Whenever we are presented with a topic we approach it with preconceived ideas about what we think that topic is all about. It is no different when we talk about Children’s Ministry. When you hear the words “Children’s Ministry” what thoughts come to mind? – Fun and Games, teaching God’s Word, serving, at church, on a Sunday, children believing, keeping children occupied, children praying? You may even automatically insert the words “Sunday School”. In this post I would like to challenge the way we view Children’s Ministry.
Now if you were given a list of all the different teaching ministers within the church, from preaching to leading a Home Group Bible study, in which order would you place them from the greatest to the least? Where would Children’s Ministry rank on your list? Would it be near the top of the list or would it be somewhere near the bottom? This task should have made you feel a bit uncomfortable. Not because of the order with which you chose to place all the different ministries. But rather because you felt that it was wrong to rank them in any order. For, in fact, all ministries are equal in God’s eyes.
Unfortunately, all too often Children’s Ministry is not seen as being as important as all the other teaching ministries. People don’t always say it directly, but it is how they act. After all, actions speak louder than words. It is often viewed as a place to send the children to keep them busy while the “real” ministry is taking place in the sanctuary. – It doesn’t really matter what they do as long as the children are quiet. So make it fun and teach some sort of lesson, like obey your parents, then it’s all good.Or is it?
I know I said earlier that all ministries are equal, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that I thought that Children’s Ministry was actually the most important ministry and I will show you why.
In America a few years ago a survey was done to find out at what age people were being saved. And these were the results…
0-4 years – 1%
5 – 14 years – 85%
15-30 years – 10%
Over 30 years – 4%
Did you notice which age group was the most? The largest group of people being saved was between the ages 5 – 14 years.
So most people are believing in Jesus before they listen to, or hear, their first “real” sermon.
Children’s Ministry should not be about occupying the children, while the “real” ministry is happening. Rather it should be about teaching children about Jesus so they can be saved. Jesus even taught that we need to receive faith like little children (Matthew 18:3; Mark 10:14; Luke 18:17). So there is something special about the way a child believes. Do we truly believe this? Or are we falling into the trap of just keeping the children occupied?
Now that we have established that it is important, let’s have a look at the “when and where” of Children’s Ministry. Most of the time it is seen as something that happens at church on a Sunday done by a group of leaders.
“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”(Proverbs 22:6)
Many of us have heard this verse before, but do we take this call seriously? You could argue that your church takes this call seriously because they have a Children’s Church program. But who is this verse written to? Is it written to the church? No. It is written to parents, not the church. There are many verses within the Bible that give similar commands and a few of them are given directly to parents (Gen 18:19, Ephesians 6:4). In the book of Proverbs there are ten paternal appeals that are made. Although these verses do not command parents to teach God’s Word to their children, it is implied that parents are the ones who have, in fact, taught their own children. (Proverbs 1:8-19, 2:1-22, 3:1-12, 3:21-35, 4:1-9, 4:10-19, 4:20-27, 5:1-23, 6:1-19, 6:20-35, 7:1-27) There are also a number of verses that instruct the church congregation, along with the parents, to teach children. (Deut 4:9-10, Deut 6:4-9, Deut 6:20-25, Deut 11:18-21, Deut 32:46, Psalm 78:1-8)
So like I said earlier Children’s Ministry is mostly seen as something that happens at church on a Sunday done by a group of leaders, but as we can see from these few verses it is meant to be something so much more than that. It shouldn’t only happen at church on a Sunday done by a group of leaders. Where and when should it be happening? At home by the parents – all the time.
We have, however, become a culture where we send our children off to different lessons to learn different skills – Swimming lessons to learn how to swim. Reading lessons to learn how to read. Maths lessons to learn how to do Maths. Music lessons to learn about music.
???Jesus lessons to learn about Jesus???
Unfortunately, we have fallen into this trap, even in our own lives. We often leave our own Spiritual walk in the hands of our Pastors. Instead of taking on the responsibility for ourselves. This is wrong and we need to change the way we think about our own Spiritual walk and change the way we think about Children’s Ministry.
I am a qualified Children’s Worker and I fully believe that Children’s Ministry is a very important ministry. But I think we have given it the wrong emphasis. We have focused all our attention on training up the children who already come from Christian homes. This is the parents job, not ours. (This is my job, as a parent! It is my job, and my husband’s job, to train up our daughters in the way they should go, even when they are old they will not depart from it. It is not the Children’s Worker at my local church’s job. It is mine. Mine and my husbands.
If you are a parent, reading this post, you may be upset because you think: “Who is she to tell me that I’m not doing my job as a parent? I work hard. I’m tired. I am doing my best. How does she expect me to do this as well?” I’m not wanting to point fingers at any of the parents here. My intention is to encourage you to do the job that God is calling you to do. He is calling you, and me, to step up and to train our children. (That being said, as a Children’s Worker I feel that it is part of my job to equip you to do the job that God has called you to. So in one of my future posts I would like to give you some practical guidelines on how to do family devotions.)
If you are reading this post and you are a children’s leader then I have probably upset you as well because you think that maybe I’m saying that your job is not important. “If the parents are meant to be training their own children, where does that leave me?”
I do, however, believe that all Children’s leaders have a vital role to play. It is your job to reinforce what is already being taught at home to those children who already believe. It is your job to train up children who come from non-Christian homes. It is your job to equip parents to do their job at home.
I don’t want to leave you with the impression that Children’s Ministry is a kind of one or the other sort of thing. These two ideas should not be opposed to each other. Instead we should see it as a partnership between the parents and the leaders/congregation.
At this point you may be tempted to think that I don’t think there is a need for Children’s Church, so before we move on I would like to highlight some of the reasons why it is still so important to have a Children’s Church Program.
First, it is important for Spiritual Growth – Believe it or not there are 4 groups of people who grow Spiritually when we do Children’s Ministry.
1) Children themselves – It is important for us on a Sunday to teach the Children in a separate program so that we can reach them where they are at. Same as we would send children to school as opposed to university. Here, we need to be teaching them God’s Word and how to apply it to their lives and also teaching them how to pray and serve others.
2) You, the leaders – You will need to prepare the lesson that you are going to teach. When you prepare any passage you will learn and grow yourself. You will find that as you serve others you will also grow in your Spiritual walk.
3) The Parents – The Children’s parents will have the opportunity to sit in the church service and be taught by the pastor themselves.
4) The rest of the congregation – If the children were sitting in the service, some of them would no doubt become bored and then start to misbehave and therefore distract others from hearing God’s Word being taught.
The second reason why it is important is for encouragement – Hebrew 10:24-25 says, “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Now you could argue that this verse is not talking specifically about Children’s Ministry and you would be right. It isn’t. But if we, as the congregation, are called to not give up meeting together does that not include children? They are also called to not give up meeting together so that they can spur one another on to love and good deeds and encourage one another.
The third reason why it is important is because it is part of the Great Commission. – Matthew 28:19-20 “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” We are called to tell everyone the good news about Jesus, that includes children. You may want to remind me that it is the parents job to tell their own children about Jesus and you would be right. But what about the children who come from non-believing homes? When they come to Children’s Church we need to be ready to tell them the good news.
Having said that, some Christian parents, unfortunately, are not doing the job that God has called them to do. Whether that be because they don’t know how to or because they don’t know that they are meant to, whatever the reason may be, we as the church are called to fill in those gaps and teach the children regardless.
There is one last thing that I would like to address before I conclude. I’m not sure if you noticed, but I only really focused on one, possibly two, aspects of Children’s Ministry. There are so many more ways in which the church can reach out and fulfill the Great Commission. The church doesn’t only have to wait for children to come to church on a Sunday morning. We should be running Holiday Clubs and camps. We should be running Friday night Programs and going into our local schools. Like almost every other ministry there are many different ways to be able to teach children about Jesus. So we need to be creatively exploring ways to do this better.
In this post I have challenged the way we view Children’s Ministry. It should not be viewed as a place to send the children to keep them busy while the “real” ministry is taking place. Rather it should be about teaching children about Jesus so they can be saved. It should be seen as something so much more than just what happens at church on a Sunday. It should be something that happens all the time. It should be a partnership between the parents and the leaders/congregation. Parents need to step up and train their own children while leaders still have a vital role to play.
Thanks for reading my post. I hope you found it helpful. Please send me any feedback, comments or questions that you may have. I would also like to hear if there are any topics that you would like me to deal with in the future. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Bye for now.
“May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6 that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 15:5-6)
