Gather the Children to Play
April 1, 2002
We were wrapping up Vacation Bible School with family night. That year, 1981, our pastor Jim Cymbala had invited the parents to come on Sunday night. Nicky Cruz, a former gang leader, was sharing his testimony, and we took the children, about 200 of them, next door to the Upper Room. As we watched a Christian movie, I felt in my spirit that the Lord wanted the children to pray. I didn't know that the next 30 minutes would change our work dramatically, from ministry for children, to ministry by children. Pastor Cymbala had called the Brooklyn Tabernacle to be a praying church when he became pastor ten years earlier. "Nothing happens without prayer," he told us often. So we prayed, faithfully, fervently, every Tuesday night, and what has happened because of God's answers to prayer is astonishing. But our children's ministry was still mostly one of Bible stories and songs and games. Until that VBS. I asked the children whether any of them wanted to come and pray in another room. A dozen said yes. Without any prompting they knelt, and for the next half-hour they prayed spontaneously for their families who were in the service downstairs. It was amazing. When it was over, I remember God speaking in my heart, "Gather the children to pray." After several weeks searching for workers to lead a children's prayer meeting, I complained to the Lord. And he repeated what I had heard earlier: "Gather the children to pray." He was speaking to me. So the Tuesday night children's prayer meeting began and has continued, uninterrupted for more than 20 years. Almost immediately we had more children than space for them. Today we have capped attendance at 70, and there's a line outside the door every week as they try to sign in before all the places ...
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