Ever feel weary going into the classroom on Sunday mornings? Ever feel like the "good" stuff is happening down the hall in the adult classrooms? Ever feel like your ministry to children is seen as glorified babysitting by some? Do you and others on your ministry team need some encouragement this week? Well, read and then pass on these words from Pastor John Piper, written more than 30 years ago, but still true and inspiring today:
I get excited when I think about our Sunday School as a place where the love of truth is cultivated and the knowledge of truth is imparted. God alone can judge the power of a steady, weekly diet of truth in the life of a child or an adult. What greater gift can we give to our youth than the truth about God, about the world and about themselves?
Have you Sunday School Workers ever thought of yourselves as a squadron of God’s commandos, weekly storming Satan’s bastion to liberate his hostages? Listen to 2 Timothy 2:24, 25: “The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, an apt teacher, forbearing, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.” When you love your students and teach them truth, you are God’s gentle storm troopers! It is truth taught in love that batters down the walls of Satan’s prison. He cannot hold out against the truth.
O, never, never underestimate the power of truth. We handle glorious things every Sunday. We are in a great battle for liberation. Do not be deceived that you hear no bombshells. Do not be discouraged that your medals are few. The Last Day will reveal that the greatest centers of power and of lasting liberation were not in Washington or London or Bonn or Geneva, but in classrooms where truth was taught and young people were “freed from the snare of the devil.” This is no exaggeration. It is absolutely true.
(From a letter titled “Sunday School as Liberation,” dated July 7, 1981, desiringgod.org)
