When I was called to be senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, I had no idea that rescuing children from imminent danger would be part of my job description. But that’s precisely what I have been doing every Sunday for the past 12 years.

Each Sunday morning, I have the privilege of standing before a captive congregation and delivering the truth of God’s word. As the closing hymn is sung and the final prayer offered, I quietly walk down the side aisle and make my way to the lobby, where my wife and I will greet all of the people as they depart.

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Many onlookers may think my job is done for the day — but they couldn’t be more wrong. What comes next is sometimes just as stressful as delivering the sermon. What is this all-important task? Rescuing unsuspecting children from the dreaded “stairway to hurt.”

When our church was remodeled in the late 1980s, the new layout of the church featured a “split foyer” entrance. This means that at the conclusion of Sunday services, each worshipper must descend a small staircase that drops nearly four feet before they exit through the front door. While this poses no threat to the average teenager or adult, it is a genuine danger to small children — children whose parents get distracted with happy Christian conversation, or children with parents just like me.

Fifteen years ago, my wife and I were in the church lobby one evening working on a bulletin board. We were enjoying each other’s company while our son, Reid (just a toddler at the time) rode around the lobby on a toy car from the nursery. As we were stapling pictures to the bulletin board, I turned in horror to see Reid headed straight for the stairs. As I tried to chase him, everything turned to slow motion, and I felt like an action star in a big-budget Hollywood film. With an outstretched arm, I lunged for the boy and tried to pull him back from the precipice.

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Too late. 

That evening, the crash was so spectacular one might have expected computer-generated flames and smoke to appear with the sound of crunching metal in the background. But as I arrived at the bottom, all I found was a terrified little boy with some ugly scrapes and bruises.

Ever since that evening, I have worked hard to keep other unsuspecting toddlers from taking their own painful trip down the dreaded “stairway to hurt.” I have spent many Sundays turning back dozens of wobbly, just-walking, or hyperactive toddlers before they plunged over the carpeted cliff. Most of them never realized what terrible agony they were heading toward, but I did. So, out of care and love, I reached out to turn them away from danger and back to safety. (go to page 2 to continue reading) [lz_pagination]