Peter Witkowski Children's Ministry

5 Things Habits Of Effective Nursery Workers:

nursery-workers1. Listen To Your Leaders:

To be a great servant, we must be a great listener and doer. We must make every effort to listen to our pastor. If he ask us to arrive 15 minutes early, we make every effort to arrive on time. If our nursery director tells us not to pull out the blocks today, we follow her advice and leave the blocks put up. To be a great nursery worker, we must listen to and follow our leader’s directions.

2. Listen to the Parents:

To be a great nursery worker, we must listen to the parents. If they ask us to give junior a bottle at 9:15AM, we should do everything we can to give him the bottle then. If they ask us to get them quickly if their child will not stop crying, we go get them. If they tell us that little Sally will be fine, we let little Sally cry it out until it becomes obvious she needs mom or until her crying become so disruptive that the wellbeing of necessitates her removal. Again, we may not always agree with the parents. But if the child is not being harmed, we need to die to ourselves and our pride and listen to the child’s mom and dad. After all they (and not us) have been charged with caring for the child. We need to respect the parents. We should listen to them.

3. Listen to the Kids

When we come to nursery, we need to arrive with a kid focus; our goal should not be to catchup with the other adults in the room. Our mission should be to learn and to play with the kids in our room. We should talk to them about preschool. Learn about their favorite colors. Play dragons, farm, and restaurant with them. And if they are too small to talk, we should study the babies, seeing what makes them happy or upset. As we learn which babies like the swing and which ones like the bouncy seat, we will be better equipped to care for the children. And as the babies become happier, we demonstrate the love of Christ to both the little people and their parents. We show the onesie wearing souls that we love them. And we show the parents that we care about them enough to keep their kid happy so that they can make it through a sermon.

4. Talk To Your Leaders

After listening well, we should seek to speak well. We should seek to mention concerns and problems to our leaders. For example, our church has restroom signs above our restrooms because a nursery worker noticed that those signs were missing. All the rooms, had nice big signs jutting out from the wall. But the bathrooms did not. By speaking to me, he made our church better. No children’s pastor or nursery director can anticipate or catch every problem. By speaking well and with love, you can make your nursery and your church more welcoming, safe, and friendly. A good worker is willing to address concerns.

5. Talk To The Parents:

When parents come to the door to pick up their child, capture the moment. Tell them something their child did well. Brag about how well the slept or about how well they shared. My wife and I love hearing how our kids did in nursery. All parents do. And as we talk to the parents about their children, we begin to build relationships with them. We begin to lay a foundation from which to share the gospel or from which to talk about church membership. By reaching out to parents with hospitable speech we have a chance to make much of God.

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Take Up Your Cross

crossWhen we think of taking up a cross, we often think of Mrs. Martha saying that her recent battle with the flu is her cross. Or perhaps, we think of musicians peddling snazzy shirts and necklaces of the symbol of death. But is this what Jesus meant when he commanded us in Mark 8:34  to “take up our cross.” Is taking up our cross nothing more than patiently bearing with life’s disappointment while engaging in some Christian marketing?

I think it is more. I think being a Christian, having true faith, and being a real follower entails more than the above definition.  To take up our cross, we must be willing to radically and to practically live our life for Christ joyfully bearing all the reproaches, condemnation, and attacks of men.

To understand more about what taking up our cross means, we need to peak back a few verses. In Mark 8:31 Jesus says he will die on the cross because, “the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the scribes.” Jesus’ death was a direct result of his obedience to God. Jesus was not talking about all the aches and pains that all experience in this life. He was talking about the persecution that we would face if we deny ourselves.

If we deny ourselves and pursue Christ, we too will suffer. As Jesus said in John 15:20:

Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.

We may miss great job promotion because we desire to honor our marriage vows. We may not be invited to the family summer vacation because we want to obey God by avoiding drunkenness. And our kids may get benched because we value hearing the word of God preached more than the 3 spot in the order. Bearing a cross means that we embrace the cost of following Jesus. Bearing the cross means we are willing to be rejected and mocked by our peers. Bearing the cross means we are willing to live radically obedient lives even if we may lose our life in the process.

And Jesus’ initially hearers clearly grasped this reality. They saw the cross not as an ordinary part of life. They did not view it as an accessory. The saw it for what it was: a vile instrument of torture and death. The crowds had seen the Romans execute thousands upon thousands of Jews with the long nails and wooden planks. Jesus’ hears had watched their fellow Jews slowly die from affixation after days of agony. They knew Jesus was not calling them to endure the normal hardships of life well. They knew Jesus was calling them to deny themselves up to the point of death. They knew Jesus demanding their all.

Are we willing to radically follow Jesus? Are we willing to daily die to ourselves? Are we willing to sacrifice earthly comfort, our success, and our worldly hopes for the gospel? Are we persecuted for our faith?

Again, I do not think that every day of our life will be marked by suffering for the gospel. Our lives could be this way. We have many brothers and sisters who daily face death because of their commitment to Christ. The persecution we may come our sister, our fellow PTA members, or from a recreational softball team.  The question is this: Do we face any persecution or is our life so in line with the world that we never stand out?

Peter Witkowski Parenting

John Bunyan’s Message For Today’s Parents

bunyan-blogJohn Bunyan’s arrest, trial, and 12 year imprisonment never had to happen. He could have declined his last invitation to preach. He could have followed his friends’ advice and fled the meeting house before the constable arrived. And, he could have promised to never preach again and been quickly released. He could have walked away from the whole commotion quite easily.

But Bunyan could not deny his God and Savior. He could not abandon God and “blaspheme the gospel.” As he told one of his accusers, “If I were out of prison to-day, I would preach the Gospel again to-morrow, by the help of God.”

Bunyan’s Story

Bunyan’s convictions would cost him dearly. When he was imprisoned in 1660, John Bunyan left behind a pregnant wife and four children, the oldest of whom was blind. When his wife Elizabeth heard of Bunyan’s arrest, she went into premature labor and gave birth to a still-born child. And for the entirety of his twelve-year prison term, Bunyan provided a meager income for his family by making and selling shoelaces.

As a loving husband and father, Bunyan’s heart was tormented by his family’s sufferings. At times, he felt that he “was pulling down his house upon the head of his wife and children.” As Elizabeth, would later tell a judge, John Bunyan truly “desired to live peaceably, to follow his calling that his family might be maintained.”

Although Bunyan longed to care for his family, he knew his ultimate allegiance was to Christ. No matter how much he loved his family, Bunyan could not abandon his Lord and Savior. And he was able to trust Jesus through this time because he knew that God could and would care for his family. Bunyan truly believed Jeremiah 49:11 which says,  “Leave your fatherless children, I will preserve them alive: And let your widows trust in Me.”

Furthermore, Bunyan was convinced that denying Christ to save his family would ultimately lead to his and his family’s destruction. He wrote:

If I…venture all for God, I engaged God to take care of my concernments: but if I forsook Him and His ways…I…should count also that my concernments were not so sure.

Whether in or out of jail, Bunyan knew that God was the one that preserved his family. John abandoned his self-sufficiency and entrusted his life and his family to the God of the universe. And as a result of his faith, Bunyan was able to boast that, “Jesus was never more real and apparent than now; here I have seen and felt him indeed.” His family was preserved by the grace of God. And Bunyan got a new family becoming the spiritual father of thousands through his writings.

Lessons For Today

The world has changed much since Bunyan was imprisoned. We no longer travel by horseback. And we no longer hide our retirement account in a chest above the fireplace. But, we can still learn much from John Bunyan, the parent. And my biggest take away is this: Christ is everything.   

As parents, we long, like Bunyan did, to give our kids the very best things. We take them to church. We sign them up for softball. We select great piano teachers. We do anything and everything to help them excel at life. But at the end of the day, our kids really need only one thing, Jesus. The rest is all fluff.

Bunyan understood this truth. He understood it to the point of separating himself from his kids’ so that they could achieve the thrown of grace. He would rather suffer for his faith and see his family confined to poverty than provide comforts for his children and see them miss heaven. Bunyan lived out Matthew 16:26, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”

Friends, we must take time to listen to Bunyan’s message. We should not sacrifice the church and the gospel for our kids’ worldly advancement. Rather, we should do the opposite.

We must see that sports, musical skill, and even our own careers are secondary to the gospel. If sacrificing these things enables us to reach our kids with the gospel, then we must sacrifice them. We must be willing to sell all that we have and follow Jesus.. No half measures will do. Christ must be primary. We must build our family and our family’s schedule around the gospel. We should listen’s to Bunyan’s message and make Christ everything.

Are you listening?