soon as they open up a browser that they're contaminated. Some parents, they, but here's my point. We have an enemy, and he wants our children. And we need to be, excuse me, I need that chewing gum again. We need to be cautious because children are developing those lifelong views about morality and about character. Let me warn you that the public education system in our country is not your children's friend. And I don't mean to be dismissive of the people that God has called, the Christians God has called to work in public schools. My daughter came to me, now it's been about five years ago, and said, I believe God's calling me to be a teacher. I said, that's great. And I just assumed, right, she's going to teach in Christian schools. But as we talked through it, she said, no, I think God wants me to teach in public schools. I said, now, okay, God can call you to teach in a public school, but I want to make sure that He's called you to do that because it's not going to be easy. So I don't want to be dismissive of those Christians. God has called to work in our public education system. If anyone's on the mission field, they are on the mission field. But the public education system is not your children's friend. And entertainment, whether it's YouTube or television, whatever it is, music, actors, actresses, singers, songwriters, they are not your children's friend. I just want to warn us because it doesn't do us any good to allow our children to be exposed to all these evil influences Monday through Saturday and then bring them to church on Sunday morning and hope it's like a washing machine, right? They wash the kids and gets them all clean and now they're ready to get dirty again on Monday. That's not the point. What a church does is we come alongside parents that are already headed in a particular direction and we help them, we support them in that. You already know. I was getting ready to speak to the three parents that dedicated their children this morning. All of us that are parents in there know other parents who are often dismissive of the way we raise our children. Oh, you don't let your children do that? We don't want our church to be like that. Our church family, we want to support each other. Oh, I'm glad you're raising your children in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. I'm glad you're being careful about what they watch and what they listen to and what books they read. And children benefit from a ministry approach that is tailored to their age. I quoted earlier, Psalm 3411, come ye children, I will teach you, hearken unto me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Maybe you're familiar with churches that don't have a children's program. They promote children to stay with their parents from the time that they're born until, well, just always. There's no junior church, there's no Sunday school program. They'll have an hour of teaching, a Sunday school hour maybe, but they call it family-based, and the whole family's together. I'm not against that because the Bible's against that. I just know how much my children have benefited when they were three or four. by being taught lessons that were appropriate, age-appropriate for three and four-year-olds. And then five and six, they get a little different lesson. And they get up into their teen years, and they can understand and comprehend a little bit more complex things, and they get a little bit different lesson. Those age-graded lessons are a benefit to our children. And so that's why we have a Sunday school program. We don't have a Sunday school program, because I don't know what else to do. And Connie came to me and said, I want to do something at 9.45 Sunday morning. So I said, OK, well, why don't you teach some kids? No, no, we've intentionally, we're thinking we want to train these children, and they benefit from an approach that is tailored to their age. I think one of the greatest obstacles to overcome as we're training children today, whether we're parents or whether we're a church, the greatest obstacle to overcome is a lack of discipline. Now, if you didn't know this, I'll just tell you, children come out of the womb, they're born undisciplined. Wouldn't it be nice if our children were born with just this natural ability to order their lives the way you want them to, right? You put them in bed at 7.30 at night, and then they just sleep through until the next morning at 7.30. And when you put food in front of them, they just eat it because that's what's in front of them. That's not the way children are born. We have to train them to be disciplined. Discipline, in this context, discipline is ordering one's life according to wisdom, sound reasoning, and common sense, not according to feeling or peer pressure. So I'm going to use the word discipline in this sense. There's other meanings. Discipline always starts with external discipline, with someone making you do. Something. And then as you're made to do something time after time after time, you internalize that discipline and you develop internal discipline. How can I prove this? I can prove this this way. If I were to give a child here tonight a whole bag of Snickers bars and tell them they can eat them whenever they want, those Snicker bars would be gone by the time they got home. I remember being a kid. I get a bag of candy, you know what my parents would do? They would take the whole bag of candy, and they'd give me two pieces. And then the next day, they'd give me two more pieces, and they'd give me two more pieces. Now, today, if you give me a whole bag of Snicker bars, I wouldn't eat the whole bag at once. I know that would make me sick. How did I learn that? I learned that through external discipline. Somebody saying, hey, this is the way you're gonna do things. Another example. Drill sergeants. How many of you have been through basic training? You remember basic training. They told you how to march. They told you how to fold your clothes. They taught you how to do push-ups, sit-ups. They made you do those things. And it's interesting to me, you can often recognize someone who's been in the military through the way that they walk. because they've been trained to walk a certain way, through the way that they maintain physical fitness, because they learned that in the military, and then they carried that with them. So here's my point. Sometimes we're gonna have little kids from the community, or maybe even little kids that are children from our own families, they're gonna come to our junior church, or they're gonna come to our Sunday school, they're gonna come, and they are going to be, I'm trying to think of a kind word, undisciplined. They're not going to want to sit there and listen. They're not going to want to color the paper. You tell them to color the paper, they want to sing a song. You tell them it's time to sing songs, then now they want to color their paper. Remind yourself that's the normal state of children. And part of our job as a church is to bring that discipline. That's why we have age-appropriate classes. A three- or four-year-old's going to have trouble sitting for an entire hour, right? That's just the way children are usually. They're going to have trouble sitting. So we design the class so that they only have to sit for a little bit of time, and then they get a little bit older and we expect them to sit a little bit longer. By the time they get to be teenagers, we do expect them to sit for the whole hour. That's part of this age-appropriate training discipline. One of our focuses then as in our children's ministry is to build in this discipline. And building in this discipline starts with parents. Undisciplined parents have undisciplined children. Because if I'm not disciplined enough to make myself do what I know to do what's right, it's going to be really hard to discipline myself to make my children do what's right. So as a parent, I want to start with myself. Am I disciplined? Am I eating the whole bag of Snickers bars? Do I have time in God's Word every day? Am I spending time in prayer? Am I careful about what I say or do I just say whatever comes to mind? And then I transfer that discipline through correction, through encouragement, I transfer that discipline to my children. So children's ministries are an opportunity to teach our children age-appropriate lessons. Children's ministries are important because parents with young children, they need a church family. They need a church family. We notice this in Mongolia. This is what we saw in Mongolia. You had a lot of young people, teenagers and college-age people who were involved in church. And then you had nothing until they got to about 40 or 45 years of age and you had a bunch of middle-age people in church. And as I observed this in other churches, not our church so much, I observed this in other churches. I would say to people, Mongolians, I'd say, how come there's this big gap? We got a bunch of young people and we got a bunch of middle-aged people, but there's nobody in this age bracket here. And they said, well, they have kids. And who wants to bring their children to church? The churches that I'm talking about, they didn't have a children's program. Everyone just came and gathered in one big room and they sang some songs and heard some preaching and then they went home. And if you've got a little two or three or four-year-old, that's really hard. You've got a five, six, seven-year-old, he doesn't want to sit there for the whole hour, so they just would skip church. They would go to church here and they'd go to church here, but there was nothing in the middle. But if we're going to impact the next generation for Christ, these are the people that we need to help. The ones that are raising their children in the moment, those are the people that need our help. And if there's no age-appropriate ministry for them, they're going to be discouraged from coming. They're just not going to come. So think this through with me, and I've chosen to preach this on Sunday night because I know there's more maturity here than maybe other worship services we have. We don't have a nursery just to get the kids out of our hair, right? We've got to have a nursery because, you know, if we don't, then there's going to be crying babies in the service. No, we could just tell moms, if your babies cry, you've got to deal with it. We have a nursery because often it's those mothers that have been with their kids Monday through Sunday morning. They need that two-hour break to focus on their relationship with God. To spend some time with God's people, to hear some encouraging words, so they can go back out at Sunday morning as soon as they pick up their kids from the nursery and head back home. Those are the people that need a church family to come alongside and be a help to them. I know a family and they were attending a church. It was a good church, but they didn't have a lot of children in this church. And so they didn't have a nursery program. And they told the mother, you know, we have a nursery room. If you'd like to take your child there, whenever you come, you can do that. You know what they said? And I know this isn't the mature thing to say, but they weren't mature Christians, otherwise this story would turn out differently. They said, well, you know, we're not gonna go to that church because they don't have a nursery program. And every time, the wife said, every time I go, I've gotta be in the nursery. So they didn't go to that church. They went to a different church. Boy, the church made them feel really good, but it didn't ground them in the truths of God's Word. And unfortunately today they're divorced because they missed that opportunity to get into a good church family where they could be loved and grounded in the Word of God. So if I can say this kindly, one of the most important ministries we have is that nursery ministry. When you ladies serve in the nursery, you're not just, okay, well, somebody's gotta be in here, I guess it's my turn. No, you're giving a young lady, probably who's frazzled, because I remember having little children, I was often frazzled, frazzled a chance to have uninterrupted time to look into the God's Word and be challenged, to have some time to chat with other mothers and be encouraged. That's why children's ministries are important. Training children as parents, training children is discouraging work. It can be difficult work. It takes decades to train our children. And what they need is they need that constant, regular encouragement that it's worth it to keep working with their children. So particularly, families with young children need to be encouraged to be in church. And our children's ministries are designed to say, hey, come, bring your kids. Come pray with us Wednesday nights. Well, what am I going to do with my kid? You can put your child in the nursery, you can put your child in our mailbox club, and you can join us for prayer. Okay, number four, children's ministries are important. because children are the next generation of Elmira Baptist Church. I'm saying some things, I'm thinking I'm gonna take this off of Facebook as soon as it's done tonight, so if you wanna go back and listen to this, find it on Sermon Audio. So I was once with a group of pastors, and one of the pastors said, we don't have children that come to our service anymore. And I thought in my mind, That church has got about maybe 10, 15 years, and there won't be a church there anymore. We visited a church one time, my family and I, and the Sunday we visited, it was a small church, but the Sunday we visited, there was one child, I don't remember, seven, eight, nine years, one child that came, that was it. And I thought to myself, this church doesn't have much of a future. Think with me, let's imagine you're a family, you're Franklin and Kara, and they've got five kids, and you show up at a church and there's only one other child there, or zero children. You know what the thought is in my mind? I want to go somewhere where there's a church with children my age. Right? Is that reasonable? Of course it's reasonable. So they just, you know, bounce on to the next church. I'm not saying Franklin and Kara would do that, but I would. I'd find a church where there are other children that are my children's age. And so what happens? All these young families, they don't choose to make that their church family, their church home. And so the congregation just gets older and older and grayer and grayer or balder and balder until there's nobody left. That's how churches die. So the day that we say, hallelujah, we don't have to do children's ministry anymore, we might as well just close the doors and send ourselves elsewhere where we can minister because this church won't be here very long. Children's ministries are important because that is the next generation of Elmira Baptist Church. Now, God's not going to call all of our children to serve here, I get that. So if it helps you, just remember you're investing, maybe we're not investing in Elmira Baptist Church, but there's some church out there. that's going to benefit from the investment that we make in these children. Elmira Baptist Church is benefiting from the investment that people made in me when I was five, six years old and lived in Potter Valley. They're benefiting from the people who invested in me when I was eight years old and lived in Vina. They're benefiting from LifeGate Baptist Church when I was nine years old and lived in Portland. They're benefiting from Calvary Baptist Church in Hillsboro when I was a young teenager and we went to church in Hillsboro. They're benefiting from Westgate Baptist Church who invested in me as a teenager. All these churches, many of the people who invested in my life, they have no idea what God's done with that. They won't know this side of heaven what's happened, but it was important that they invested. So when you're investing in the children that come on Sunday mornings, you're investing in the children that come on Wednesday night. And they want to get up and run around the room, and they want to test your patience, and they sing the wrong words to the song on purpose just to see if you'll get angry. Remind yourself, you're investing in the future, if not Elmira Baptist Church, some church's future. And I am convinced, this is just personal opinion, but I'm convinced that our culture is not going to be reformed, it's going to be replaced. And I want it to be replaced by young people who've grown up and they love the Lord and they want to serve Him. And they're going to have a better way to live than the people who grew up living for self and serving self. So we're not only training the next generation for Elmira Baptist Church and other churches like us, we're training the next generation. These children are the hope of the United States. My hope is not in the Republican Party. My hope is not in the Democrat Party. My hope is not in some third party. My hope is in God, and God uses people. And I believe by faith that God can use my children, God can use our children to be the change we want to see in the United States. Yeah, I feel like we're swimming upstream here in the United States. I get that. But you know, God can change that in an instant. And when He changes that, I want my children to be in the vanguard. I want your children to be right there at the tip of the spear of that change, because we've trained them. We've taught them discipline. We've taught them to love the Lord. We've passed on, as I mentioned this morning, we've passed on our rock-solid faith in God to our children. So children's ministries are important because children are the next generation of Elmira Baptist Church. But finally, children's ministries are important because children bring life. to our church, they bring joy to our church, they bring curiosity to our church, they bring wonder to our church. I had a couple of kids up here tonight, some of you missed this, but before the service started, we opened up the piano. And they had never seen the inside of a piano before, because they're five years old. Of course, they'd never seen the inside of a piano. They said, our piano at home, we've never seen the inside. I love that curiosity. I love that. When I opened this up, Whoa, that looks like a violin string. Well, yeah, probably same basic idea. I don't know. I love that joy, that curiosity, that wonder that children bring to our church. I can put up with a little bit of screaming now and then, some kid running around and a little bit out of control, because that's what life looks like. And I was once that little kid running around. I remember going home and receiving corrective discipline after church because I hadn't behaved the way I ought to. And I'm glad that the people in the church didn't say, you know, that Dean family, they got to get their kids under control or they're going to have to move on. So we can be patient with these children. work with these children, we can give them our time, because they bring life, they bring joy, they bring curiosity, they bring wonder. Some of these kids recently one of them said, I've never seen anyone baptized before. Amen, that's great. They saw it here at Elmira Baptist Church. Children bring life. They bring joy. They bring curiosity. They bring wonder to our church. We don't want to see them as an obstacle. We don't want to see them as, okay, let's put them in this little corner and leave them over here. Enjoy these kids. Find a way to spend time with them. Learn their names. Find out what they like. All the ones I know like chocolate. So find out what they do. I had a chance to see one of Hudson's baseball games. If you like watching baseball, you've got to go see one of Hudson's games. You know, when you watch a professional game, you sort of know what's going to happen, right? They hit a ball to the outfield. They're going to catch it. At Hudson's game, they hit the ball. Who knows what's going to happen? Even if a kid is a ground ball and he stops the ball in front of him, who knows what base he's going to throw it to? I remember being a little boy playing baseball, and we always threw it to the base behind the runner, right? So he rounds first base, and we throw it to the first baseman. And then the first baseman gets it, and he throws it to the second baseman while he rounds second. And then he's going around third, and we throw it to the third baseman. And my coach would say, throw it to the pitcher! Because the rule was, once the pitcher had the ball, right, the runner cannot advance. Throw it to the pitcher! Listen, you want to see something that's fun? You want to see something that's interesting? Go watch a baseball game, and it's free. Now you have to buy hot chocolate by 8.30 or they close the concession stand. But seriously, children bring joy, they bring curiosity, they bring wonder to our church. Yeah, yeah, there's times we wish that things were a little bit different, that they behaved a little bit differently, or they were quieter, or they were... Listen, never miss just the joy and the curiosity and the wonder that children bring to our ministry. We want that. You see your neighbor's kids and you think, boy, if I invite them to church, ooh, those kids are rowdy. Invite them. Pray. Maybe make some suggestions. But don't ever avoid kids because they're a lot of work. Let's have a church that is known for being welcoming, not just to our own kids, but the kids in the community. We have some, not tonight, I'm not sure today if they came or not, but we have some kids from the community that come to our junior church program from time to time. I am thrilled. I'm absolutely thrilled. Now, I wish their parents would come too. Yeah, I get that. But, boy, if they can come. Bring, bring them. Maybe you have a neighbor who has kids, and the parents don't want to come, but you could bring the kids. You bring the kids. Take responsibility for them. We've seen God work in some exciting ways here at Elmira Baptist Church just by folks bringing their neighbor kids. Children's ministry is important. Children bring life, joy, curiosity, wonder. Now, the text warns us that we are not to offend children. And there's two ways that adults can offend children that I want to bring our attention to. One is by teaching them heresy. I don't think that's happening here at Elmira Baptist Church, but if I ever do think it's happening, I'll be talking to you. But the second way that we can lead children astray is by our example. You know, it's easy to tell kids, you ought to do right and then live selfishly. And our kids see right past our words. They see, they can't understand our motives. So be careful with your own children. Be careful about the children that attend here at Elmira Baptist Church about leading them astray. I would encourage you to ask yourself tonight. What am I doing to prepare the next generation of Christians? Now, if you have kids in your home, then that's what you're doing. I get that. Not all of us have kids in our home anymore. So let me give you some suggestions, what you can do if you don't have kids in your own home. Number one, you can pray for the other people's children. Boy, it's easy to be judgmental and condemn, I can't believe the kid did that. But it's a lot harder to take some time to pray. I hope you'll pray for the children of Elmira Baptist Church. Number two, you can take a young parent underneath your wing and say, hey, listen, I raise children. I have some advice. I have some suggestions. How about I take care of your child for a couple hours so that you can have a date with your spouse? Not so I can show you how it's done. No, not that attitude at all. But let me give you a break. A blessing to my wife and I over the years, especially when we lived overseas, to have friends who would say, hey, why don't we watch your kids for a few hours? You guys get some time alone. Oh, thank you. Right? You can do that. Got some young parents here. Maybe they needed someone to babysit for a few hours so they can spend some time together. Look for opportunities to invest in the next generation of Christians, whether it's prayer, whether it's advice and counsel, whether it's, like I said, watching other people's children so they can get some time away. Whether it's meeting with a new parent occasionally and just talking through some of the issues they're having and praying with them about that and giving them advice and counsel on those issues, there's a lot of ways, even if you're at that season of life where you don't have children in your own home, there's a lot of ways you can impact the next generation for Jesus Christ. Father, thank You for the children You've brought to Elmira Baptist Church, even tonight. There's a good dozen kids here. ten, eight, ten kids here with us, and I'm grateful for the children you've brought. I pray that you give us a fresh vision that this is the next generation of American Christians. Now, some of them you may call to the mission field and they won't be here in the United States, but many of them, they are the next generation of Christians. They're the next generation here at Elmira Baptist Church and they're the next generation at other churches as you move them to other geographic locations, and give us a vision for investing in them. I pray for these parents of young children. It can be overwhelming sometimes. And I pray that they would continue to lean into Your grace, lean into Your strength, recognize that You're at work, even as they are training their children, You're conforming them to the image of Jesus Christ through their children. Those that are in that season of life where they don't have their own children at home, remind us to pray for our children, remind us to pray for other people's children, to pray for our grandchildren to look for opportunities to invest. And bless those that are bringing their grandchildren to Elmira Baptist Church. Bless those that are teaching their grandchildren God's Word at home. Lord, we ask that You would send a fresh outpouring of Your Spirit into our church so that our children and our grandchildren see the presence and the power of God in a way that inspires them to live for You, in a way that causes them to love You with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. May their relationship with You be real to them, vital to them. That's our prayer, and we ask these things in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ, amen. Would you stand with me? We're gonna sing 483, I'll Live for Him. 483, and it may be you need to talk to the Lord about something, maybe you need to ask the Lord for help with your children or with your grandchildren, or maybe just commit to having a fresh vision for ministering to children here at Elmira Baptist Church. As we sing, You Talk to the Lord, we're going to sing verse 1 and 3 of I'll Live for Him, 483.