Through Childlike Eyes

Dear Capernaum Brothers and Sisters
In celebration of our recently published club talk handbook, I would like to share with you a club talk I gave last week. It was on the incarnation but I did it differently than any time I’ve done it before.

Our Del Mar/Branham High School club meets on Wednesdays and it is spectacular. Our Area Director, Shelley Smith, has done a first rate bang up job of pulling together about 30 kids and some wonderful leaders, and it is the club I volunteer in. As a matter of fact, it is the first YL Capernaum club that began on March 10, 1986 and 23 years later it is still going.

So it was my turn for the club talk last Wednesday, which I always count as an honor and privilege to speak to kids about Jesus. We meet in our beautiful Lighthouse Club Room every week. I began the talk by placing myself in our sound room behind kids so they couldn’t see me. Using a microphone, I addressed them as God. I told them I’ve seen them and heard their cries, questions and longings. I called out some of their names addressing in a “veiled” way some of the things I knew they were dealing with.
Manny, I know you are concerned about your friend in the hospital.
Carmella, I know you wonder if I exist
Stashu, I know you wish you could talk and people would take time to understand.

I did this with a few kids and then I said, “I want you to know I am coming to visit you.” Then I walked out of the sound room.

One of our leaders stood up, playing the role of John the Baptizer, and cried out loudly, “There He is! Jesus! He is God, wrapped in skin. It is Him.” The funny thing is that our leader Eric looks like how I would picture John the Baptizer. Then I went to every kid in club with a personal message for each.

One beautiful girl named Gracie has Down Syndrome. At the beginning of club we celebrated three kids’ birthdays. Her birthday was coming up in three weeks and she could not understand why we were not celebrating her birthday. She burst into inconsolable tears. So I came out and went to her and said, “Gracie, I am Jesus. I know your birthday. As a matter of fact, I picked the date of your birth and then I made you. I celebrate your birthday every year. I will not forget it. Your birthday will be celebrated here.”

I wish you could have seen Gracie’s face. Her eyes, they sparkled in holy sacred wonder. I realized in that moment, this was not a club talk. In that moment for Grace, I was Jesus. As a matter of fact, every kid responded this way. Some jumped up to hug me, but each and every one of them met Jesus in a life changing way that day, and so did I, because they were Jesus to me.

“Unless you become like little children, you will not inherit the Kingdom of God.” A child simply believes and responds with wonder. How often we make the Gospel complicated, or make Jesus complicated, or make our own relationship with Him complicated. I want to be like Gracie. Jesus must be who He says He is and He said these wonderful things to me and it must be true because Jesus said it. I love you Jesus!

Wow! What a way to live. I gave the club talk but my beautiful friends gave me Jesus. May we not be swayed from the simplicity of purity of devotion to Christ.
(2 Corinthians 11:3)

One of His children,
Nick