Reimagining Imagination
This past Sunday during Chase Purvis’ ordination service, I wanted the opportunity to speak to our children in attendance. I believe that God is going to raise up, set apart, and send out from our church the next generation of pastors, deacons, missionaries, and men and women in ministry. I believed that God could use an ordination service, because I came to know God’s call to ministry on my life at a deacon ordination service on April 12th, 2019.
For the kids, I took us all back to a question we have all heard and answered before: “What do I want to be when I grow up?” I can remember in kindergarten drawing with crayons what I wanted to be when I grew up. I can remember each time my imagination & enthusiasm shifted to something new that I would all of sudden now want to be something else when I grew up.
The truth is that this imagination is beautiful, it’s good, and it’s innocent. The question that comes to me is this: How can we help kids begin to imagine what they can do for God? Maybe a different question: “What can I do for God when I grow up?”
William Carey, known as the father of modern missions, was known for this motto: “Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God.” One of the greatest things we can do for our next generation is beginning to help them start thinking and imagining what they can do for God in their lives. In order to do this, we have to shape the focus of their imagination. I gave some questions for kids and even teens to begin to ask God:
1. What do you want me to be when I grow up? What great things can I do for you with my life?
2. How can I serve you with my passions, talents, and skills?
3. What gifts have you given me to serve you and others?
4. What can I do where my heart is most committed to you?
Sometimes we knock kids' imagination because it dips into the unrealistic, but what if their imagination can be reimagined to lead them to consider how great God is, and what great things they could attempt for Him? The quicker they begin to sense God’s call, the quicker we can help them identify it, and the more time that we get to invest into them to raise them up into what God’s call on their life is.
