The Impact of Just One
I am going to take this verse out of context and even more so, I am going to write down just the first eleven words from Isaiah 8:18.
“Here am I, and the children the LORD has given me.”
Although not Isaiah, every single person who ministers to children should utter this prayer…”Here am I, and the children the Lord has given me.” And then continue with, “Give me wisdom to reach them, patience to keep them, and truth to guide them.”
I wonder if Edward Kimball ever uttered those words. Ever heard of him? He was a Sunday School teacher in Boston. His class was full of rowdy teenage boys. It was said that he had been challenged to visit every boy he taught outside of his Sunday School class. One day he visited a shoe store where one of his boys worked. In the stockroom where he was stocking shelves, Edward confronted the boy with the Gospel story once again and on that Saturday evening, Dwight L. Moody received Jesus Christ as his Savior. Edward definitely was serious with his responsibility as a teacher and the children the Lord had given him.
Moody became an evangelist that touched two continents for God, with thousands being reached with the Gospel through his ministry. But the story doesn’t end there. Under Moody’s preaching, a pastor named Frederick B. Meyer was profoundly changed by Moody’s preaching and began a nation-wide preaching ministry himself. A college student was listening one day to one of Meyer’s sermons and J. Wilbur Chapman decided to became a pastor and soon he started holding evangelistic meetings. A professional baseball player had a day off and went to one of Chapman’s meetings where he accepted Christ. That young man grew up here in Iowa—his name was Billy Sunday. Billy Sunday began to assist Mr. Chapman in his meetings, and when Chapman accepted the pastorate of a large church, Billy Sunday began his own evangelistic meetings, reaching thousands and thousands with the Gospel in the early 20th century. The story continues.
One of Billy Sunday’s crusades took him to North Carolina where a group of businessmen wanted to reach even more people so they asked another evangelist named Mordecai Ham to come and continue the evangelistic meetings. During one of his sermons, a 16 year-old boy named Billy Frank accepted Jesus as his Savior. Billy Frank, who eventually became known as Billy Graham, has been said to have preached to more people in the world than any other person, including the Apostle Paul.
We’ll stop the trail there, but I’m sure we could continue down hundreds of trails to hear other remarkable conversions and the results of their sharing the Gospel and reaching into the lives of still others.
But it all started with one—one lone Sunday School teacher who decided to go past the walls of his Sunday School classroom and develop a relationship with his students. That relationship led to thousands who heard the gospel message and accepted Christ.
If you are like many who are reading this article, you may be in that position of having a handful of children in your spiritual care. It might be of a Sunday School teacher, an Awana leader, a Children’s Church teacher, a VBS small group leader, or even a parent with your own kids. You might be tempted to say “What’s the use? They never are listening. What can I do? I should just quit. This is not making any difference.”
My friend, what we should be saying is repeating Isaiah’s words, “Here am I, and the children the Lord has given me.” You may never know the impact your Bible lesson, your prayers, your simple question to a student might have. I’m sure Mr. Kimball had no idea the thousands, the millions, of people who heard the Gospel because he cared enough to reach out of the classroom into the life of one particular student.
“Here am I, and the children the Lord has given me.”
Shari Coelho
Children’s Ministry Director