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The Prints Of An Alive Church




         If you come to the building early enough on Monday (you have to be early, things get cleaned up around here pretty fast.) you will notice that there are most always little handprints on the front door.  The young ones are not tall enough to reach the push bar, and leave behind the marks.  You may think that they are a stain but I come to understand that those smudges are prints of a living church. 
         Children at times may seem like a hindrance to worship. They fidget, they fuss, they might make a mess.  You may think that baby’s cry is an annoyance but it really is the heartbeat of the church.  Without those cries, a church is beginning to die.  Show me a church with no sounds of children, no marks of little hands and I will show you a church that will soon be fighting for it’s very life. In those children are the faith of the future, the love of the present and the hope of the past. They show us the church isn’t just about us, the desires of the here and now. It is the legacy before us and the impression we make for the future.
         We need to remember how valuable our young ones are to church.  Like the disciples in Matthew 19:13-14, we may be tempted to push them away  It says, “Then some children were brought to Him so that He might lay His hands on them and pray; and the disciples rebuked them”.  But Jesus said, "Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." Jesus recognized that children are a living example of what the church needs to be. Without them, we lose a perceptive on the kingdom of God that the body desperately needs.
We need to do everything we can to encourage and support those with young children, so they will know how important they and their children are to the worship.  There are already so many difficulties for parents trying to worship with children.  We want to be of assistance to them and never do anything that might make them think it would be best for them to be away. 
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