Every year during the month of May, which is observed as Child’s Month, we, as a church family, celebrate Children’s Sunday. On this day, we rededicate you to God, celebrate you as God’s precious gifts to us and invite you to use your talents in worshipping God. You and all children across the Diocese of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands are specially chosen to follow the example and teachings of Jesus Christ. At your baptism, you became a child of God, an inheritor of the Kingdom and a member of Christ’s Church.
As a child of God, each of you is a special individual, created for a reason – a divine purpose – and God has work for you to perform. As an inheritor of the Kingdom of God, each child is equal. No child is better than another, regardless of what each has. As a member of the church, you are a sister or brother to every other child. This is what you should remember most of all on this special day when we as a church celebrate you.
I invite you to pay attention to your theme for this year: “Following Jesus: From the Cross, through the Church to the world.” I know it is not easy for you as children and youth to talk about your belief in Jesus. Some of your friends might not want to hear, or may not believe in Jesus. As children of God, Jesus sees great potential in each of you. That is why he asks you to follow him, by paying attention to his example of loving and serving others.
Let us follow him and tell others that he died for us on the cross; that he invites us to be a special people in the church; and that the rest of the world should come to love him and serve him.
God bless you all this Child’s Month and always.
Yours in Christ,
+Rt. Rev. Howard Gregory
Bishop of Jamaica & the Cayman Islands
