Kerry Wood, host 0:20

This is the Pursue Holiness Podcast, an official podcast of the North Carolina Conference of the Global Methodist Church. We are engaged in scriptural holiness, applying it to everyday life so that we can have the new life of Jesus springing forth so richly and powerfully within us that all we are and all that we do accurately reflect the true character of God. Thanks for being with us today. Hello, friends. Carrie Wood, the host here for the Pursuit Holiness Podcast. And today we are going to be looking at the opportunity for churches to better engage in children's ministry. And Teresa Otten is my guest today. She is a pastor's spouse, but she's so much more than that. She is a person who has a deep, deep desire for us to reach our children for Jesus Christ. And so I hope you will pay attention today's conversation and maybe you can learn some things for how you can improve the children's ministry in your local congregations as well. Well, Teresa, why don't you start off by telling me a little bit about yourself? You and I had the opportunity to meet as the delegation preparing for the convening conference of the Global Methodist Church was coming together. You and I had a chance to have some conversations then. We've had a few follow-ups, but I'll be honest, I don't know your full background. So just tell me a little bit more about who you are and why children's ministry in particular is so close to your heart.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Well, first of all, was convening general conference not the most exciting thing ever. I I loved being there. It was just so filled with the Holy Spirit. What a great time! Uh I have got to confess that I have pure tunnel vision when it comes to children's ministry. I uh see that it is the most important thing we do. That is absolutely where I land is that children's ministry is the thing that we must get right. And if we get it wrong, it doesn't matter what else we get right. We've lost another generation. And uh just the Holy Spirit has been filling me with the message for over 20 years that this has got to become a priority uh in our local churches for our whole denomination. So children's ministry is close to me primarily because I was not raised in a Christian home. My parents, my family of origin, saw um what they called organized religion as a waste of time and resources. We didn't need that, and I was not allowed to participate. It wasn't just that our family didn't, it was disallowed. And I encountered uh two summers in a row, the summer I was 12, and then again the summer I was 13, a group of Christian women at a camp in North Carolina, and they loved me to Jesus. Wow, that's it. I spent five weeks, two summers in a row, surrounded by spirit-filled, Christ-centered women who just loved me and told me for the first time the gospel. But then I had to go home again and live out those adolescent years with a family that just thought that was ridiculous. So when I became grown and could make decisions for myself and then for my own children, I just did a complete U-turn from my family. I was determined that children need Jesus for a few reasons. One, God speaks to children in a way that as adults we forget. God wants children, and children want God. Children have no problem believing that Jesus loves them and that God loves them. They yearn for that deep spirit depth of connection. They want it.

Kerry Wood, host 4:40

So say a little bit more about how that changes as we get older. What causes us to lose that that natural affinity for Jesus from when we're young?

SPEAKER_00 4:51

I believe it's negative experiences from the world. I think that we, the older we get, say we reach the age 12, 13, and forward, we lose the ability to uh block out the negative things that are in the world. The way that the world interacts with us, children go to school, and you know, all in all fairness, the public school teachers and administrators school is a hard place for kids to be most of the time. And it's a very uh challenging atmosphere. So I think that that begins to dilute the God love that's in there. If we are not consciously refilling that bucket for kids, if we are not always telling children there is a God, he loves you, he wants you to serve him, and we give them the the good news of the gospel in the way that you know, as it is good news, uh, and we let it just it just gets drowned out. It just gets drowned out by the negativity of the world. Then we become adults, and the rest is history. Um life is hard. And without God, I believe it's impossible.

Kerry Wood, host 6:10

Right, indeed, indeed. So as you as you uh grew up, you you got married, um, you had a family of your own. Were you part of a a Methodist uh background at that point? Were you in Methodist churches?

SPEAKER_00 6:25

At that point, uh I was actually participating in a local Presbyterian church because that was the the church in that community where there were people my age and with children, the age of my children. But later on, yes, it did become active in the Methodist uh tradition. And then for a brief time, um I was a little dis distressed with the messages I was hearing in the United Methodist Church, and took my children and left because I did not want my little boy to hear negative messages about about men. Um, and this is you know, you can cut all this out if you want to, but I will tell you that in 1989 there was a speaker invited to the Methodist Church, and it was a woman for United Methodist Women's Day, and she was so filled with hate and anger towards men that I took my six-year-old son out and and left because I didn't want my little boy to think that men were bad. Men are wonderful, and I want I wanted him to grow up to be a godly man. Um, so that was, and I left and became part of an assemblies of God uh congregation at that point.

Kerry Wood, host 7:56

Okay, so you're still in the holiness tradition we just went went to the uh the the holy rollers, the hand wavers, and well that's I did, yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

And and really leaned into that. I am still a hand waver and a holy roller. I I I really I I just I I love that because you know I have such low energy here.

Kerry Wood, host 8:18

So after after that season, um you're you're now part of the global Methodist denomination of me. Um so so tell me briefly what that story is. How did you come back to be a part of what we now have as our global Methodist expression of the Christian faith?

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Well, after I was divorced from my children's father, I um, which you know it's not something I spend a lot of time talking about, uh, I met and fell in love with uh a man who had been a wonderful minister to my children and had sadly been divorced himself. And we um got married, and here we are 26 years later. Uh he is uh global Methodist minister now. He was a United Methodist minister at the time, and together we knew that we could not serve any longer in the United Methodist Church, and so we we were given an opportunity to serve a congregation near our home. And uh here we are, we all went to church and we all went global Methodist together. So I don't I don't know a positive way to spin that.

Kerry Wood, host 9:33

Um I think you know uh it's important for us to recognize that even in the midst of the pain that divorce is and can cause, just because a person has to go through that doesn't mean that suddenly their life is devoid of grace. And so I think it's important for us to recognize that yes, divorce is a sin. Yes, we all um as global Methodists would agree with that statement when when uh we're reminded God says I hate divorce, it's real. But yet it's also recoverable in the standpoint that God's grace is sufficient to cover our sins. And if we are repentant of the things that created the issues that ultimately led to the divorce, I do believe that God gives us the opportunity for a new start. And Teresa, your own story is actually an example of that. So thank you for being brave enough to share that part of your life with us.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Well, I uh appreciate you saying that because I believe that too. Um working through that repentance and uh, but that took time, it really did. There was a long road of healing, but once we achieved that healing, we can serve the Lord, I believe, with more compassion and more uh grace giving than maybe we would have had we not experienced that very difficult path. It's it's heartbreaking for everybody, and and it is we see why God hates divorce. It is uh um an ugly process, but when you're on the other side of it, God does, as you said, give us grace.

Kerry Wood, host 11:28

Right. And it's also important to recognize that aspect because the reality is there are so many children today whose parents have experienced divorce, and those kids need to understand where the grace of God exists, even when mommy and daddy are not together anymore.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

You are so spot on. Um, I have served several youth groups because you know there's itinerancy in the Methodist uh ethos. I have served many youth groups over the last 30 years, and as time has gone on, we see more and more children who are being raised by their grandparents because the parents are addicted or incarcerated or both, and children's families are fractured in ways that we've not really seen in generations past. They are um from divorced families very often, which means that Sundays for little children very often is the trade-off day, right? You know, this is when mommy and daddy switch switch places in the children's uh day-to-day. So it's uh something that we do deal with always. It is not uh, it is so rare for children to be from what we think of as that leave it to beaver kind of home.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

It's it's very unusual now, but they do need the love through that.

Kerry Wood, host 13:09

So that brings us back to this idea of the importance of children's ministry. That that gets at one of those whys is important is to give kids the opportunity to experience what loving kindness can look like when they don't see it in other places. What are some of the other whys of children's ministry that that make it such an important part of what a church is doing?

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Well, I think I want to say that you know, the first obvious answer is because children are our future without another generation coming along behind us. Uh, really what we're doing is not honoring the Great Commission. So children are included in the Great Commission when we say that we have to be a witness and make disciples in all the areas, going out in those concentric circles. There are children in every one of those concentric circles, and they matter. I always like to emphasize that while children are, yes, they are, of course, the future of our church, they're also the church right now. Where they are, who they are, the way they are, how they behave, with their wigglesome ways, with their attention uh spans being what they are, the way they dress, the way they interact with one another and with adults, they are the church right now.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Um, I'm very concerned that we still have this idea that children need to be little mannequins that sit in the pew. Uh, we should be more concerned about whether our children are learning to love Jesus than whether or not they're being quiet and still. We we just have got to realize that children are not hardwired to be quiet and still, and that's okay. Right. It's all it's alright. I also hear very often from people my age and older to say children must be disciplined. And yet I counter that by saying children must be discipled. The way the way we use the word discipline now often implies that we're being harsh or punitive in some way. There are positive ways to get socially acceptable and positive, upright behavior from children. We steer them and guide them, we disciple them. And that's very different from the way we use the word discipline now, even though disciple and discipline are basically the same word.

Kerry Wood, host 15:49

Right. Yeah. Indeed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Yeah. I mean, if we, if you and I were discipled, the way we see children often being discipled, would you go back to church? I'm just I'm asking.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

I just think it's, you know.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

I mean, did anybody ever point at you, put their and yell at you that you're not allowed to wear those shoes to church and they better not ever see you in blue jeans again in the church? Um, I I've seen so many things happen um in churches that if I were that child, I would have run and never looked back. And I have seen children just pushed out of church because they were children.

Kerry Wood, host 16:35

So learning how to be winsome, how to be welcoming, um, those are those are vital aspects of what churches need to be doing.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Kerry Wood, host 16:49

So, what would you say are some of the uh the markers of a children's ministry that is fruitful and effective? What defines fruitful and effective?

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Well, fruitful and effective children's ministry means that the children are glad to be there and that you have children coming and that they bring their parents. That it's not parents bringing the children, the children make the parents come because they don't want to miss it. And they are learning to know and love Jesus more and more with over time. You can see the depth of growth from one year to the next in a child. You can watch their behavior and see how they have learned to love Jesus more. So that's fruitful and effective. That's that's how you know you're doing it right. If the children are laughing and having fun, they're learning. And that is the number one sign. Happy children.

Kerry Wood, host 17:54

Okay. So so what do we do to get them there?

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Well, the the first thing I I want to say to adults is that children cannot provide their own resources, all right? So a well-resourced children's ministry is vital. And I encourage people to look at their church budgets. Very often, children's ministry receives less than 1% of the budget for the group of people that we are truly counting on to move our churches forward. So let's reassess the resources that we're willing to put in it. The human resource is also a vital uh element of this. We are volunteers and staff that are assigned to this role. Are they enthusiastic? Are they doing the least they can do and still get away with it? Or are they giving it their best and understanding this is important? These children matter so much. And I just uh think that if we can get a small group of people really committed and on board with loving the children, teaching them, which means we have to know. And there's a few things we have to know, and one of those things is that the word gospel means good news, right? It is good telling. And so I encourage teachers to share the gospel as though it's good news. Put a smile on your face, be excited, be glad you're there. This is such a privilege, and we have such a tiny window of time with our children. They are children for a blink of an eye, and we've got to give it all we've got while we've got them.

Kerry Wood, host 19:38

Right, yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

And the other thing is just a space that's that the children don't have to be so careful in. A place where fingerprints on the wall don't matter, where if you're running in the hallway, it's okay. Just remember that while certainly there are spaces in every church that need to be respected and treated reverently, and we do teach our children to do that. We have a space where those things don't matter as much.

Kerry Wood, host 20:15

So for a small church that doesn't have a lot of resources, yeah, and as a result, they all say, Well, we need kids, we don't have any kids, what are we gonna do? What is your word of advice to that church when they're when they all I obviously you can't see me if you're listening to this podcast right now, but I'm about to be in my sixth decade. Teresa, you're already in your sixth decade, and we are typical of the the quote unquote church population. So helping churches that have people in their 60s and up, how do they get those in their 50s and below, and especially those that are in the 10 and below?

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Oh, the first thing we have to do is decide that we really want that, okay? It begins with a decision. Uh, I I do hear people say we want children, and then there's kind of a but that follows that, you know. So we've got to get just eliminate that, decide, okay, this is what we want. So the first thing I would encourage you to do is to create events or an event. Children need a reason to come, they need an invitation, an open invitation. Just having a church on the side of the road. You need to understand, we all need to understand where our culture and our society is right now. For many, many children and many of their parents, a church is just another building on the side of the road. They do not understand what goes on there, they do not feel any guilt at all if they don't go once a week. So we need to invite them. Just having a building and a sign is not an invitation to young. families. So we create when I'm when I have been doing youth ministry all these decades, I have committed to doing four every year community-wide events where the whole community is um invited and it's very children's friendly. So for example, that would be a trunk or treat fall festival kind of thing. Okay. Then at Christmas time we do what we call an Advent Adventure where we set up stations of Advent crafts where we celebrate the beginning or the drawing near of the Christmas season. People are invited for that. Then we do of course the Easter Bruja that is always Christ centered. I'm sorry that you're not going to come to our church and meet the bunny all right the bunny doesn't show up. But we do hunt eggs, you know, because what else you're going to do is Easter. And then of course there's vacation Bible school and we throw in other things in addition to that. But for those large community events we make ourselves so visible. There is bunting there's banners the there's balloons there's everything we can do to be seen and we go to places with flyers that are kid friendly so consignment shops that sell children's clothing um the convenience stores places where families go often uh and we and we give flyers and if you've got some good visibility on your road I know that that that helps I mean sometimes just your location discourages visitation but that's that's my first piece of advice commit for a year if you have no children on your property and you want them there for one year commit to doing a quarterly community wide event one event isn't going to get them there. It's consistency. And then once you've got a small group of children that are there that's when you need to consistently and persistently provide a high quality ministry program where they're centered on Christ. The instructors the adults that are interacting with the kids love kids and love Jesus and are committed to doing it well. I've been really distressed for the past many years to see Sunday school material that is very proudly labeled low or no prep and all I can think is our kids are worth preparing for it's worth it to prepare a lesson low prep no prep is that what you want to give our kids really it's it's kind of like the junk food of discipleship.

Kerry Wood, host 25:01

I I don't really um it is seriously yeah so are there any particular I mean I don't want us to go down the endorsement path but is there a particular kind of children's curriculum children's resources that you have found to be more beneficial than what you've just described?

SPEAKER_00 25:21

Oh absolutely first of all if it's free it's for me. So I began to search the internet and teach Sunday school and I know we're not is if you'll just google that you'll get a couple of great responses one in particular the top the the the top response from Google if you'll go and Google teach Sunday school go ahead and look through that curriculum much of it is free some of it is not I encourage you to have a a one year plan that is a scope and a sequence of what you want the children in your care to to learn about Jesus. Seedbed has a great program it's called trackers there are elements of that that is free. So I understand that that money is it's an issue money is always an object I do recommend trackers and then this online resource called teach Sunday school those are my two go-to there's a lot out there but those you don't have to be so careful with it is very possible to find children's Sunday school material that will sneak in a message that is not strictly scripturally based. Just watch just just watch.

Kerry Wood, host 26:50

Well that that's the danger for for everything. I mean we we are constantly being bombarded by ideas and ideologies and philosophies and doctrines that we have to really be evaluating them. I mean that's why Paul tells Timothy test the spirits because if we're not really paying attention to those things then yes some some dangerous elements can can sneak in and I think one of the most dangerous and this is something that we as global Methodists in my opinion have to be very very careful about is most of us have grown up in a culture where discipleship has been defined as learning about Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

Right.

Kerry Wood, host 27:36

And yes we need to know about Jesus but the key of discipleship is learning Jesus knowing Jesus experiencing Jesus and that is more than just facts and figures but it's also about recognizing that he is real and he wants to be a part of our everyday lives and our children need to know that our teens need to know that our adults need to know that yes absolutely it is about having Jesus living in our hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit and then letting that not just come in for ourselves but then letting it flow flow out my husband loves to tell people that the Dead Sea is dead because water flows into it but doesn't flow out.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

And if you want to be you know have have a dead spirit then the the the way to achieve that is to not be generous with the Holy Spirit. So when the Holy Spirit comes in and dwells in a child or in an adult or teen the next step is is to let it let it be shared with all the world everywhere you go.

Kerry Wood, host 28:56

Mm-hmm and I think part of that can be as the children begin to experience that relationship dynamic, one of the things is to give them the the opportunity and the leadership responsibilities to share with the adults what they're experiencing so that the children recognize that it's not all just showing up for a pizza party but it's actually about being able to express what is Jesus doing. One of the things that I love about some of the vacation Bible school materials that I've seen recently is they invite the kids to say what is what is your God moment? Where did you experience Jesus?

SPEAKER_00 29:35

And they may have some really whacked out crazy far out answers but hey they're exploring that and adults need to embrace that well and not only do they have some far out wacky notions one of the things they're doing when they express these is that they're learning to express. Right which is um that's a learning curve too that where children you know they start off no I'm not going to say anything people might laugh at me blah blah blah when they develop the courage to share and they see they don't die yes they can they can move uh they can move on and and learn to share even more. I love that yeah exactly learning yeah yeah so are there other tips that you would have to share for how a church needs to engage with their children well well I do I I have a a mnemonic here that I love to share with people and that is with children's ministries uh I like to have people make a pact P A C T and the P stands for proximity stay nearby the A stands for attunement lean into the kids listen to what they're saying when they're not saying anything read between the lines the C is for conversations engage the children with your words ask good open-ended questions and then listen to their answers and the T is for transformation we remember that our relationships with these children are supposed to be so centered in Christ that the child is being transformed through our transfer of our faith we're transferring that joy and that love to the children. So I just like to encourage people to make a pact when children and adults come together it is so um we just need to avoid the adults coming over here and having their little conversations while the children go and do something just together when you're engaged in an in children's ministries we just should remember that we're there for the children. Uh-huh yeah so that's um yeah that's that's my my my big thing.

Kerry Wood, host 31:59

Okay good so I may be opening up a can of worms and if so you can you can tell me okay do you have any suggestions or opinions around when is it appropriate for children to leave the main worship space to go do their own thing and children staying in the main worship space to be able to absorb and experience what is going on in that space.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

I am so glad you opened that can of worms because I would like to reiterate um what our bishop said at this year's annual conference in North Carolina and that was when children are in the adult worship time what they see and hear maybe they're not grasping it the way adults grasp it but they're getting it in their own way and what we are doing and our our bishop said it so beautifully and I love this image we are cutting a groove on their heart and each time they experience that worship with adults that groove gets a little deeper and I believe that children can learn to not be disruptive in a in a worship setting and I think it's vital for families to worship together. And I get that that means that sometimes it's harder sometimes there are disruptions but we've got to let that be okay our conference superintendent said to uh several of us one day that he had a a Christian African friend who did not understand the North American practice of sending children out to their own children's church. And he said when I want my child to learn how to fish I take my child and fish uh and I show them how to fish. If I want my child to worship I want my child standing near me and worshiping. So I personally have an issue with children being sent away to children's church. Having said that I understand why it happens and why we often want to do that. I would love to see congregations begin perhaps a hybrid model at Friendship Methodist in Newton which is where my husband and I serve we are beginning a practice of one Sunday a month in our more traditional service keeping the children in but we provide seating for them at the very front that is child sized and we also provide them with worship buddies that aren't necessarily their parents okay yeah because parents sometimes they just they're like if I have to sit on my child I'm not able to freely worship. I get it I get it and and I want to help there but I do think children belong in worship. Yeah it's a family thing.

Kerry Wood, host 35:00

So is there an age range that you think that transition begins to be more and more important?

SPEAKER_00 35:05

I would think that once a child is ready to go to kindergarten they need to be in church with their parents at that stage they've got some developmental ways to do that you can take them to the restroom before the service that way you don't have to interrupt with a three year old or a four year old they say I need to go potty you run out there with them. A five year old you can say now we're going potty now because once we sit down we're not going potty then and so there's at five children really are beginning to develop the ability to learn yeah how to behave the way the others around them are behaving.

Kerry Wood, host 35:45

Yeah yeah I think I agree with you I think that age five age six is the transition point where they are beginning to learn basic social skills right and they are beginning to uh they may not be fervent readers but they're beginning to recognize letters and numbers and making some of those cognitive leaps that you know preschool children cannot do. And so preschool has to be much more tactile. But as they begin to move into that early elementary kindergarten first grade to me that's where they need to be seeing the broader picture of what's happening in the worshiping community. My parents did that with me and it it has obviously paid off in in many many ways because I have learned how much I love coming together with others and worshiping Jesus. You know that that that's the highlight of my week every single week is hey you know as David said in the Psalms I was glad when they said let's go to the house of the Lord.

SPEAKER_00 36:47

Well yes get our kids thinking that too and that and you know what's fun about young children is that that is where they go. That is their natural response until we teach them that it is not a happy place to be they they know that God loves them. What they don't know is whether or not Christian adults love them.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

And we've got to show them that that we do and we need to be loving them. You know one of the things that parents can do to facilitate their children's engagement in worship is to just participate and engage that child with if you're still holding a hymnal run your finger along the words when it's time for the scripture reading open a paper Bible yeah a real Bible and run your fingers along the line put it at the child's level show them this is where we are these are the words we're reading stand up now we're all going to stand up and sing. Here's the Lord's prayer time I used to always say it in my child's ear in my children's ear when we were doing that in worship I would get my child very near to me and say it in their ears so that they could know and learn it. And it took no time for that to be written on their hearts.

Kerry Wood, host 38:11

I love that idea that that that's beautiful so we're we're getting close to the to the end of our time but I would like for you to to just say a little bit about the realities of the world's attempt to draw our kids away and all of those different dangers what what do you give to to help parents in navigating all of the competition for their family and their children's attention?

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Well what I really like to remind parents is that you've got one shot to bring them to the Lord as children. And it's very important that if you're spending 12 hours a week at baseball practice and one hour twice a month learning about Jesus and coming to love and worship Jesus it's no surprise that they're going to be more comfortable on a baseball field than in church. Familiarity and repetition and continuity and consistency are everything. So that's what I say to parents is that you know give it a shot just say for six weeks I am not going to miss a Sunday just just commit to yourself put it on the calendar write it down wherever you need to write it down for six weeks do not miss a Sunday and participate fully. Then once you have you know kind of gotten the parents engaged in that you know we need to make sure that what we're offering them in the church is good quality. If we just give the kids in our program five animal crackers a cup of red Kool-Aid and a coloring sheet and the big box church down the road has got a two-story slide in their enormous children's room that's filled with play equipment and a stage with a beautiful stage set up and young excited staff members you know what are we going to be naturally drawn to there's no decision to make if you are a young child or a parent with children. It's two pronged one is to encourage parents to give church a serious chance to give the life of a faith community a fair place in your life don't decide you don't like it if you're not going to really engage long enough to learn then for the church give the children the best you've got not the leftovers or the least we can do give the children your very best and that's that's kind of my two-prong approach because the choices are not going anywhere. When my husband who was 72 was a boy they went to church every Sunday and there were no there were no options right there there were no there were no sports the shops weren't open you you couldn't go shopping you went to church and you went home and were with your family that was it and now anything that we can do on any given Friday night we can also be doing at 11 o'clock on a Sunday morning. That's not going to change yeah the church has to be welcoming and parents have to be receptive if that's what they want for their children.

Kerry Wood, host 41:24

I love you're saying give your best to the children and recognize that in giving our best to our children that is giving our best not a commercially crass you know because because the last thing we want to do is instill in the children a sense that church is just another part of our consumeristic society. And that to me is one of the places where I I love the idea of having the the two story slide yeah but unless that two story is connecting them to the reality of the love of Jesus then all it is is just McDonald's play place put into a new place.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

Exactly I think that that we don't need that the best we can give our children is our hearts and our time children spell love T I M E very good they want you to be with them and near them and they could care less if they have a two-story slide if they've got grown ups who love them. I am not in any way advocating a two-story slide those things are thousands of dollars and not worth it. Right so well Teresa is any one last thing that you wanted to make sure that you uh conveyed to me as we are talking today about our children I I do I just want to say that I believe in the heart of my heart that children are the most important members of any church. I think that they deserve to be well served that's just what I want to see I love children and I find them to be so vital to the life of a vibrant faith community we have to have them and I just encourage people to love them well. Mm-hmm so if somebody wanted to follow up with you to say hey Teresa help us to to do something more with our with our children's ministry what are the best ways for people to engage and connect with you the best way is to email me at my conference email address which is teresa.auton at ncglobalmethodist dot org I also have a website that is mine it is www.shinajoyfullight dot com and um that's those two ways are the best ways to get up with me I do maintain the North Carolina Global Methodist children's ministry page on Facebook so there's uh there's that too okay on all of those I check all of that many times a day.

Kerry Wood, host 44:03

That's great. Well Teresa thank you so much for giving me your time today for just sharing your heart for Jesus Christ and giving Jesus to our children and all that that entails. I I think it's beautiful and lovely and I pray God is blessing all of these ways and I pray that God will bless us to take these ways and put them into our churches for our kids.

SPEAKER_00 44:27

Yeah I me too. I I love it. I think this is such a terrific medium.

Kerry Wood, host 44:33

It is it is I'm gonna I want to say a prayer for you and then we will uh we'll get to the conclusion of our podcast for today.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

Sure. Thank you.

Kerry Wood, host 44:41

Oh Father God thank you so much for touching Teresa's heart and for touching our hearts with her message. God I do pray that we as Global Methodists are so intensely aware of the need to be giving our faith to the generations behind us to be able to love on these children in such a way that they know you, that they experience you and that they in turn are able to help us to learn back. I mean this is a two-way thing and thank you Jesus that you said let the children come to me and that we must approach the kingdom of heaven as a child. So God bless our children bless our children's ministries and allow us to become a blessing to children all over the globe. And it's in Jesus' name that we pray amen. Amen thank you for that thank you Teresa appreciate all the time you spent absolutely if you enjoyed this podcast please take the time to share it with others. We are on Facebook you can share it through that or you can put anything out on X, Twitter, whatever you want to call that these days we have pursuitholiness.org as our website you can leave us an email at PursuitHoliness at ncglobalmethodist dot org there are many ways to reach out and engage with me. If you have ideas about a future podcast please share that so that we can keep going with the good news of what God is doing here in North Carolina and I look forward to seeing you next time