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Children’s Ministry 101: Lesson 1 – Begin with Parents

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Dr. John C. Kwasny

November 11, 2015

 

This article was originally published by Dr. Kwasny on his blog at One Story Ministries. It can be found here.

So, you’ve been called to lead your church’s children’s ministry.  Congratulations!  You are entering into the vital work of telling “the next generation the glorious deeds of our LORD (Psalm 78:4).”  What a privilege you have to direct a ministry which points children to Jesus.  But where to begin?  Maybe you have inherited a ministry that has a well-established vision, philosophy, and programming.  Or maybe you are building from the ground up.  Whatever the case (and even if you have been doing this for a long time), it’s essential to build a ministry to children on a Biblical foundation.  So let’s get started.

In a sense, children’s ministry is a “population ministry”–the church ministering to the age group we call “children.”  So, we begin by figuring out what children (our target population) need, and then give it to them, right?  In a way, yes.  The church has a responsibility to evangelize and educate children, just like it does with youth and adults.  But a better way to think about it is that children’s ministry in the local church begins with parents.  Children have been given to their parents by God, with the command for parents to “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).  Since parents have theprimary responsibility for their own children, what is the role of the church?  A careful look at Scripture will demonstrate that a church’s children’s ministry is called to the dual purpose of:

  • Leading parents in their task of raising their children.
  • Assisting parents in their task of raising their children.

So, how do we LEAD parents in their task of raising their children?  That’s an essential first question that should drive your planning. But before we answer that, consider how this question connects children’s ministry with your church’s adult education/discipleship ministry.  The strength (or weakness) of the education and discipleship of your adults directly impacts the children’s ministry!  When adults are growing in Christ and living out God’s Word, then they will be equipped to teach and train the next generation.  But if your adults are languishing, immature, or absent, the children will be impacted negatively as well.  So now let’s begin to answer the question: How do we LEAD parents in their work of training their children in the LORD?  Here are just a few ideas to get you started:

  • Encourage commitment to your adult discipleship/education ministry, including learning from the pulpit ministry, adult Sunday School, small groups, etc.
  • Offer Biblical parenting counseling to deal with individual parenting issues.
  • Offer periodic marriage and parenting studies, conferences, and retreats.
  • Choose children’s curricula that also offers parents the tools to teach their children the Bible at home.
  • Regularly advertise resources/books/blogs that can help parents raise/teach their children.

Then, the children’s ministry is also called to ASSIST parents in the task of raising their children in the discipline and instruction of the LORD.  As members of the local church, parents are not alone in this vital work, since children are members of the covenant community.  It takes a church to raise its covenant children!  So, what are things that children’s ministry can do to come alongside parents as they raise their children?  Just a few more ideas:

  • Develop a safe, secure, and loving nursery ministry to care for and disciple the littlest lambs while parents are being educated, trained and discipled.
  • Raise up committed “covenant parents” who will teach Sunday School, discipleship groups, catechism, children’s choirs, etc.
  • Choose children’s curricula that teaches all of God’s Word–whether or not parents are teaching their children at home.
  • Never just offer “childcare” while parents are being taught/trained/equipped.  Use these opportunities to evangelize and educate their children!
  • Provide opportunities for children to serve IN the congregation and WITH the congregation.
  • Provide opportunities for children to establish covenant relationships with one another.
  • Assist parents in training their children to be worshipers of God in the context of congregational worship.

Here’s a way to sum up our starting point (especially if you are a Presbyterian): Children’s ministry is driven by our covenant baptismal vows.  For those of us who baptize our covenant children, there’s typically a point in the sacrament where the pastor asks the congregation if they will commit to assisting these parents in the training and nurture of their children.  Of course (since the child is so cute), the entire congregation enthusiastically says YES!  Children’s ministry is the natural and Biblical outgrowth of this commitment. Children’s ministry exists to both LEAD and ASSIST parents in the education and discipline of their children.

The Fall, the Family, and the Covenant Community

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DANNY MITCHELL

October 21, 2015

 

The methodology of any church’s ministry to adolescents should grow out of a marriage between biblical theology and ministry context.  If we understand ministry to youth in its simplest form—believing adults from inside and outside the nuclear family who invest of themselves in children and youth— then we can begin to see how discipling the next generation works itself out within the Covenant community.    I am of the opinion that after worshipping God, the raising and discipling of rising generations and the passing on of the faith to that generation could be viewed as God’s covenant people’s primary responsibility.

If that last sentence is anywhere close to being correct, then on some level, every church should regularly evaluate whether ministries to the rising generations are enough of a priority within their body.  However, debating that issue is not the purpose of this article.  Instead, I want to focus on the role that the Covenant community plays in helping parents with the raising and discipling of their children in a fallen world.

The cultural mandate in Genesis 1:28 set a familial trajectory for our first parents.  They were to be fruitful and multiply, not just for the sake of having children, but for the stated purpose of filling the earth and subduing it.  Implicit in this mandate is the responsibility of raising their children to be able to fulfill these responsibilities as well.  The children to come would need examples, lessons, love, and discipline for this great task.

The Fall didn’t take away Adam and Eve’s parental responsibility.  Scripture bears this out in several places ( Psa. 78, Deut. 6), at the same time showing that the design God had for familial relationships was marred by sin.  The epicenter, ground zero, for sin’s disastrous entrance into the world was the family. Sin focused on the family after the Fall when Cain killed Abel. After the flood only one family inhabited the earth but sin tore it apart (Gen. 9:18-28). Leading up to the formation of God’s covenant people in Genesis 12, the family clearly needs help.

Let me state the obvious: The family still needs help today, and if the Lord waits another century or two until his return, then the family will continue to need that help.  As long as parents with a sinful nature continue having children, born with a sinful nature into a sinful world, parents will struggle with the responsibility of raising and discipling their children.  Even though, in Christ, our sins are forgiven, and even though the Holy Spirit enables us to die to sin daily, we continue to need help raising our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

This is one of the reasons that the Lord formed his covenant people.  The family doesn’t exist in isolation but as part of a larger family.  Together, that larger family surrounds the parents and their children so that the covenant community participates in the raising and discipling of the children within that larger family.   When this happens, parents, children and the covenant community begin experiencing one of the covenant blessings of being part of God’s people.

This perspective of youth ministry moves the question of models and methods from a primary question to a secondary question.  As long as families within the local body are not trying to raise and disciple their children in isolation, as long as the covenant community isn’t trying to isolate youth ministry from the body, as long as adults in the congregation invest in the lives of adolescents, and as long as pastors and elders view this call to disciple the rising generations as a primary responsibility of the Church, then youth ministry can move from a programmatic ministry of the Church to a ministry that emphasizes multigenerational relationships with the covenant family.  In this way, programs will exist to serve these relationships, instead of programs existing because of the lack of relationships between the adult members of the body, and the rising generations.

Because I have been in youth ministry for two and half decades, I know that paragraph oozes with “Pollyanna”-thinking about the church and its ministry to youth.  It saddens me that that is the case.  Perhaps moving from questions about proof texts for youth ministry, to developing an understanding of the theology of next-generation ministry (within the context of covenant theology) would help the Church see these ideas not as “pie in the sky” thinking, but as biblically informed ideas for the church.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to go plan games for youth group while the adults have Bible study in the fellowship hall.  I wonder if blindfolded kickball is a good idea?

 

Gospel-Driven Hospitality

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PATRICIA CURTISS

September 29, 2015

 

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Heb 12:1-3, NAS)

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; (1 Peter 3:18-19, NAS)

Hebrews 12 talks about how we are to run our race and about how Jesus ran his. He endured the cross and its shame for the joy set before Him. What was that joy? It wasn’t sitting down at the right hand of the throne of God. The joy set before Jesus was us! He came for us. He died for us. He wants to spend eternity with us. Where does that leave us? Redeemed. This is the gospel and the gospel drives everything, even hospitality.

The biblical view of hospitality is housed in cultures very different from ours. Biblical hospitality has to do with inviting strangers in. Abraham invited strangers into his house (Genesis 18:1-15); the Shunammite woman invited the stranger Elisha into her home (2 Kings 4:8-10); Job entertained strangers (Job 31:32). In the New Testament, Jesus told his disciples to travel light, because they were to find hospitality along the way (Mark 6:8). The apostle Paul traveled all over Asia Minor and he planned his journeys knowing that people whom he did not know would invite him in for food and a place to sleep.

This is so different picture from our current idea of hospitality, where we feel compelled to create culinary art from whatever is in the pantry, and to be able to set a table that would be the pin-of-all-Pins. But the biblical definition of hospitality broadens things. We were once strangers to God, a people without a home, an unrighteous people, strangers to Him and His holiness. But while we were in this state, he died for us and brought us to God—He invited us in. Bringing strangers to God is gospel-driven hospitality that crosses time and culture, and there are many ways to do it.

Perhaps biblical hospitality can take the burden off those of us who get a sinking feeling when we hear the term “gospel hospitality”, and think that this is just one more area in our Christian lives where we fall short. Maybe we need a fresh way of looking at it—to be motivated by Jesus living in and through us, and not concerned about how clean our house is or what food we might serve on a moment’s notice—so that we can share the gospel and not be burdened by it; so that we can take the initiative and make the invites for the purpose of preparing others for eternity because that’s what Jesus did. He didn’t have a home and he used borrowed food to feed strangers. He made the time and took the opportunities to bring us to God. He knew hospitality isn’t so much about the food or the accommodations, though he is taking care of that, but it’s about bringing estranged humanity to Himself so that they can feast on Him and find a place to rest in Him, and call Him Blessed Host.

A New Connection

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CDM-staff2FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Committee on Christian Education and Publications Receives New Name

Houston, Texas – June 18, 2014 – The 42nd General Assembly approved a name change for the Committee on Christian Education and Publications (CEP) which will now be known as the Committee on Discipleship Ministries (CDM).  “For a number of years, we have considered making a change to our name to better convey the relational aspects of our ministry. In discussing the many options, we kept returning to our biblical charter – make disciples” said Coordinator, Stephen Estock.

Estock went on to emphasize the new name more closely connects our work to the Great Commission. Obeying Jesus’ command in today’s world involves education and resources like publications, but also much more. The content of the gospel must be conveyed in relationships that are empowered by the truth of the gospel. “Discipleship” encompasses all of what it means to walk with Christ, and “making disciples” includes personally inviting others to know Christ and coming alongside them in relationship.

The 42nd General Assembly directed the Stated Clerk to make the necessary editorial amendments to the Book of Church Order and Rules of Assembly Operation and the CDM staff will work [in the coming weeks] to inform PCA churches and members of the change.  Questions may be directed to the CDM office at cdm@pcanet.org

Child Safety Resources

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From Overture 6 – Georgia Foothills Presbytery
“Child Protection in the PCA”

“All church leaders should become informed and take an active stance toward preventing child sexual abuse in the church by screening staff and volunteers, training them in child protection, and actively maintaining child protection policies pertaining to our obligations to love our children and protect their rightful interests as God’s image-bearers from the devastating actions of abusers.” (Matthew 18:5-6)[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]CEP recommends the following resources regarding Child Safety:[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

Books

  • Child Safety Guidelines for Local Churches by Roger N. McNamara (Xulon Press)
  • Safe Kids: Policies and Procedures for Protecting Children in the Church by Blake Caldwell (Beacon Hill)
  • Preventing Child Abuse by Beth A Swagman (Faith Alive Christian Resources)
    • Helps churches and nonprofit organizations develop policies and procedures to protect children and youth.
  • Safekeeping by Henni Helleman, Patricia J Vos (Faith Alive Christian Resources)
    • An age-appropriate two-session abuse prevention curriculum for grades K-8.

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Online Resources

  • Brotherhood Mutual Insurance—Brotherhood Mutual provides an Online library of safety and risk management materials created especially for churches and related ministries. The website has articles, checklists, guidebooks and tools, publications, sample forms, and training.
  • MinistrySafe—MinistrySafe is another online ministry that trains church staff and volunteers in the area of child abuse prevention
  • Safe Kids at Church
  • Doulos Resources

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Examples of Policies

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The Pray for Me Campaign

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Pray for Me PicArticle by Danny Mitchell

Because of the realities that a large percentage of young people who connect with the church during their teenage years will end up leaving the church as they move into adulthood and those who stay connected to the church had adult believers intentionally investing in their lives, Tony Souder, the executive director of the Chattanooga Youth Network, began relentlessly asking this question:   how can adult believers connect with the next generation more naturally than ever before?

That question became the impetus for The Pray for Me Campaign. 

Now, I should confess that I am a skeptic when it comes to next, greatest thing that will revolutionize youth ministry.   I initially approached The Pray for Me Campaign with that a fair amount of skepticism.  However, it was clear from my early conversations with Tony that this “program” was different.   After further investigating The Pray for Me Campaign, I realized that it is not actually program at all.  Instead it is about the older generation investing relationally and spiritually in the next generation through the most natural of things for the believer…prayer.

If your church is looking for a way to connect the older generations with the next generation then I highly recommend that you check out The Pray for Me Campaign.

I recently asked the Chattanooga Youth Network to send CEP a write up about the campaign.  Here is their response:

The Pray for Me Campaign is a strategic initiative of the Chattanooga Youth Network designed to create vital connections between generations through the catalyst of prayer.  It equips students in the church to invite three adult believers from three different generations to serve as their Prayer Champions for a school year.  Each year students invite three new Prayer Champions, providing them with a web of enriching multi‐generational relationships.  Prayer Champions pray for their students using the Pray for Me Prayer Guide, a tool specifically designed to help them pray the Scriptures for the next generation through the lens of 7essential categories.  We believe that passing on a sustainable faith begins with prayer, the keystone habit of the Christian life.  The Pray for Me Campaign makes it happen.

The Pray for Me Campaign has already equipped over 1,100 Prayer Champions to pray for the next generation.  We are thrilled to find that the Pray for Me Campaign is solving a problem that many churches across the nation are seeking to address.  Lives are being impacted and the response has been so encouraging.  One Prayer Champion said, “Thank you for getting the Pray for Me Campaign going.  I was telling my wife about it on Sunday and I couldn’t choke back the tears when I told her how excited the students were to run and find someone who would pray for them.  I’ll remember that for a long time.”

Bringing the Pray for Me Campaign to your church is easy—all the resources that you need (such as videos, posters, bulletin inserts, and more) are available for free at www.prayformecampaign.com as well as links to purchase the Prayer Guides, and the Chattanooga Youth Network is ready to help anyone interested in getting involved.  We are thrilled by the impact of the Pray for Me Campaign is having on the Kingdom and we encourage you to join the movement![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]