Interview with Jan Workman Response (Luke Stoltzfoos)

Jan Workman is a great, fantastic woman of God, very close to my heart because she's one of the people who raised me to be who I am now. She works with children on a level that I have never even seen before, and I personally know it to be effective. The greatest thing that I heard her say, I think, is that you need to treat kids like they aren't kids. We should be taking their individual talents and plugging them right in to ministry, and that's how she runs her bigger events for kids ministry. She took the kids who were extremely outgoing and had a kid's meet and greet team, there was also a drama team of children all under the age of ten. She took the kids who don't have specific talents to speak of, and makes them clowns or stage crew. All the raw talent she has for this was unexpected to her though, seeing as she didn't want to be a children's pastor, and didn't feel called to the field at all. She filled the need that our church had, though, and now she's thriving in this field of ministry, and I believe she enjoys it. The belief Jan has is that we dictate to much to kids, when we should be letting them decide, and pulling it out of them, we want them to learn how be thinkers, not mind-rotting TV starers. First thing's first, you need kids to have the ministry, so how can you outreach? Jan knows that outreach can be cheap, such as getting balloons and face paints. She's powered through everything to do what she's done. Not marital issues, sexism, nor spiritual battle have stopped this power from god surging through her. Jan workman is an amazing woman who, if possible, I would love to have back at our church working with kids like she does.