By Sam Eyoboka and Olayinka Latona
WITH pomp and pageantry Nigerian children, in very colourful attires, trooped out last Sunday to various churches and other fun places where they joyfully showcased their potentials under the watchful eyes of parents or guardians as they joined their counterparts the world over to mark this year’s Children’s Day.

They displayed their skills at the different concerts and carnivals as they children ate, drank and danced to melodious music either in their churches or the different concert spots across the country.

At the St. Joseph’s Chosen Church of God, Osapa London, Lekki in Lagos, the Chosen Children Ministry org-anised a musical concert tagged “Catch Them Young” in commemora-tion of the day and it was aimed at bringing out the hidden talents in children.

As expected, the children captivated their audience with various music forms including classical, local songs accompanied with local and classical instrum

*Oritsejafor

ents. The children did an orchestral presentat-ion titled I surrender all, I am thine oh Lord amongst others.

Beyond the fun fare of the Children’s Day celebrations, Nigerian parents both in the rural and urban centres, were urged to take particular attention of the nutrition of their children, just as they were enjoined to closely monitor their activities against the growing rate of cultism and other social vices in Nigeria.

Stating the importan-ce of nutrition in the lives of young lads, the National President of CAN, Pastor Ayo Oritse-jafor, Spiritual Leader of St. Joseph’s Chosen Church of God, SJCCG, Apostle Hayford Alile and the pastor in charge of the Redeemed Christ-ian Church of God, RCCG, Glory Chapel in Abule Egba, Lagos, Pastor Ladi Akinsanya opined that every child is a product of what they eat.

Preaching a sermon titled, Family Altar, in his church, Word of Life Bible Church, Warri, De-lta State, Pastor Oritsej-afor stressed the need for parents to place val-ue on their children be-cause every child is born to solve a problem. He enjoined parents not to neglect their young ones; “don’t kill their talents,” even as he advised them to set up a family altar.

As parents, he said, “we must try as much as possible to actualise the children’s potentials”, noting that the child’s spiritual destiny begins in Heaven; while his/her physical destiny begins with the spouse we marry and how we jointly raise the child in the fear and nurture of our Maker.

To the children, he also had a word of adm-onition, saying they must listen to their par-ents and respect them; not forgetting to stress that the father is the physical head of the family.

Speaking at the Child-ren’s Day service, the Spiritual Leader of SJCCG, Apostle Hay-ford Alile charged pa-rents not to hide their children’s talents but, rather encourage them to develop their God-given potentials.

Speaking through Apostle Emmanuel Nmalagu, the spiritual leader said gone are the days when parents tied down their children’s talents; charging minist-ers of God to encourage the leaders of tomorrow to nurture their talents.

His words: “In the old-en days our gifts were tied down but now those gifts are being stirred up. I was pleasantly shocked to see these children displaying different kinds of gifts and talents. Our child-ren have diverse talents embedded in them by God”.

Similarly, the national coordinator of the Chosen Children Ministry, Mrs. Star Abache told our reporter that the objective of the programme was to sea-rch and discover the hidden gifts and talents in the children at early age with a view to dev-eloping such gifts for the benefit of the entire country.

She therefore urged parents, guardians and stakeholders to invest in their children’s develop-ment and help to impro-ve their in-built talents; noting that Nigerian children will not be lured into evil practices or illi-cit habits if they are rightfully engaged in doing the right things.

Drawing inspiration from various biblical passages, Pastor Akins-anya enjoined parents to give their children close marking and monitor whatever they do or who they associate with. That way, he said, the young minds will imbibe godly principles and will not go astray.

According to him, in these days of negative spiritual influences pa-rents must spend quality time with their children and bring them up as friends, praying with them, giving them opp-ortunities to express themselves in their usual innocence while the duty of the parents is to correct them in love.

The RCCG pastor advi-sed parents not to spare the rode in the onerous task of bringing up the child in the way of the Lord, adding “some tim-es there is the need to apply the rode. Parents must desist from threat-ening teachers who help to shape our children by applying the whip.”