Second Sunday of Easter
12 April 2026
Vineville Baptist Church
Macon, Georgia
Leigh Halverson
Practicing Resurrection II: A Vision for Children
Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Psalm 139:1-18
When preparing for today I continued to look around the sanctuary in my mind, picturing many of you here today sitting in these pews and in the choir loft behind me. One thing that kept bringing a smile to my face is that “we did it”. The adults in this room successfully made it through childhood, to adulthood. This is no small feat. Admittedly, I’ll be speaking of things as I wish they were for everyone, a utopia of sorts, while also knowing and grieving the reality that far too many of us and of our children have had hardships in our lives that reveal just how broken our world is. I hope to paint a picture for us that will drive us as a family of faith to fight against that brokenness for the children in our midst.
Psalm 139 illustrates beautifully the overarching dream I hold for children:
- that they feel known by God.
- That they would trust that the LORD is with them when they sit and when they rise.
- That even their thoughts are known by God.
- The image that God is all around them and eagerly waiting for the invitation to be within them.
- That though they move from God in their sin, God does not move from them.
- That they were created, intricately woven together, by God.
And as a family of faith, bringing this to reality starts with vs. 13 wherein we claim the truth that every child was created by God, fearfully and wonderfully made. The LORD knew full well who was being created in that mother’s womb. Our responsibility as a faith family to these children starts here. We start by gathering around the parents-to-be in prayer and celebration. Parents are the primary nurturers of their children. They bear the primary responsibility to nurture the faith of their children. But the magnitude of this responsibility is not one that was intended to be carried alone.
Here at Vineville one of the first things we do to publicly make this partnership known is through baby or child dedication. During this ceremony parents present their child to the Lord and to their family of faith, accepting their responsibility to raise their child(ren) with the opportunity to know and love the Lord while also acknowledging their need for help doing so. We as a faith family name and accept our responsibility to partner with those parents, to speak biblical truths into and over the children, to be a part of teaching them, encouraging them, correcting them, and actively living life alongside them.
Once the child is with us, we have to be ready to put action behind the words that we spoke in that dedication. For decades and decades people have succumbed to the easier to understand idea that those early years in church life are mere babysitting; nothing more than taking care of the babies and preschoolers while parents get about the real work of spiritual formation and growth in their adult classes and worship. I’ll say this plainly, nothing could be further from the truth.
From the very first moment babies are able to join us, our job is to create spaces of safety and love. This is a time when we double down on the prayers we’ve been praying since we learned of the child’s coming. Close your eyes for a moment and Imagine with me holding one of our precious babies in your arms and praying a prayer like those offered by Paul for the Ephesians:
“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fulness of God.” Amen.
This is a big prayer for a little person but it’s part of the strong foundation we seek to establish. When our minds are focused in this way we will intuitively create experiences where babies begin forming their bonds of emotional trust for the people and spaces we offer. When a child does not feel safe or loved, their brain naturally shifts into survival mode. They are in a state of heightened alert, attempting to sense perceived threats around every corner or within every person. When a child is using their survival brain, the opportunities to learn and develop healthy relationships are significantly impacted.
We GET to be a part of creating experiences and relationships that will allow the children to be receptive to what the Lord has in store for them through Vineville.
In our nursery that looks like speaking in kind tones and singing songs of spiritual truth – even if off key. It looks like full bottles and dry diapers. It looks like playing on the floor and learning the intricacies of each child’s personality and his/her unique needs. It looks like Jennifer seeing a toy at the consignment sale and immediately picturing Samuel having the time of his life playing with it. It looks like Kanaan helping Elizabeth put stickers on pictures and making her smile.
As our children grow, so too does our opportunity to begin strengthening their spiritual formation muscles. Our story times get a little longer. Our activities get a little more involved and the connections we seek to make carry a thread within them from story to craft to drama to missions to music on and on. And through it all, we model the biblical truth of being known by God by putting in the effort to know the children ourselves.
As we seek to model God’s knowing love, we call children by name. We learn their interests and preferences. Norma and Gyni know that some kids need to start their time in our preschool class with play-doh, others with coloring, and still others with centers. Scrap knows that some kids need big movements while others need still spaces. We learn where they will struggle and where they will thrive. We do our best to meet them in those spaces striving to provide whatever scaffolding is necessary to encourage continued growth.
This is also the time when we may have to fight against the urge to make children grow up more quickly. A time when we need to lean into their childlike wonder. Think for a moment about the earliest memory you have of “what I want to be when I grow up…”
For me, I wanted to be a care bear. The idea of living in the clouds was magical to me. I also wanted to be the first female to play Major League Baseball. As an adult, I can look back at 4 year old Leigh and tell her all the reasons those dreams aren’t going to be realized. But that didn’t happen in my family. Those dreams were allowed to exist until a new dream came to be. I was allowed to look at the clouds and make shapes out of them and imagine the playgrounds that existed in the sky. I was encouraged to practice and hone my skills in the fundamentals of each of my athletic endeavors, yes, even as a preschooler.
As adults it is easy to look at the dreams of a child and see all the barriers that exist to accomplishing them. And while we do have the responsibility to coach them and help them know what those hoops and barriers may be, we should caution ourselves against limiting the dreaming. Instead, we should seek every opportunity we can to speak into the children the gifts we see developing.
We can view this opportunity as Paul says in 2nd Timothy, “to fan into a flame the gift of God.”
To do this, we should give children opportunities to practice, to fail and to fall in the safety of this space and among this family of faith, and then help them get up and try again. We should speak into them the character traits we want to encourage.
- Our Morning School does this in a beautiful way regularly and then leans in more concretely on “Absolutely Incredible Kids Day” when the children are intentionally celebrated by pointing out things about WHO they are and not just WHAT they do.
By now in our growth progression, our children are in elementary school. They have within them an eagerness to learn, to understand, and to lead. The personalities we saw emerging in our preschool ministry are on full display as they learn to navigate friendships, challenging concepts, and a world of constant influence.
- Sunday School leaders like Barbara and Stacy find creative ways to engage as many senses as possible to connect spiritual truths with the children.
- Angela, Jane, Mary Kay, and Mary Margaret help develop fundamental skills in the children to share spiritual truths with us and others through music and story.
- As a whole family of faith we encourage children to read scripture, to pray, and to lead.
Each of these experiences builds upon the foundation we began establishing in the womb and contributes to the strength and support our children will carry with them as they continue growing in their faith.
You see, throughout childhood the question is not “will our children grow? but rather, who will our children grow into?” The question is not, “will our children be influenced but rather, who or what will be the greatest influence?” Like in our preschool ministry, we have opportunities to speak spiritual truths into the gifts we see developing in our elementary children. By this age those voices from adults other than parents are a great gift to both parent and child.
My mom coached more of my ball teams than not growing up. And for several years she and my friend’s dad were able to keep a team of girls together. We worked hard developing the fundamentals of the game and we were a force to be reckoned with. But I learned later that my mom and Steve had an agreement. She would handle the primary coach role of my friend and Steve would handle the primary coaching role of me. Because while children learn well from their parents, there is also a strong reality that the voice of another adult saying the same thing is often heard a bit quicker.
Through our adult ministries parents are being nurtured in their own spiritual growth and are supported and encouraged in their parenting journey. I’m confident that our parents are speaking spiritual truths into the lives of their children. But, we GET to be on the team, and oftentimes the voice of another adult saying the same thing is heard a bit quicker.
We have opportunities to show up, like Chuck and Stacy or Samantha and Tate, at awards days and ball games and recitals to remind children that the love of God is not only experienced within the walls of a building. Each new stage of a child’s life should be an opportunity for us as a family of faith to double down on the commitments we made during the baby or child dedication: to partner with those parents, to speak biblical truths into and over the children, to be a part of teaching them, encouraging them, correcting them, and actively living life alongside them.
And for children who join us later in life, we should do the same if not even lean in a little more to make up for lost time together.
May we be a church that comes alongside families helping each one to live into the teaching of Deuteronomy 6, 4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[b] 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
Amen.