The Mike Speck Trio was such a blessing to us last night. It was a wonderfully joyous night of encouragement as we together brought glory to God and exalted the wonderful name of Jesus. I had just been with this group just over a week ago at Woodstock. They sang and led the worship for the 3,500 (mostly preachers) who were present. What impressed me so very much last night was that they sang no differently for us than they did that rather large group at Woodstock. There is a definite anointing upon their ministry and a definite goal for their ministry. They sing under the anointing of the Holy Spirit for the glory of God. We will have them back.

I was particularly impressed at the way Mike invited the children into the time of praise. He did not ignore them and he did not expect them to be adults. He treated them as they are. They are children. We must be sure that we know that it is important that children know how to act appropriately in accordance with where they are. The sanctuary is not the playground and the Sunday School Classroom is not the sanctuary. They are different settings in which different behavior is called for. And our children did well. They were drawn in by the music and by the message and Mike did a great job in including them in the service.

Some times I fear for us when we want to make the church too child-friendly, but I fear even more when we want to make it a place that turns children away. There was a time in the church in this culture when the worship was so formal and stilted that the sanctuary felt more like a mortuary and those leading worship were more like corpses than Christians. The analogy is far more than illustrative; it is demonstrative of the state of too many churches from the past and in the present. Liberal theology is the breeding ground for these kinds of churches. They are dead. Because the life of the church comes from the Word of God activated by the Spirit of God. But when a church has a preacher in the pulpit and people in the pew who don’t believe the absolute truth of the Word of God, the Spirit of God is absolutely absent. The end result is a cold church led by corpses whose lips move but the language is empty. Lyrics are lifted but they have no life; sermons are spoken but they have so supply of the Spirit of God. Such a church needs either to die and be buried or brought to life by the Spirit of God. For such a church shares no affiliation at all with that for which Jesus gave His life.

A church that is alive is an active church. And I believe that one of the reasons Jesus loved noisy children so much was that their presence proclaimed the presence of life. I wonder sometimes about the children that grew up in formally cold and religiously dead churches. Where are they now? Are they in church or not? Do you know what I fear? I fear that there are some adults who are not in church because their experience in church when they were younger was not joyful and encouraging but depressing and discouraging. I am with Jesus: let the children come. Do not forbid them. Don’t throw our pitiful peculiarities in their path. For they represent the Kingdom of God.

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