Dick Gruber, D.Min.
Phoenixville, PA / University of Valley Forge
Dr. Gruber is an ordained Assemblies of God children’s minister. Since 1975, Dick has served as a husband, then daddy, volunteer, paid pastor, camp speaker, and children’s ministry specialist. He is currently the Professor of Children and Family Studies at University of Valley Forge in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. He has authored three children’s ministries books: Children’s Church: Turning Your Circus into a Service, Cultivating a Cutting-Edge Children’s Church, and Focus on Children. He is the creator of Sam Saint Super Sleuth and other costume characters.
Over two hundred of Dick’s articles have appeared in children’s ministries publications worldwide. Dr. Gruber has an intense burden for winning boys and girls to Jesus that is tempered by a practical humorous approach to this ministry. He and his wife, Darlene, have ministered to children and children’s workers in conferences, camps, and seminars across America and on four continents. Dr. Gruber has recently been chosen as one of Group Publishing’s Top Twenty most influential and impacting voices in children’s ministries today.
It’s kids’ camp time again. I’d like to address the importance of preparing your kids to go to and enjoy the camp experience. I spoke in Wisconsin camp a few years back. When kids entered the campground, they could read a huge banner strung up above the chapel doorway. The banner read, “Welcome to the Best Week of Your Life.” I wish that were true for all kids attending AG camps this summer. For some, the inability to cope with the culture of Pentecost presented at camp can result in a less-than-stellar memory.
God has perfected praise in the hearts of children. A child will just as naturally shout, “Praise God,” as he will, “Look there’s a butterfly.” So what is it that deters children from worshiping God in our children’s churches? Let's examine four factors contributing to the struggle to get kids to worship: parenting models, volunteer involvement, worldly distractions, and lack of planning.
Remember when giving an invitation that, whether two or twenty children respond, it is God bringing them down, not you. You cannot save anybody. Salvation is a work of the Holy Spirit. Be faithful in presenting the gospel, then let children come as the Spirit draws them in.
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