CHILDREN'S MINISTRIES AT LAST DAYS HARVEST MINISTRIES

F.R.O.G. - Fully Relying On God - That is our Children’s Church classroom’s motto, theme, focus and is our very goal for life! Hello! My name is Roberta Mooney. I am our Children’s Church teacher here at Last Day’s Harvest Ministries and have been teaching children in ministry for approximately 21 years. Through these years, I’ve had the joy in touching the hearts and lives of many children by not only sharing with them and teaching them the truths of God’s Word, but also, to watch them grow up into being mature godly young men and women, serving Jesus to the best of their ability. (To my joy, I am now the Children’s Church teacher to some of their precious children.) There is such a tremendous joy in getting to be a positive influence in people’s lives for Jesus.

Roberta Mooney - Children's Church Director

Jesus loves us so very, very, very much! We are all so precious to Him! God has a plan for each and every one of our lives, and that includes our children. Their lives and their ministries are just as important as adults. Their young lives are also made up of body, spirit, and soul and they have the ability to hear from God just as adults do. Who said that because they are children that they need to be in another room to be ‘babysat’ so that the Adults can learn and glean and grow from God’s Word? No way! Children’s lives are important too, and I believe it is God’s heart to minister to and teach them the Word of God and God’s ways from the very start.

Our children’s ministries here at Last Day’s Harvest Ministries are broken down by the following age group:

Nursery Ages 0-2

Toddlers Ages 2-4

Children’s Church Ages 5-12

Youth Group Ages 13-19

(We have a Young Adults ministry for ages 20-30, but that’s another story.)

I believe that each and every age of development for Jesus is important. What about the Nursery Children? Yes, them too! The Bible tells us that we are all made up of 3 parts; our body, our soul, and our spirit. Our body is what we can all see, and touch, and if we pinch it, it hurts, and so we all understand our body and the part it plays to house our soul and our spirit. Our soul is our thoughts, our feelings, and our emotions, and which some of it will live forever after our body dies. It is our spirit that is the part that I so appreciate that the Lord has given me the opportunity to minister to in people’s lives. Our spirit will live on forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever! It will never die and depending on whether you have asked Jesus Christ to come into your lives and trusted Him as your personal Lord and Savior or not depends on where your spirit (and soul) will live forever. Either Heaven or Hell.

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I believe that even at the precious young age of conception that although their body and soul may not understand what is being said to them, I do believe that their spirit receives and can be nourished by the Word of God and prayer. From the moment that I find out that somebody is pregnant, I begin there by laying hands on the mommy’s tummy and praying over and for this precious gift from God. I encourage the parents to continue to do the same.

For our Nursery Age children, from the moment that they are Newborns, I not only continually pray for them but when I’m able to, I hold them and read the Bible to them. Like I said, their body and soul may not understand, but I believe that their spirit is being fed.

Our Toddler group is being taught by Miss Lynda, (who I had the joy of praying for her and her life since her mommy was pregnant with her. I also had the great joy of being her Children’s Church teacher for many years.) Anyway, Miss Lynda takes her responsibility to the Lord and to the children that she is ministering to seriously. She not only allows plenty of play time, and snack time, and time to ‘make a joyous noise unto the Lord’, but she also takes the time to teach these precious toddlers the Word of God in a way that they can understand. Miss Lynda is patient and loving and caring and all the toddlers adore her. (And so do I!) J

Our Children’s Church class is for ages 5 to 12. I absolutely LOVE getting to teach these precious children! There is nothing better than to see these kids grow and mature in the Lord. We are currently working through a workbook that I use as a general guideline called "Bible Stores From A to Z". We are making our own individual "Alphabet Quilt" (with paper) and each letter of the alphabet represents the topic that we talk about and learn from the Word of God. For example, "A is for Adam", and "B is for Baptism", and "C is for Creation" etc. I use this workbook as a simple guide to the topic and we use some of the information in its pages, but my favorite way to teach is by knowing what the topic is, and then studying the Word of God and everything that I can get my hands on regarding that subject and through it all asking God to give me creative ways to teach His children what He wants them to learn through all of this, which God faithfully does every time. We continue with that topic until I feel like God is telling me to continue on to the next subject.

We are also sponsoring a child from Malawi, Africa through World Vision. Our children understand that just like what God says in Matthew 25 that whatever we do for the least of these, that we are doing for Him. Each week we take an offering for our sponsored child and at the end of the month, I turn that money in to our church, who then sends a monthly support for our sponsored child to World Vision. We have a Children’s Church store at the end of each month that the children enjoy shopping at. The only way that they are able to buy anything is with Children’s Church Bucks, and the only way to get Children’s Church Bucks are to earn them. They are able to earn them several ways. They each receive one for being there, one for participating in each of the activities of the class, they receive one for bring an offering for Bakhita (our little girl from Malawi), they receive 3 for bringing a friend (and their friend also receives 3 on their first day there), they receive one for obeying my rules, they receive several for doing their homework (when there is homework), and to their joy, they receive 50 Children’s Church Bucks for memorizing their Scripture verses. My goal for the precious children that the Lord is allowing me to teach is to raise them up to not just know about Jesus, but having an intimate personal love relationship with Jesus, which includes not only feeding on His Word and growing and maturing from that, but also learning how to be quiet before the Lord, and recognizing His voice, worshiping Him, and obeying God and leaving all the consequences of obeying God to Him.

Our next level of ministry to our Young people here at Last Day’s Harvest Ministries is our Youth Group which is from ages 13-19. Dave Ruffino and Christian Olson is faithfully ministering to this precious group of young people and you can see what is going on with that ministry by clicking on the information tab on our home page.

I love Jesus and I’m so grateful for His stubborn, stubborn, stubborn, unconditional love that He has for me and for all of us, and I am trying to hear Him and obey Him to the best of my ability. If you have any questions, please feel free to E-Mail me. My E-Mail address is on our ‘Contact’ page. Thank you!

Have a great day!

All Because of Jesus,

- Roberta Mooney

If you would like to know more about our Children's Church please click here to go to the contact page. Once there, click on Roberta's mail link to send her your comments or questions.