“My kids.”
I was sitting in a Children’s Ministry Leadership Team meeting last week when I overheard one of the volunteers use that phrase about some of the kids she works with as part of a Madison program.
“My kids.” We often hear that phrase from parents talking about their own children, those they are raising in their own homes and families. They use the possessive pronoun. Not because they own their kids in the same way that they might a car or sofa or rake. They use it because they are biologically related to their kids or because they’ve adopted them into their families. They use it because they’ve poured time and teaching and care and love and truth into their kids. Parents make an investment of sorts, but not one in a practical sense. They make it not in the hope that their kids will reach some point of payoff, but instead with the hope that they will develop well into people and Christians who live out that wellness for the entirety of their lives.
But this woman wasn’t the parent of the kids she referred to, and she wasn’t using “my” in the same sense that a parent would. In fact, she was using it in a wholly different sense, which got me thinking.
That one word, “my,” speaks loads to me. In the context of that meeting it meant community, care, respect, dedication, love. It meant family in Christ. As I’ve gotten more and more involved with Children’s Ministry here at Madison, I’ve seen traditional familial lines blur, and that’s exciting.
A few years ago, I overheard a conversation in the church I grew up in. A older man was talking to my father in the fellowship hall over cups of murky coffee. The older gentlemen was recounting a story from a few years before. He was telling my dad how one day he had been standing in almost the same spot, likely sipping the same murky coffee, when a young child ran into the fellowship hall and began acting quite wildly. The older gentleman, gently grabbed hold of the child and firmly, but kindly told him to behave himself, and the child listened. The older gentleman’s reason for doing this? When the child had been baptized, this man had, with the rest of the congregation, made a promise to help raise the child.
He was just being truthful to his words.
That’s the kind of family that we have in Christ. People who admonish, care for, and love each other, simply because they’re part of the same worship community. People who use possessive pronouns and relational terms to refer to each other. “My brother.” “My sister.” “My Father.” “My friend.” “My kids.”
Two weeks ago Madison’s Youth Leadership Academy wrapped up its inaugural year. It went out with a visit to Sundaes in the Heights and a trip to the Holwerda family’s pool. And, culminating in that hot Tuesday afternoon, was the end of a summer of learning about the meaning behind the word “my.” After a summer of practicing it together, I don’t think that the kids involved will quickly forget it.
-Brandon Haan
P.S. Pray.
