It seems like only a few weeks ago that I was announcing on Sunday that we needed to expand Terra Nova Kids again . . . Oh wait, it WAS just a few weeks ago that I announced that. Well, we are expanding again. Last time, it was in large part due to the perpetual baby factory that is Terra Nova. This time, it has more to do with space limitations and continued growth of the church. [we have grown by about 20% in 2007 so far].

Linda Womer [tn kids director] and I are always trying to keep up with this growth while trying to strategize for handling future growth. We had planned on leaving things alone until the fall, knowing that in the summer time, people go on vacation and the number of kids in the nursery’s and Quest would go down a bit. But we have seen more and more children in terra409 every week. This past Sunday there were 27 kids and 9 adults. I wish I could say that they were spread evenly between 3 classrooms, but that is just not the case. We are a young church with young families. So, we end up having more crawling and toddling kids and fewer walking, talking, interacting kids.

So, it’s time to shift the ages of the classes around a bit and come up with a new system. And this time, we could not wait two months, or even two weeks, we had to do it right now! And so, effective this Sunday, we are shifting the classes and nursery’s around to get a better teacher to child ratio. I think that this will be the last change to TN kids until this fall.

Whenever I think about the kid’s stuff at Terra Nova, I am struck by a few things::

[1] What a wonderful gift it is to have so many children among us. As the parents at TN grow in godliness, they will no doubt impact these kids in amazing ways.

[2] I am continually amazed at how many people jump in to help run these nurseries and classes on Sunday morning. [I believe the number is around 40 adults helping out over the course of a month]. I am convinced that the reason why God keeps entrusting us with more families with children is because we keep stepping forward to meet the needs.

[3] I find myself thanking God for Linda Womer on a weekly basis. Her dedication to and love for our children at TN is overwhelming and seemingly endless. Her ability to interact with parents and set a calm and professional tone is indispensable. Her ability to change on the fly and manage this constantly growing part of Terra Nova is inspiring. Because of people like Linda (and Chelsea Delecki before her), I have never had to worry about kid’s stuff at Terra Nova. If you have kids (or hope to have kids someday), make a point of thanking her this week for all that she does. God has truly blessed us with Linda Womer.