THE 2014 INTERNATIONAL KIDS CONFERENCE (IKC) drew
more than 300 children, parents and grandparents from 15
states to the Jimmy Swaggart Ministries complex on June 4-7.
There, gradeschoolers enjoyed many outdoor activities including
a dunk tank, rock wall climb, and a petting zoo, as well as
two church services each day of the three-day conference. The
annual event is orchestrated by JSM Children’s Pastor Mike
Muzzerall and his wife, Ana, and made possible by the tireless
efforts of JSM staff members and volunteers.
The following is taken from an interview which was publish in The Evangelist ( August 2014 ).
The Evangelist: Pastor Mike, what makes IKC different from any
other vacation Bible school or summer camp?
Pastor Mike: The Holy Spirit. There’s no sense having a sermon,
there’s no sense ministering if you don’t allow a person an
opportunity to get closer to the Lord. We’re not there to entertain
the kids, and we’re not there just to give them a good time
in the service. I want them to have a one-on-one with Jesus,
and the way we do that is we open up the altars. The kids will
find a place to kneel down, or stand there and lift up their
hands and talk to Jesus and we’ll pray with them. And, if the
Holy Spirit leads, we’ll pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
We had kids stay at the altar after a service ended—asking
for a touch from the Lord, praying for family members, or just
telling Jesus they love Him.
“You’ve never experienced anything like the
power and the moving of the Holy Spirit until
you’ve experienced children worshipping.”
- Wendy Sellers | IKC Volunteer
The Evangelist: Were children saved and filled with the Holy
Spirit during IKC?
Pastor Mike: That very first service — a joint service with Pastor
Gabe and me — as soon as we went to do the altar call, I asked
for a show of hands of those who wanted to accept Christ and
hands went up all across the room. Some of them literally ran
to the altar. That set the stage for all of the services. It just
seemed, at this camp, that there were so many kids baptized
in the Holy Spirit. Literally, at one point, I said, “Now put your
hand up if you’ve been filled with the Holy Spirit for the first
time, or received a new infilling,” and after I got past a hundred,
I had to stop counting and go on with the service.
The Evangelist: What did you want the kids to take away from IKC?
Pastor Mike: We don’t preach baby sermons. We preach the
same message you would hear in the big services: we’re going
to preach on the Message of the Cross; we’re going to preach
on redemption; we’re going preach on sanctification. We honestly
don’t know the lifestyle some of these kids have. Some
I’ll never see again and I know that, so I’ve got to make sure
that we give them what they need, and I believe we’ve done
that. What we try to instill in the kids, and I think the Holy Spirit
did it in this camp just like He did in all the other camps, was
this: Jesus is there every day for you and, no matter what your
situation is, you’ve got to turn to Jesus.
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