The Church Under The Pew

Matthew 19:13-15 says, “Then were brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. And he laid his hands on them, and departed thence.”

Before the service started, I walked over to visit with Rob and Charisma. As I stood there, a little hand reached out from under the pew and grabbed my pant leg. The little Reanna was greeting me, with laughs and giggles, in her own way. Now if the preacher had greeted me that way it wouldn’t have been acceptable. If the disciples had been there perhaps they would have rebuked her. Jesus would have laid His hands on her (I don’t mean a swat). 

Children may not learn a lot in church, but they can tell if they are loved. I want us to consider for a moment the value of the “church” under the pew.

My mother was a serious student. She majored in history in college. She went to Israel about 15 times. She took a class from the Hebrew University. She went on archaelogical digs. She traveled in Europe. She had a huge, well-read library. Yet with all this education, she never got out of the first grade. For thirty years she taught little children how to read. This was the real love of her life. She saw the value of investing in little minds. I remember one of her phrases, “When two vowels go walking, the first one usually does the talking.” She spent many hours decorating her classroom. She used Dad’s electrical skills, and had him build a big board to hang her charts on, with lights that lit up by the right answers. She used my skills as a boy to catch pollywogs at the frog pond. She put them in a fish aquarium and the kids watched them develop into little frogs. She did not entertain the children; she simply gave them a solid start that helped them all through life.

When it comes to the church, I wonder if we realize the value of the church under the pews. We talk about how we can get kids to come to church. My question is, do we have a Sunday School teacher (an old term that we are encouraged not to use nowadays) who is called of God to invest thirty years into young minds, to set them on a life-long walk with Jesus? Maybe the kids would come to a room that had hours and hours of decorating. The love for the children begins to show through in a number of ways. 

Jesus started out His ministry with no disciples. He had to go out and find them. The main thing that drew them unto Him was that He truly loved them, invested all His time in them, saw value in them, realized the Father had given them unto Him, and finally, He died for them.

Men make wonderful teachers. Mothers make wonderful first-grade teachers. Little children still need to feel motherly love. I believe God can give a life-long call to a Sunday School teacher. There is a church under the pews that we dare not lose.

I mentioned Charisma, a strong Christian woman in our church. She actually found Jesus as her Savior in Vacation Bible School. When the little children were brought to Jesus to put His hands on them and pray for them, they were rebuked. Jesus would not let that go. Who knows what Jesus’ touch did to those little children. Let’s not leave it only to the janitor to take a good look under the pews!