UNKNOWN 0:00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 0:17

Welcome to another episode, the place where we talk about kids ministry and take a peek behind the scenes. We try to share a little bit of what we've learned that works for us and some of our failures so you can avoid them. We release a new episode every Friday, and this is your Backstage Pass to see the magic or disaster that happens behind the scenes of our kids ministry. I'm your host, Gabe Baker, and today I'm joined by Brother Matthew Critcher. How's it going? It's going great. Just got in from another state. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

It's good to have you on the podcast. I'm glad to be back. Yeah, and today we're talking about a king inside. A king inside. A

SPEAKER_03 0:58

really, really good topic. I'm really looking forward to this. Diving into this. So, okay, so if you could just take a minute and imagine a setting with me. The sun is shining. There's a soft, gentle breeze as the grass sways listlessly, and the sun shimmers, creating a mirage in the distance. The soft chirping of birds can be heard throughout the valley. Then suddenly, the picturesque scene is destroyed as a loud voice booms, ricocheting off the hillside. It's Goliath, the mighty warrior that instills terror. So we all know the story, one of the greatest stories ever recorded, David and Goliath. David with a sling stands up to the giant and is, of course, victorious. So David was anointed to be king way before he ever stepped foot into the palace. We all know the story. He fought Goliath when he had no position. He had no authority to do it, but he fought Goliath and he was victorious. He was destined to be a king.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I like that, the word value. That's a

SPEAKER_03 3:28

That's a key thing. Yeah. And I think if we, if we can remember, you know, we are doing a work for God. And so, you know, if like Sunday school, and of course I work in youth as well, but these shouldn't necessarily be considered lesser ministries. I mean, they're, they're not, they're not the same as the office of preaching. I'm not trying to say that at all. But what I'm saying is we shouldn't be looking at like, oh, I, I wish I was the men's ministry director, you know, and we're thankful for all of the quote unquote ministries. But I wrote a note, Luke 16, 10 talks about being faithful in the small things. Yes. And so if, if indeed, like, for example, you are preaching. And so, and we have, you know, your brother is an evangelist now and he's out of our Sunday school and brother Joey Boggs. We've talked about him many times on the podcast. Hope, and have them on soon. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Yeah. And so they're, I don't want to say a product of Sunday School necessarily, but they have come out of our Sunday School. Brian, Brother Kutcher, was actually in Sunday School and then he was staff and Brother Joey Boggs was staff as well. And so they were faithful in the small things. They gave it everything, you know, in Sunday School. Yes. And now Very true. Very true.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, once again, kind of going back to the whole value thing, I mean, Sunday school, even though it can be considered somewhat, you know, a smaller, smaller thing, it really has a vital impact. I mean, this is the next, these are coming up generations. These are people that are going to be, you know, the shoulders on whom the churches Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:59

And that's the thing. And we mentioned a lot of times we're not babysitters. And I think that sometimes even asking for volunteers, the perception can be off. And then I also think, and this is probably more common maybe in youth ministry, but it can be thought of as a stepping stone onto, and again, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing for it to be a stepping stone onto some other ministry, but it shouldn't just be that. It's not standalone necessarily, not an island unto itself, but it is its own ministry. Brother Jason Ashley, so he's really old. No, I'm just kidding. He listens to this podcast, so that's just a shot at him. But he is older than I am. I'm not sure by how much. But he has a podcast, Growing Up With Papa. So it's really good. Check it out if you haven't heard it. But he's in Sunday School Ministry. And so he's, again, he's older than I am. And he is, you know, I'm sure he does other things. I don't know what all he does as far as ministry, but he's full on into Sunday School. He's got this character called the Rubber Bandit.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Oh, that's great. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 7:22

It is awesome. He made some videos and recordings. They're really good. But it's just an example of, you know, and of course, Brother Booker, we know him. It's an example of almost like, you know, air quotes here, but a career in Sunday School. It's not like just a stepping stone, you know, under those things.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

And I mean, coming from From the perspective of someone that was raised in church, because I've been in church all my life and I've been part of the Sunday school since I was able to, since I was old enough. And I have memories of, I mean, some of my fondest memories was times in Sunday school. And I remember staff, just certain staff members that would pray for me. I can't remember, it's been so long ago, I can't remember the specifics, but I do remember very special moments of praying at the altar. Yeah, what an impact. Try to, you know, return that to this next,

SPEAKER_03 8:47

you know. Pay it back or pay it forward or whatever. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and the other thing that I, and I just, man, I hate this, but is, I had a note there, don't let Sunday School be subpar because it's just kids. You know, it's just kids, so it doesn't, you know, it doesn't matter or it's not that big of a deal. It is a big deal. Yes. You know, and I think that that attitude can come from wishing for something else, like wishing you were doing something else and like, oh, well, I'm just biding my time or filling in my time here in Sunday school. But no, it's important. Yes, absolutely. We

SPEAKER_02 9:28

actually just did this story in Sunday school. We had a great time, too. It's awesome. Oh, man. Lots of comedy in it, too. But we did the story about the treasure in the field and the man. He finds his treasure as he working in it. When he discovers his treasure, he sells everything out in order to purchase this field so he can possess that treasure. But when we were...

SPEAKER_03 9:54

And the guys, I just got to say, they were making fun of him, his quote-unquote friends. Yes. And they were like, you want this old field? Why are you selling all your important stuff? You can't even grow anything in this. You can't even grow weeds in this. It was so great.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

We had an awesome time with that. But when we had talked to when we had discussed today's topic. This was just something that came to mind. Sometimes in Sunday school, it could just seem, working with kids, it could seem like just a field of wheat. It's like, man, you may not, this kind of goes back, I don't know why I'm on the whole value thing, but you might just see it as just this field and not really think, well, there's not much to it. But when you start working in it, you're going to notice there's lots of treasures in the field. If we could say Sunday school And there are treasures in the field.

SPEAKER_03 11:14

We did the two-part story. We did the treasure in the field and the pearl great price. But yeah, as Sunday school teachers, if we can be completely sold out and in our ministry, you know, and know that, hey, we have a job to do here. And that's a really good analogy that you brought up because it makes me even think of more things like some people, why are you so silly? Why do you wear all these costumes? Why do you buy those microphones? Why do you do all this? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Yeah. And it's because we're sold out. He

SPEAKER_03 12:15

was in the kingdom of God. I had a note, be bold in the faith. And basically, you know, when you know who you're working for, you know, then it makes, it makes a difference on how you can approach it as well. And so like, man, I'm going to throw my daughter under the bus a little bit. So she works with these kids and she, she does a music group with them sometimes. And even it's been a while back, we did a financial peace class and she volunteer or maybe she was voluntold I don't know but she was helping with the child care it was like every other week or something like that and she did amazing I mean she had those kids like she had activities and crafts and she was doing songs and she's so good with kids but yet she's she doesn't really say this but she's like I hate kids and so it's funny because she does so well with them you know yeah but yeah she can just be like uh kids you know so um so in all of that the reason i brought that up sorry anisha uh the reason i brought that up though is that if we remember who we're working for and you can think like um so every sunday i clean the toilet up here in the bathroom you I clean the bathroom after we get done. And you could take the attitude of like these filthy kids. And man, I'm having to clean this for these kids, you know, or I'm having to set up these benches and get ready for these kids. But that's not who you're doing it for. Yes. You're doing it for the King of Kings. Absolutely. And that's who you're cleaning the toilets for. You're doing it for the King of Kings. And it's a service, you know, unto the kids, but it's not... It's not just that you're, you know, quote unquote, working for the kids. You're working for God. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

I mean, Jesus himself even talked about when you receive little children in his name. I mean, it's he, you know, he talked about the importance of that. I mean, he received him himself. Yes. You know, and so I think he said, you know, him being the captain of our salvation, he was our example of how we need to be. And so he understood that he was going to make an impact, you know, and so that they could later on in their future do work. And so he was teaching his disciples, you need to receive them. Don't hinder them from coming to me, but you need to be the vehicle that can bring these kids to me. And so that's kind of what we do is we're working ultimately to connect those kids to God. We're like vehicles that God can use. So instead of us trying to hinder that, we need to be the

SPEAKER_03 15:41

vehicles that God can use for that. Yeah, I mean, when the world, when corporations, and I'm thinking of, I saw, this has been a while ago, but I saw, you know, like those food, toy food packages, you know, like cooking stuff or whatever. It was something like that, but it was, I don't know if it was Visa or whoever it was, but there was a credit card. Oh, okay. So when the world gets a hold of this concept and says, hey, if we can get kids used to the credit card concept when they're a kid, then, you know, since they're a teen, Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

The devil wants to take that out of them. He wants to take that potential of them becoming who God called them to be. He wants to just take it right from them. But it's our job to protect that and to try to develop that if we're Sunday school teachers.

SPEAKER_03 16:59

Well, I like what you said, the initiative. We got to take the initiative. That kind of fits under this bullet point of being bold is we have to not be afraid to step up and say, because I mean, who else? Yeah. Word of Flame and Press, something like that. But anyway, it was a very good curriculum. And so we did this, it was a boat scene. And so we kind of, we did the whole entire room. We had a boat that was big enough for kids to get into and everything. So it was big. But I remember we were like setting up, this was back when we had to set up every either Saturday night. In fact, in the very beginning, we were setting up Sunday morning before church started and then taking down, you know, then our sets got too big to do that. But so I think this is one of those times when it was a Sunday morning. And this is before I took over Sunday school. Pastor wasn't pastor yet. And he's the one that kind of did the big switch for Sunday school. So I was just helping because I'm usually always got my finger in the pies, you know. So I was just helping. But I remember somebody had it was like an island. We had this sand colored blankets that we were using for sand around these islands. And it was just kind of sloppy. And I remember like, uh, we were trying to hurry, like, okay, we're done. And I was like, no, no, no, we got to fix that. And I remember this young man was like, oh, that's, that's good enough. And I remember even back then. And I, like I said, I wasn't in charge of Sunday school or anything, but even back then, I remember being actually kind of irritated. And I was like, no, it's not good enough. It's got, you know, and so I tucked the corners in and made it look round, you instead of like a square sheet had to look around like an island. And so in my mind, I was like, details matter. Yes. This is important. And to me, I didn't have the vision yet of like, okay, Sunday school and kids and everything. But one thing I did have a hold of is I knew it was important to pastor. Yes. And I understood that he was changing it for a reason. It wasn't just to do something cool. There was a reason behind it. And so that was, you know, kind of like I felt like I was fulfilling that mission, you know, and so details matter. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

Absolutely. And sometimes, like you said, it's, it may not even necessarily start out as your vision. Yeah. But, you know, when your pastor puts forth a vision, even if we don't see it at the moment, it's up to us to put legs to that vision and be able to carry that. Because I do believe that when we do that, God will open our eyes and we will, we will see And we'll have that vision. You know, I'm reminded of the story of, I believe it was Elisha, the prophet, and he tells us they're surrounded by the enemy. Oh, yes. And he tells his servant, hey, go look out there, you know, and the servant's just terrified. Man, we're about to get just destroyed. The whole army's coming against me and, you know, this prophet. Yes. But, you know, when he obeyed and he listened to the man of God, even when he didn't see for a couple times, eventually God, you know, his man God prayed for him, that his eyes would be open. And when he saw it, you know, he got to see what the man of God was seeing. And so I believe that, you know, just touching on

SPEAKER_03 20:53

that. Yeah, I think that that does definitely happen. I mean, our man of God, as you know, you're a man of God in your church, wherever you are, is the watchman on the wall, not just as a safety, but they're the one with the vision. They can see out and they're steering the ship. They see Yes. Oh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Mathematically, technically, that makes sense, but we don't really feel it in our heart. But we're like, like you said, put legs to it. And now we can look back at just, I mean, so many things. Yes, yes. One of the things I thought of when you said that is, I've mentioned it before, but music practice. So we do a lot of music practice around here. And I remember us talking, Pastor and I, about one day. Oh, man. One day we'll be able to practice before service. Oh, wow. We'll have a pre-service practice. Oh, man. One day we might, maybe we could get a practice once a week, you know? Wow. Yeah. And now that's just like regular, you know, that's just regular stuff, man. No, it's amazing. Yeah. So don't feel silly, uh, working for the, you know, working for the kids. Cause we remember who you're working for. Um, and then don't, don't be ashamed. And I had a note that there's an internal confidence when you you know know that you're there's a king inside so i wanted to reference a story really quick so this is i got this i you know i don't know where it comes from originally but i got this out of the seven habits of highly effective teens really good book um so this is about king lewis the let's see xvi the 16th right xvi yes of france okay so i'm just going to read some of this and hopefully not take too long but king lewis had been taken from his throne and His young son, the prince, was taken by those who dethroned the king. They thought that inasmuch as the king's son was heir to the throne, if they could destroy him morally, he would never realize the great and grand destiny that life had bestowed upon him. Now, I don't know if this story is true or not. Why didn't they just kill him? I don't know. Anyway, so they took him to a community far away, and there they exposed the lad to every filthy and vile thing that life could offer. They exposed him to foods, the richness of which would quickly make him a slave to appetite. They used vile language around him constantly. They exposed him to lewd and lusting women. They exposed him to dishonor and distrust. He was surrounded 24 hours a day by everything that could drag the soul of a man as low as one could slip. For over six months, he had this treatment, but not once did the young lad buckle under pressure. Finally, after intense Wow. That's amazing. It actually reminds me, I was

SPEAKER_02 24:34

actually reading this this morning, so it just came to mind. I'm thinking, wow, this ties in. But I was reading this morning in 2 Chronicles It talks about Athaliah. She takes over the throne of the kingdom of Judah. And she was a wicked, wicked leader. Just terrible situation how that ended up. But throughout that time, she had slain all the royal. The Bible says all the royal heirs to the throne, all that. So that she would have no threat except for Joash. Joash was hidden. And so the Bible says that he was hidden for six years. And so then you see Jehoiada, the priest, he was partly responsible for hiding Joash and stuff. But when it came to that year when Joash had been preserved and he had been protected, Jehoiada said, you know what, it's time to make him king. And he could have said, you know what, he's just a young kid. We're just going to be stuck under Athaliah forever. Until she dies and there's nothing we can do. But instead, he's realizing, you know what? We've got someone who is actually an heir to this throne. And we've got to protect him to the best of our ability. Because one day when he's old enough, we're going to make sure he's king. And so, it's really neat. You read the story about how they accomplished that and how they took care of that and anointed

SPEAKER_03 26:07

Joash to be king. Now, is this the same one where they, right after, because he was very young. Did they try to kill him? I'm trying to remember. I might be getting this mixed up with Josiah. Right after he took over the throne or was placed in the throne, they tried to kill him.

SPEAKER_02 26:25

I don't believe it was Joash. I do know that when Athaliah heard the commotion of them anointing him king, she freaked out. But Jehoiada had it all planned out. He realized, you know what? There's some steps we've got to take because he understood if the kingdom of Judah was going to stand, it relied upon him protecting this young kid who becomes king at, I believe, seven years of age, six or seven. But he had a vision. He understood there is a king inside this young child. And God ended up blessing Joash and the kingdom of Judah prospered during the time of Joash. So Jehoiada could have had an attitude of, oh, he's just a kid. But he saw there was an inner king within him. Because he was of the lineage of David. And what a

SPEAKER_03 27:16

literal

SPEAKER_02 27:16

example, because he truly was. He was a king. He was the next in line to be king. And so because of that, he really spared the people

SPEAKER_03 27:26

of Israel. Yeah. Well, and, you know, that's really good because there's kind of two sides of this coin with this podcast today that I think of. And that is as Sunday school leaders, you know, we have a king inside of us and we need to be bold. And we need to remember who we work for, but we are working with Kings. And so we're like the, how do you say it? Jehoiada. Jehoiada. Jehoiada. There we go. We're like the Jehoiada priests. And so, because these kids, you know, I, I should have pulled it up, but I, um, a couple of years ago or a few years ago, I wrote an article. Uh, the first article I wrote for together magazine and it was, um, I did kind of a storyline, but- one of the things I ended it with is that, you know, basically we work with, you know, I said something like today in Sunday school, I sat down with a preacher. I prayed with a song leader, you know, and, but it was all kids. Oh, that's good. And so that's very good. So we are, you know, some of the kids we work with might become song leaders, musicians, youth leaders, soul winners, preachers. Yes. You know, and, and, you know, this brings up a story really quick. So, So we have preacher's kids that come up to Sunday school, you know, if they're evangelists or something. And so we had a young guy here who's come to Sunday school. And so I was up here working upstairs and working on a new theme. And so my son, my younger son, Ashton, and this other boy, they're the same age, roughly. So they came up, they're playing together. And it was just them. And I was near the side. Well, I had friends. found this uh lion costume lion head costume from narnia uh-huh and so i might have told this story on a podcast i don't know i can't remember but it was so funny i grabbed it and i was like there was a wall down the middle and so they were playing in one side so i grabbed it and i poked my

SPEAKER_00 29:32

oh oh

SPEAKER_03 29:38

man and so the the other boy saw he saw me And Ashton didn't see me, but he, his face got white. And then I just went back. I just poked my head around and I went back and I stuffed the mask in a box, you know, and I kept on working. He comes, he's like, he's telling Ashton, you know, and Ashton's, Ashton's kind of scared, but he, you know how kids are. He just thought he's probably playing, you know, or whatever. And he comes in, he's like, did you, did you see a lion? Oh, that's great. And so I was

SPEAKER_00 30:08

just

SPEAKER_03 30:08

like, what? A lion? I was like, we just did Daniel and the Lions did it. Oh, that's

SPEAKER_00 30:14

awesome. So I was so much fun with that. I was messing with it a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 30:20

And then finally, so there was something happening downstairs. And so his mom, you know, the preacher's wife was downstairs and he's like, Ashton says something about playing. He's like, no, I'm going to go get my mom.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

So I was like, hold on, hold on. I had to show him the basket. It was hilarious. It was

SPEAKER_03 30:37

so funny. Oh, man.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

That's great.

SPEAKER_03 30:41

Oh, man. The perks of it. Working with Sunday

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school. Oh, yeah.

UNKNOWN 30:45

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think, you know, something else I just want to quickly touch on is being able to look beyond the here and now. Oh, yes. Because I think that's important for what we're talking about is when you're dealing with kids. If you just view them as the here and now, you're not going to treat them like David King inside. Yeah. Right. Because, I mean, you mentioned your daughter, you know, getting like, oh, man, these kids drive me crazy. Yeah. I mean, you know, let's face it. You can, you know, you can get frustrated. You can, you know, be like, man, these kids, why don't they just train up? But if you, if you look a little bit deeper, you know, into the future that, you know, the beyond, like what are these kids going to become? Yeah. Don't lose sight of the vision. Yes. Yes. It's not just a here and now, but what we do now does impact

SPEAKER_03 31:35

our, the future. Oh, so much. We have such that that's a responsibility that can weigh heavy almost. Yes. If you think about it, so I have told my older son this a few times, but I'm like, kids are watching you. Yes. They are watching your every move. Absolutely. And the thing is, this can be kind of fun with drama stuff or whatever, like a sword fight or something, is sometimes kids will pick up the smallest thing, the movement that you do, and they will capitalize on it. Absolutely. Or the smallest thing you say, and they will capitalize on that. They'll, you'll, you'll go out in the parking lot and they're doing a sword fight and they're doing a Radigan move, you know, with a sword. They're spinning around just like Radigan did, or they'll say something funny. Like right now we have Gary Gazette. They'll say something funny about Gary Gazette. I mean, we got a young man that got a suit and everything to look like. Oh, that's great. Yeah. And so, so they're watching our every move. Yes. And so our, so we are influencing them. It's not like we can opt out. I mean, unless you're not going to be in Sunday school. But if you're in Sunday school and you're up front, you can't opt out. You are going to influence them. Absolutely. Good or bad. Absolutely. And that's the heaviness. Yes. Because, and as a Sunday school team or, you know, and I know not everybody has a team like we do. A lot of times it's just a single person or a couple of people, but just as a Sunday school department, ministry, whatever you want to call it, we have a responsibility because here's something this This was a note I wrote while I was waiting for you is if they hate Sunday school because a teacher was mean to them or or even as simple as it was boring.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:26

Will they carry that with them? And now they hate church. They get older and they hate church or they don't even go visit because church is associated with boring. Yeah. Oh, man. And so if we can think of, OK, we're going to make this impact. And so when they come, they're like, church is awesome. Yes. Church is exciting. That is the place I want to go. Absolutely. The people there care about you, you know? Um, and like you talked about the, the precious times of the memories of being prayed with, with staff is if we can be, be that, uh, influence that guiding light, you know, absolutely. So that they can have that association.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

Yes. Yes. Very, very true. Um, yeah, no, it is. It really, Oh, that right there just opens your eyes and gets you thinking, you know, just how you live. I've, I mean, I'm nothing, you know, I don't think of myself to be something special or whatever, but I've seen kids mimic me before just doing something. I'm like, Oh, I actually, you know, and so it gets you thinking like, man, you know, it really, what we do, what we say really does make an impact.

SPEAKER_03 34:36

It can be funny or even cute depending on the age or whatever when they do that. But yeah, It's the flip side of that coin is it's like, oh, man, I need to be careful. And it doesn't mean be scared. We talked about being bold, but it's like, man, I need to, I guess, watch where I step or be careful on how I conduct myself, but also capitalize on it. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 35:03

It's like I mentioned earlier about the box of money. That's an amazing thing you can have, but you're going to treat it. You're going to treat it carefully. Yes. But you can also utilize that in an incredible way because it's got a lot of value to it. But you do definitely need to be careful with it, how you treat that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:23

Well, to recap, we're kind of running out of time here, but just to recap, King Inside, we're doing a work for God. So remember who you're working for. It's not just these kids. Yes. Those kids, we're doing a work for God. And so the details matter. You know, it shouldn't be subpar. It needs to be everything that it can be, even though it's, quote unquote, just kids ministry, because we're doing work for God. And then be bold in faith. You know, if you have, if you're anointed king, you have an internal confidence. You know, if you, it's kind of like, sometimes you see it in preacher's kids, but if you, you know, if you have a position of some kind and you walk into a place where no Nobody knows you. Like, let's say you own the building, you know, and you walk in and they don't know, but you, you can have a confidence because you own the building. Absolutely. And so when we are, when we understand that, Hey, I'm doing a work in God's kingdom. Yeah. You're going to treat it differently. Yeah. You treat it differently and you can have that confidence. Yes. And then just finally, we are working with Kings. We're working with, who knows? Yeah. The power. Oh man. You know, out of all these kids. surely there's at least a

SPEAKER_02 36:44

preacher, you know, boy, this, this way is heavy here. I mean, God hasn't, if you're a Sunday school teacher, God has entrusted them to you. Yes. So that's, I mean, that's big right there. What are you going to do with, can God actually trust you?

SPEAKER_03 36:56

Yeah. Yeah. Brother Arter talked about that in one of our podcasts. Yeah. As we've been entrusted to. Yeah. That's so good. All right. Well, hopefully this wasn't too heavy, but yeah, I, I think it was good, but yeah, I think that's a wrap. All righty.

UNKNOWN 37:12

you