Kirken og børnene - The church and the children

I ugen der er gået så vi en fantastisk ting og en trist ting.

Den fantastiske ting er, at evangeliet besidder en fænomenal tiltrækningskraft på små og store. Tænk at se totalt kirkefremmede børn, teenagere og voksne opsluges af Guds ord i vores telt. Vi havde vel 50-60 personer, som kom og gik i teltet. Flere af dem er egentlig alt for store til vores børneprogram, men det forhindrer dem ikke i at lytte og lytte og lytte.

Men hvad var så det triste? Jo, det triste var, at efter tre dage flyttede vi teltet to kilometre op til en lokal frikirke. Vi fortalte børnene, hvordan de skulle finde vej, og vi delte indbydelser ud. Til de fire børnemøder hos den lokale kirke dukkede én kirkefremmed familie med tre personer op.
Interessen for Guds ord var altså tydelig hos de 60, men kun tre (heraf to voksne) formåede at gå de ekstra to kilometre for at få mere af Guds ord.

I Bibelen står der, at hvis nogen beder dig om at gå en mil, så skal du gå to med ham.
Jeg har et vigtigt spørgmål til os kristne:
SKAL BØRNENE KOMME TIL KIRKEN ELLER SKAL KIRKEN KOMME TIL BØRNENE?

During the week that has just passed I experienced both a very wonderful and a very sad thing.

The wonderful thing is that the Gospel contains a phenomenal power to attract people. How wonderful it is to see 50-60 people at our children's tent meetings - many of them way too old for this kind of programme. But they are listening and listening and listening to the Word of God.

But what is the sad thing, then? The sad thing is that after some days we moved the tent two kilometres to a local evangelical church and had children meetings at their place. We explained the way to get there to the children and we handed out invitations. But only ONE family of three members (two adults and a child) showed up.

The 60 people clearly had an interest in the Gospel but most of them did not manage to walk the distance of two kilometres to get more.
The Bible tells us that if anyone asks you to walk a mile with them you should offer to walk two.
Now I have an important question for us as God's people:
SHOULD THE CHILDREN COME TO THE CHURCH OR SHOULD THE CHURCH COME TO THE CHILDREN?