Do you know what your children’s pastor does? Take a minute and work through all the images of that goofy guy or gal that just popped into your mind who likes to be dunked in green slim.
Ok. I think most everyone would agree that we need more than a clown to oversee our kids’ ministries. The constant barrage of legal worries, safety concerns, and insurance guidelines is much more than the typical confetti cannon can handle. Churches need and want someone with the skills and ability to organize, protect, and love families.
How do children’s pastor do this?
The cool new trend is to have children’s pastors that equip the family, that work alongside parents, and that help dads and moms disciple their kids. Most every job’s focus will include one or all of these phrases. I know of no children’s pastors out their dedicated to subverting the family, maligning parents, and to frustrating parental guardians.
We may all know a pastor, program, or para-church ministry that does these accidentally. But no ministry is launched in an effort to dissolve cohesive family units. Every church, ministry, and pastor circling around our kids is all about equipping the family. This is the transient sentiment of our day.
How do we equip the local family to lead, disciple, and train their kids?
Well according to most churches, children’s pastors fulfill their mission by training Sunday school teachers, by organizing events, by staffing nurseries, and by teaching kids. They help parents by creating and running programs for kids.
Programs are not wrong. They are not the boogieman. But does a children’s Sunday school class equip the family? Does nursery really help parents disciple their children? Do our programs inspire parents to share the gospel with their kids?
Do you see the delima? Churches proclaim that their children’s ministry exist for the promotion of the family. Yet almost every pastor has a job description that keeps the him from directly interacting with, equipping, and encouraging parents. Sure, kids’ pastors tell parents how much they love working with their kids. But have they had meaningful, life changing conversations with the parents they were called to equip?
I fear that most in kids’ pastors would have to answer, “No.” In fact many of the things kids’ ministries facilitate often discourage real conversations. Instead of seeing that mom and dad who need help parenting Junior in big church, a nursery worker just redirects the angry three-year-old with a fresh cup of apple juice far away from the view of the church’s pastoral staff and the body of Christ.
And perhaps this is not as bad as it initially appears. Perhaps kids’ ministry really is just a support ministry that frees people to hear ‘the pastor’ to preach. Perhaps, kids’ pastors mainly help equip parents by freeing others to do the work of equipping. This is not wrong. Armies need baggage trains to survive. Just ask the Emperor Julian and some of the other famous world leaders who fought battles without supplies.
But if kids’ ministry truly is about supporting big church, I believe churches should think hard about redefining the role of the children’s pastor. Freeing others to do the work of equipping, teaching and discipling is not a pastoral role. It is a deacon role, a lay leader role. Benjamine L. Merkle rightfully noted,
“Deacons are needed in the church to provide logistical and material support so that the elders can concentrate their efforts on the Word of God and prayer.”
Mark Dever, the founder of the Nine Marks Ministry and the lead pastor at Captial Hill concurs, writing, “the concerns of the deacons are the practical details of church life: administration, maintenance, and the care of church members with physical needs.”
The church needs men to faithfully serve behind-the-scenes. But those men are not pastors. They are deacons.
Titus and 1 Timothy clearly teach that pastors preach, teach, and disciple. Children’s pastors who primarily or only facilitate, recruit, and host events are truly more like deacon-in-chiefs than pastors.
If children’s pastors are called to lead and disciple families, then they need to be leading and discipling parents. They should regularly teach parents, showing them how to apply the gospel to their family. They should be on hand to counsel mom and dad as they struggle with a wayward son. They should be able to help others live out their faith. I believe pastors regardless of their title’s prefix should first and foremost pastor.
What do our churches need, children’s pastors or deacons-in-chief?
There is a reason kids’ ministry sometimes gets separated from Big Church. In Big church, people love listening to the organ. In kids’ Ministry, people jump up and down to the rhythm of the drums. In big church people sit calmly in pews struggling to stay awake. In kids’ ministry, the people run around throwing dodge balls at each other. In big church, you great each other with a hand shake. In kids’ ministry you get greeted with a pie to the face. Kids’ ministry often looks very different from adult ministry.
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