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Children’s Ministries: Helping To Grow A 21st-Century Church

By David M. Boyd

Is reaching children important for growing a 21st-century church? Are young families with children in your community worth the investment of time, talent, and resources? Does God’s Word instruct us to place importance on reaching children?

The answer to each of these questions is yes.

Deuteronomy 6:5—9 gives three commands:

1. Love the Lord God with all your heart (verse 5).

2. Remember My commands (verse 6).

3. Teach the children (verse 7).

Israel was to follow these commands if it was to remain spiritually healthy and raise up a generation of godly children.

The third command, teaching children, is vital to obeying God’s plan for the church today. Reaching kids has never been more important. Early teen society has become a gun-toting, sexually perverse, and disease-rampant society. This demands that churches, pastors, and children’s leaders reach kids for Christ. Many churches are reaching children and are growing in the process.

GROWING A CHURCH THROUGH CHILDREN’S MINISTRY

Churches are discovering that young families are looking for churches that minister to children.

Leith Anderson, author of Dying for Change; A Church for the 21st Century; Leadership That Works: Hope and Direction for Church and Parachurch Leaders in Today’s Complex World, and Winning the Values War in a Changing Culture, is senior pastor of Wooddale Church, Eden Prairie, Minnesota. He writes. "The old top three factors families used to choose a church were ‘location, pastor, and denomination.’ Not so anymore. Today the new top three are ‘location, pastor, and children’s ministry.’ "¹

With the rise in danger from distraught peers and perverse adults, parents are awakening to the fact their children need to be safe, secure, and well cared for. They are looking for this in their children’s school and church. Parents expect quality facilities and quality leadership. They are looking for clean, modern, kid-friendly rooms. In the nursery and preschool areas, they are looking for clean, sanitized toys and surroundings. A quality children’s ministry will attract young families and grow your church. (See sidebar, "How Children’s Ministry Can Grow a Church.")

Not every church can afford a children’s pastor, but every church can afford to train and invest in children’s leadership.

Leith Anderson states: "In the past, parents picked the church and the children had to go. Increasingly today, children pick the church and the parents go where the children are happiest. Fear is also a factor–parents are concerned about safety. They appreciate churches that carefully screen teachers and Christian education workers, keep sick children at home, and require claim tags before an adult can take a child. Parents are more likely to leave a church where children don’t seem important or where leaders are unresponsive to questions and suggestions about children’s ministries."²

Children’s ministry is one of the areas where a big church isn’t necessarily better. The nursery doesn’t have to be huge to impress parents. The care, love, and cleanliness that are there impress them. Parents will choose a lesser house in a neighborhood with better schools because parents are concerned about their children. They will also drive farther and cross denominational boundaries to find a church that will care for their children.

Dan Betzer, senior pastor of First Assembly of God in Fort Myers, Florida, states: "Be honest: Ask yourself, Is my church a place where young parents would bring their children?"

Here are more questions to ask:

• Does our nursery and preschool areas have old toys and mismatched high chairs, cribs, and changing tables? If this describes your nursery and preschool, you’re telling young parents with babies and toddlers that you don’t care enough about their children to purchase new and safe equipment.

• How are the walls in our classrooms decorated? Are they freshly painted with bright and cheery murals and children’s wallpaper, or is the paint chipping, the wallpaper peeling, and the walls painted a hospital sterile off-white? The children’s areas should be fresh and clean.

• Do we have a room for children’s church? Can parents visit this room and immediately feel this church cares about kids?

• What are the children’s restrooms like? Visiting parents go in these restrooms with their children. Compare your kids’ restrooms with the restrooms the adults use.

Senior pastor, find a family who has never been to your church and walk them through your building. Let their fresh look point out things that need to be updated.

INVESTING IN CHILDREN’S MINISTRIES

Many times children’s ministry is at the bottom of the church’s budget. When that happens, churches will not attract new, young families. Or worse yet, they may lose young families to a church that does invest in children.

Young adults come to our churches, get involved, and become our leaders. Without them, churches stagnate. When God told us to teach the children, He knew that investing in children was the best way to perpetuate, grow, and expand the church.

Children’s ministry takes an investment. Not every church can afford a children’s pastor, but every church can afford to train and invest in children’s leadership. Some of our best children’s pastors were laypeople whose senior pastor sent them for training. Send your children’s leadership to every training conference you can. Every dollar you spend training your children’s leaders will pay huge dividends toward building the quality children’s ministry you, your church, and community desire.

In the past, parents picked the church and the children had to go. Increasingly today, children pick the church and the parents go where the children are happiest.—Leith Anderson

THE SENIOR PASTOR AND CHILDREN’S

A tremendous children’s ministry begins with a senior pastor who truly wants to reach children and young families. The senior pastor dictates the value the people and the board place on children’s ministry. The pastor’s vision for reaching children spreads to the whole congregation. The vision should include investing in children outside the walls of the church (Deuteronomy 31:12,13). It is the church’s responsibility to reach the unsaved children in its community.

The senior pastor is the key to the way the congregation responds and supports the children’s ministry. The pastor is the key to successfully encouraging every member of the adult congregation to get involved in ministry, especially children’s ministry.

Like no other ministry in the church, children’s ministry is dependent on volunteers. It is not unique to have more volunteers involved in children’s ministry than all other ministries of the church combined. In one church where I was the children’s pastor, there were 480 adult volunteers. Of these, 320 worked in children’s ministry.

DISCIPLESHIP AND CHILDREN’S MINISTRY

Discipleship of children is one of the goals of the Children’s Ministries Agency. We desire to prepare children for life and service in God’s kingdom. (See sidebar, "Eight Goals of the Children’s Ministries Agency.")

The Assemblies of God has a well-coordinated array of children’s ministry programs. Sunday school is one of our main discipleship arms. In Sunday school, children are taught doctrines of the Bible. Sunday school’s success is based on a small teacher-to-student ratio. Sunday school also provides an environment where children can ask questions as their faith in Christ grows week by week.

Children’s church has become the proving ground for the faith of our children. There they can put into practice their Pentecostal experience. On Sunday morning, children gather in their own service where they lift their hands in worship, pray for the sick, are baptized in the Holy Spirit, pray in tongues, respond to biblical preaching, and gather around the altar to seek God.

Royal Rangers and Missionettes are programs that reach into the community. Each week more visitors gather in these groups than in any other ministry of the church. Many young families with children who joined our church first visited the Wednesday night adult Bible study while their children enjoyed these clubs.

Missionettes, with its newly revised program, reaches girls and disciples them into young ladies. Royal Rangers is a strong program where men mentor boys. In today’s society with single families and fatherless homes, it is important to have men investing in boys’ lives.

Coupled with these programs is Junior Bible Quiz and Boys and Girls Missionary Crusade. JBQ teaches God’s Word to children. BGMC teaches children to care about the world, pray for the world, make faith promises to missions, and seek God’s call for their lives. Together the teachers, pastors, and leaders of our children’s ministry of the Assemblies of God are raising up a generation of kids who will live for God.

Pastor, invest in the children of your church. Support the children’s ministries financially. Invest in your leadership by training them. Ensure you have quality materials and equipment. Make your church a church where children are welcome, safe, and well cared for.

Join with the Children’s Ministries Agency as we, "Reach Kids…until He comes!"

David Boyd is Children’s Ministries Agency/BGMC coordinator, Springfield, Missouri.

ENDNOTES

1. Leith Anderson, "Children Are #3," Enrichment journal, Spring 1999, 24.

2. Ibid.