Peter Witkowski Book Reviews

Your Kids Should Read: “The Radical Book For Kids”

radical-book-for-kidsAre your kids interested in the Christian faith? Do they regularly want to discuss what happens at church? Are they starting to ask the big Why Questions of life? If this is your child, I encourage you to get them a copy of The Radical Book For Kids.

Written by Camp Thorton for children between the ages of 8-14, The Radical Book For Kids tackles 67 important issues in the Christian faith in an immensely fun, highly practical, and beautifully theological fashion. Discussions about how to tie cool knots develop into lessons about original sin and salvation. The 253 colorful pages also cover things like “Fun and Games in Bible Times, The Weapons of the Bible, The Passion Week, Women Who Gave Their Lives for Christ, and How to Make Good Decisions.” Each 2-5 page chapter begins in kid friendly way and ends with biblically precise language. Thow-to-grow-as-a-christianhe book does a wonderful job of explaining complicated truths in both a simplistic and yet fully biblical manner. If your kids love to read. They will love this book.

As a grade schooler and junior higher, I would have loved this book. The book allows kids to explore the theological doctrines, practical methodologies, and important stories that have shaped our faith at their own pace. I would have enjoyed being able to slowly skip around this book as I wrestled with questions about my sin nature, the purpose of the church, and why we follow the Bible. And although I was not a particularly great reader as a kid, the illustrations, diagrams, and artwork would have kept me engaged. I highly encourage all parents to grab a copy of this book. Your kids will benefit from it. And I suspect, you may even benefit from it.

Word Of Caution

This book is not a devotional. For example, chapter 16 focuses on the Hebrew Alphabet. It is a great chapter. I think it is great for kids to understand that the Hebrew language is not radical-book-for-kids-2our language and has its own nuances. How about reading from left to right?

But if chapter 16 is your kids, or your family devotion, you will not be encouraged by the Scriptures.

However, that is not the purpose of the book. While many of the sections do call for radical actions based on obedience to the Scriptures, this book is not a devotional. As Thorton wrote in the introduction, “Parents and Teachers may also find it helpful as a supplement for devotions or discussions.” Please do not make it your main discipleship tool.

The book is more a fun theological textbook for children (But please do not think boring when you think textbook). Though I have many adult theology textbooks on my shelf, I do not use them for my devotions. I encourage all to follow the author’s advice. Use the book to make children, “more curious and more thirsty to know God and the good news of his Word.”

radical-book-for-kids-3And when you or your kids are curious to know more about a doctrine, story, or person mentioned in The Radical Book For Kids,  you can grab the books Thorton mentions in his “more to explore” sections.

Overall, book is an amazing resource filled! I give it 5 out of 5 stars.

I encourage you to get your own copy. Keep discipling your children. Keep teaching your children the Word. Keeping encouraging them to study the Bible on their own. And then hand them a copy of The Radical Book For Kids. Give them this amazing tool that will help them explore their faith even more. And then get ready to have some awesome discussions. Who’s ready to get radical?

Click Here To Purchase Your Copy

Peter Witkowski Children's Ministry, Discipleship

There Are No Professional Kid’s Ministry Workers

no-professionalsIf we want to reach the children in our homes or at our church, we have to be with them. We have to spend time driving toy cars on the furniture, hosting tea-parties, and celebrating the good grades on their report cards. In short, we have to do life with these precious little souls.

There are no professional parents or professional kids’ ministry leaders. True and effective parenting and ministry happens via life on life. Organizing programs and showing up for Sunday morning services will not produce life change by themselves. Our Wednesday night programs are only worth the time and effort it takes to get them going each week when the Bible is being taught and relationships are being formed. Our programs should be laying a groundwork that is needed to facilitate communication, care, encouragement and reproof. Our activities are not the sum total of the Christian life.

This is the crux of New Testament ministry.

Think of the apostle Paul. He repeatedly encouraged believers, to “imitate me, just as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1, 4:6; Phil. 3:17; Phi. 4:9; 2 Thess. 3:9). The pastoral letters clearly indicate that Paul diligently taught people the word of God. He was a great preacher. But Paul did not just preach once a week and consider his job done. No. He lived with the people he taught. He invested in them. He heard about their messy and complicated lives and showed them how the Scriptures could answer all of their problems. Paul knew the people he ministered to.

To be effective parents and kids’ ministry teachers, we must do the same thing. We must know what make our kids tick. We need to listen to their concerns, celebrate their triumphs, and note their weaknesses. We need to learn their hearts.

Moreover, we need to model the Christian faith for our children. We need to depend on God, make much of our savior, and be quick to repent of our sins. If we hope to reach the next generation with the gospel, we must be able to legitimately call our kids to follow us as we follow Christ.

If our parenting and ministry never extends beyond a prefabbed lesson, if we protect ourselves from getting to close to others, and if we turn our faith on and off each Sunday, we will be able to do many things. We may have great programs, we may have huge budgets, and we may have grand feelings of accomplishment. But we will not have reached and discipled anyone. We will not have cultivated the very relationships that facilitate gospel growth.

You and me are by definition needy. Unfortunately, the same is true of our kids. We are all needy. Such is life until Christ returns! If we get to know our kids and invest in us needy people, we know what will happen. Those sweet kids and their families will begin to consume our time, our energy and our money. (And yes, we should install boundaries to protect our families and our own spiritual lives.) We must be willing to sacrifice our lunch hour, to answer a midnight phone calls, and to redirect our movie budget to the local mission center. How else will people see the gospel in action? How else can we call people to follow us as we follow Christ?

Peter Witkowski Children's Ministry

What’s Our Kids’ Ministry Looking At?

Every painting, pencil sketch, and sculpture is a representation of something else. Even the most abstract painting composed of crazy shapes is still bound by the definitions of colors and the reality of lines, angles, and weight. Art always represents some aspect of the tangible world. And the meaning of that art work is derived through the artists from the object. The subject of the paintingpainting has a great bearing on the final result.

In much the same way, the subject of our kids’ ministry will determine what our kids’ ministry will look like. If we begin with kids, our ministry will be kid focused. We will have amazing games, crazy worship times, and adventurous summer camps. We will do anything and everything to get more kids into our church. You can almost hear the chant now, “Kids, kids, kids!”

And while I desperately want families to be returned to their place of biblical prominence within the church, I think focusing on kids will actually harm the church. If we focus on kids, we most likely will win many of them to our church. But will we win many of them to our Lord Jesus Christ?

In 1 Corinthians 1:18, Paul says that, “the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing,” Later on, Paul says that unregenerate people see the gospel as a ‘stumbling block’ and ‘foolishness'(v.23). Unredeemed kids are not going to like church. They are going to find it boring. They are going to think that the gospel is an imposition to their T.V. schedule, to their social media life, and to their sports’ career.  I have had kids tell me that, “I don’t like church” and complain that church is “lame.” And I do not think these little guys and gals are the worst sinners ever. I too preferred football and toy soldiers over Sunday school and congregational hymns.

To create a ministry that is focused on these kids, we have to reflecting their attitudes in our ministry. We have to agree that the gospel is boring and begin implementing games and music that lessen the pressures of the gospel conviction. We have to make the ministry about acceptance. We must offer grace without repentance and entertainment without conviction. If we want our kids’ ministry to represent our kids, we will have to embrace a sinners worldview.  

And if we do, we will win over our kids. We will discover that kids prefer a worship service featuring pool noodles over the one where they have sit in the pews with their parents. But we have not won these kids to Jesus. If anything, we have connected with them by saying that, “Jesus is not everything; your self-centered happiness is.”

Instead of focusing on kids, I think kids’ ministries should be focus on Christ. We need to seek to replicate the gospel in our ministries. We do this by simply proclaiming the gospel. We declare with Paul that we want our kids to only know, “Jesus Christ and him crucified.” We teach children the gospel.

Now, I am not saying that best kids’ ministry is a boring kids’ ministry.  Nor do I think we should have our children’s choir members wear robes. (Yes some churches still do that.) We can use newer songs, employ great illustrations, and lead fun crafts. Anything and everything that makes the gospel clearer should be employed. We should become all things to all people, especially our kids. But our ultimate goal is not to make our kids like church. Our ultimate goal is present the gospel, “in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (I Cor. 4b-5).

At the end of the day, we cannot save anyone. I do not care how creative or gifted you or your team is, none of us can open a child’s eyes. Only God can grant repentance that “lead to life” (Acts 11:18). And if we want God to work if we want to see children redeemed while in our kids’ ministries, we must avoid the temptation to employ worldly strategies that appeals to our kids’ sinful desires. We must preach the gospel, trusting God to penetrate the hearts of our kids with the light of the gospel (2 Cor. 4:6).

As with the great painters, our kids’ ministry must have a subject. What is the subject of your kids’ ministry?