I ran across an ABC News Report about Child Preachers. When I was 7 I was busy thinking about baseball and spelling tests, not what anecdote I was going to use to illustrate what Jesus meant in his Sermon on the Mount. I didn’t understand what it meant to follow Jesus — all I understood was that Jesus had a hard time sticking to that felt board.

This is a really interesting story though — is it possible that these kids are called by God to preach at such a young age? It seems impossible that a 7 year old has enough life experience to make sense of what it means to live a life like Jesus said. If it was me at age 7 preaching, I wouldn’t be able to do much more than sing “Jesus Loves Me” and probably give the same prayer we used to say at the dinner table. These kids have a lot of spunk, though.

And as ridiculous as it would seem to go to church every Sunday to hear a second-grader preach, this story hits on an interesting point. Obviously someone that young isn’t going to know everything about the Bible like someone who has been through seminary. But maybe there’s another part of being a pastor that is about engaging people to think about what the Bible has to say. Being a pastor isn’t always feeding people information about how to live their lives, but also to stir something within people.

Mike, I hope you’re getting Isaac ready to preach by age 7. And Kate too.