there is no junior holy spirit: what happens when a 9 year old expects God to move.
Let me tell you a story from our Kids Camp?
You may have seen my post on Instagram about what I was expecting at our kids camp this year. Every June we take our 1st-6th graders to camp... you know that cliche camp from the 90s where the brown cabins are filled with bunk beds, the primary colored blob sits in the lake waiting for kids to jump, and the lunch room's volume could rival a jet plane. It's my absolute favorite week of the year, my absolute favorite event we get to do and I truly believe it's the closest thing to heaven on earth!
Every single year our kids team and staff step into camp with massive expectations for what God will do. Every single year in the months leading to camp, we set timers on our phones to pray at a specific time of day because we want to see God move in deep ways and because we know He can!
But what I love is that kids also come expectant. Of course they come ready to jump in the lake, ride the water slide, play messy games and have the best week of their life with their friends... but they also come expectant because THEY know God can move too!
A few weeks prior to camp we asked the kids to start thinking about what they wanted to see God do for them over those 4 days. It's one thing to be expectant for the kids, but it's another to remind them that God wants to move, and to challenge them to begin praying into what God wants to show them, what He would teach them, and also how they'd encounter Him!
Me: What are you expecting? What are you praying for?
9-Year-Old: That God would take away my headaches and my gluten allergy
For months, and maybe years, this 9 year old would find herself completely taken out by a migraine headache. She'd feel it coming on quickly and would find the pain so intense she'd need to take medicine and go to sleep. It'd happen quickly and abruptly and she began to notice that it was not only when she ate gluten, but likely when she was cross contaminated with gluten as well.
Her dad had a celiac diagnosis, and they quickly realized that gluten was the likely cause of her pain as well. So she began avoiding gluten at all cost, anxiously asking at every meal if something had gluten in it. I watched her ask her parents, as if they’d forgotten in the last 12 minutes that she was in fact gluten free. She knew what it felt like… terrible. And she knew she didn’t want to feel it again.
So we loaded up to camp on a Monday morning, this 9 year old with her gluten free lunch packed for the bus. She’d get her gluten free bun from the cafeteria to replace the regular hamburger bun we all had.
And then one night at camp someone prayed for her. We’d asked the kids and adults alike if anyone needed healing in their body and we meant it. She went up for prayer and a leader began to pray for her headaches and gluten allergy to leave.
And that was that. On the way home from camp, she remembered that moment of prayer as her family stopped for a well earned soda and some french fries. Except, they went to a place they knew had a shared fryer, making them contaminated with gluten, something that would have set off a migraine before.
“Mom I think I’m healed. I want to try them.”
And with a little convincing, that she did. No headache came, no reaction happened. So as only childlike faith could do, she went 0-60 on that gluten train. A full gluten dinner followed by a donut the next morning. No reaction. No headache. No consequences.
“Can we go to Costco? I want to try ALL the samples.”
“I need McDonalds now. I can eat gluten you know?”
The list kept growing… and the joke was that it had turned from a gluten problem to glutton problem.
But the reality was that she’d entered camp with the expectation that God would move in her life, and He did.
And then I went into her room once we were back, once the story was told. And there was a picture on her wall she had drawn. “I want God to heal me from my gluten allergy and my headaches.”
I asked her if she’d written that before or after camp.
“Before.. then He did it.”
This is what I mean when I say there's no junior Holy Spirit. Kids don't need a watered-down version of what adults get, they just need leaders to create space and pray. If you want practical ways to build that kind of expectancy into your ministry, grab my free No Junior Holy Spirit Blueprint. And if you're wondering how you get volunteers who'll actually stop and pray in a moment like that — that's exactly what theVolunteer Buy-In Blueprint is for.
One day soon I’ll tell you about the Sunday after camp, how God moves in kids lives and then uses that faith to move in more lives… so make sure you’re following along to get the next part of the story and a few tips for how to steward these moments in your life and ministry too.