Jesus Loves the Little Children

As I am writing this I can hear the sound of the children’s musical going on in our sanctuary. It is a pretty cool thing to know that we serve a God who is a multi-generational God. I guess as a Youth Pastor I am biased, I get to see the amazing things that students can do for the Lord and for His kingdom. We were on a mission trip to Yakama Valley, Washington last week with 14 people from our team and we got to serve to people of the Yakama tribe of American Indians. When the leaders got there for their orientation a man named John Black-feather came in and said to us in his native tongue, “Welcome to Yakama Valley, you are guests in a foreign country, thank you for coming to serve us.”

At first I was upset, my nationalistic chest was bumped out a bit and thoughts like, “What do you mean foreign country, this is America!” began to pop into my head. But as the week progressed I began to see more and more that the believers in this nation worship the same God we do, granted it may be a different way, church looks a lot different to them than it does to us, I would venture to say their community is closer knit than American Christianity, and it was very different than the way we do things.

We serve not only a multi-generational God, but a multi-cultural one. I am remembered of the not-so-politically-correct Sunday school song where it says, “…red and yellow black and white they are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.”

I have been on 5 mission trips to Mexico and every time I come back and it seizes to amaze me how God speaks Spanish and English, how our God appreciates communion taken with tortillas and water, how regardless of any barrier of language, color, or culture, our God is present everywhere. I get blown away by the fact that our God is so big that a 7 year old in Mexico and a 35 year old in the Yakama nation can relate to a 25 year old Youth Pastor from Selma. We are children of God and called to serve Him, we are children of God and called to worship Him, we are children of God and get the honor of being in community with His followers. Our God is huge, he is being worshipped all around the world today and I hope you get to partake in the festivities. I pray for wisdom and boldness to you all.