Focus on the Sunday School Article/Winter 2004-05

Reaching Children for Christ:

Seeing the Bigger Picture

By David Frasure

I remember when my children were much younger; the two older boys were playing with a plastic ball and bat.  Joey hit a homerun over the house, into the front yard.  Running around the house, he began his frantic search for the waffle ball that had somehow eluded him.  Through an upstairs window, I heard both my boys searching the hedges for the missing ball.  When I looked out the window I could see the missing sphere very clearly lying atop one of the front-yard bushes, but from their perspective, the ball had simply vanished.

Seeing the bigger picture and gaining a better perspective truly helps us to become more effective at finding lost things.  It works for reaching lost people as well.   George Barna’s research indicates that two-thirds of the people who profess faith in Jesus Christ do so before they reach adulthood.  He also indicates in his book, Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions, that most of an adult Christian’s theology and understanding of the Christian life is established before he or she reaches the age of 14!  What does that tell us about children’s ministry?

We often think of children’s ministry as a “sneaky” way to reach adults for Christ.  We seek to have good children’s programs with the motivation to attract parents to the Lord and to His church.  Of course, good VBS programs and excellent Kid’s Sunday School ministries are major concerns for parents.  I have found that most unchurched parents will not bring their kids to a church where their kids complain of boredom and dislike for the church.  But I’d like to suggest that dynamic children’s ministries are even more important for the future of the church.  In other words, reaching and developing children through Sunday School and other ministries such as VBS, Children’s Church, etc. is just as important for reaching the next generations as it is for reaching the current one.  We really need to see the bigger picture and give Children’s Ministry the priority it is worthy of.

Where do we start?  I think we begin with a prayer.  We need to ask God to give us a genuine, holy love for children.  We need to see them through eyes of discernment and recognize their great potential to the kingdom—both now and in the future.  We really are shaping the lives of future Billy Grahams and Lottie Moons.  Prayer will help us see them from heaven’s perspective.

We also need to communicate that we value and love children.  We do that by kneeling down so we can talk to them eye to eye, remember their names, and notice their accomplishments and big events such as pulled teeth, new clothes and those beautiful crayon drawings.

Finally, we need to be intentional and focused on developing quality, future-generation ministries in the church today.  That starts with the Children’s Sunday School workers that are serving in your church right now.