But before I left each day I would slip inside and stand in the pulpit at New Bethlehem Baptist Church and imagine being the preacher. I remember how I felt God was there in that place and that He probably wanted me to do something with His presence. I didn’t quite know what He wanted at that time, but I remember His tug at my little heart.
I am thankful for hollyhocks. The Lord uses them to remind me that something very important is happening at churches this week and in the weeks to come. “Summer Stomp Camp” is our VBS and Music Camp that will reach in to our children and reach out to children living right down the street from us. Many staff and hundreds of volunteers are hard at work now preparing for that time next week. The gospel of Jesus Christ will be presented. I am praying for covenant children, who have been reared in the gospel, to be strengthened and challenged to follow the Lord. I am praying that children who don’t understand God’s love in Jesus Christ will understand for the first time and receive Him. And I am praying that the Lord—who often does His wonderful sovereign work of preparing young, tender hearts for future ministry—will do that in churches all over America.
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Will you join me in praying for the summer ministry to children through VBS? Pray for Christ to touch the hearts of children with His grace and love. For behind the cookies and the singing and the crafts there is the image of Christ welcoming children and saying, “Let the little ones come unto Me.”
And if you drop by your church in the next few weeks of summer, maybe you will see some little child hanging around the sanctuary, maybe “trying out” the pulpit. Just let him alone and pray. God may be up to something.
We don’t have hollyhocks growing next to an outhouse; we don’t even have an outhouse at our church. But I think God will still be here anyway. Because I think God loves VBS. Because Jesus loves little children.