Jesus Focused

Although it sounds ironic, kids should not be the focus of our kids’ ministry. Now before you write me off as a kid hater or as a fuddy duddy who thinks singing along to cassette tapes makes a great Sunday school lesson, let’s consider John 3:30. Just as Jesus’ ministry had started flourishing, John the Baptist’s disciples come to John frustrated that all the focus has switched to the Jesus. Notice what John says, “He must increase but I must decrease.” This should be the heart of every biblical ministry, kids or otherwise. We are to be making a big to-do about Jesus. A biblical kids’ ministry will always be focused upon our Savior. Instead of seeking to satisfy our kids’ longing for fun with hi-tech, adventurous activities, our kids’ programs should be designed to introduce our kids to the awesome Savior of the world. We (including our kids) must decrease. Christ must increase.

Kid Focused And Failed

If we don’t decrease, weird things start happening. Recently, several kids from my church and I attended a Centrikid camp put on by Lifeway. My church kids had a blast and my adults were impressed with the camp’s gospel focus. Before we scrambled back on the bus to go home, I heard another church leader say, “Our kids have all been complaining that this camp is too much like church. We really miss all the games during the worship times.” Although I do not know everything about this church’s kid’s ministry, I do know that they think “church” is a negative thing to be avoided.

Think about this for a second, a church’s children’s ministry is calling the Word of God and the body of Christ boring, unattractive, and expendable. The only way for a kid’s ministry to conclude that Jesus is boring or an obstacle to happiness is to think that ministry is all about you and your kids. Equipped with this mindset, people come to church to have fun, make friends, and feel loved. Each kids prominence and desires is increasing. But this mindset contradicts the purpose point of church and fails its followers. As counselor Ed Welch notes:

God has given us gifts to serve rather than needs to be served. Any other perspective is less than biblical and will ultimately lead us toward misery rather than joy – p. 167

If we truly want our kids to be happy, we will have ministries that cause us all to decrease.

Jesus Focused And Approved

Immediately, someone will object that kids learn differently. They don’t belong in church. They can’t be expected to survive waves of the adult world.

Yes, kids do learn differently. I fully support having children’s programs that use music with motions and visual object lessons to introduce children to Jesus. I am constantly looking for ways to better connect the gospel to the kids of FBCE. But the goal of children’s ministry is always to link kids into the church by making much of our awesome God. Just as the children in my church enjoy hanging around my wife, the kids in hte “Fun Zone” or the “Happy Village” of our churches should leave Sunday with a growing love for Jesus and his bride, the church. As longtime Sunday school teacher, Jack Klumperhower, writes, “We shouldn’t let fun become a tool to keep kids interested so we can feed them good news on the side. Jesus isn’t a side dish…[he’s] the selling point” (p. 155). Jesus must increase!

Now many fear that we will lose kids by going all gospels on them. Perhaps, some kids will check out. Or some may bug their parents until they convince the family to find a church that is more “fun.” But friends, a majority of the kids in our ministry are not Christians. Naturally, they are going to find the gospel offense because by they are: “lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” ( 2 Tim 3:1-4).Unredeemed kids reject the gospel because the are blind sinners.

The Defining Question

Today, we all face the following question: how should we respond to kids who find the gospel and the people of God offensive? How we answer this question will radically shape our children’s ministries and our kids’ view of Jesus and the church. We have two options.

First, we can appeal to our kids’self-love as many mainstream churches have begun to do. We attempt to compete with Nickelodeon, Disney, and PS4’s by offering slimy games, cheesy videos, and kidcentric Bible lesson’s- Jesus loves you; he wants you to be happy.

Second, we can challenge our kids with the hope of the gospel like the Centrikid camp staff did. We can preach Christ crucified abandoning gimmicks and manipulative story telling. Moreover, we trust that:

The Holy Spirit is working, and once [kids] get a taste of Christ, they will be irreversibly captured for his kingdom. Rather than pander to kids…[we] offer life to kids who are thirsting for something more – 156

Go Gospel

If we hope to reach kids for Christ, we must choose the way of the gospel. If we go with the cool appeal, we will ultimately lose. The church can never outpace the world’s indulgence of self-love. One day, our kids will discover that the pursuit of wealth, alcohol, sex, and a host of other things is more fun than Sunday school worship bands; they’ll leave the church. But if we give them Jesus who outshines all this world has to offer, many will believe on the Lord Jesus Christ! They will stay, grow, and begin introducing others to Christ. Jesus must increase, we must decrease.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. – I John 3:15-17

Works Cited

Klumpenhower, J. (2014). Show Them Jesus: Teaching The Gospel to Kids. Greensboro: New Growth Press.

Welch, E. T. (1997). When People Are Big And God Is Small . Philipsburg: P&R Publishing.

Jonathan V. Last. What to Expect When No One’s Expecting: America’s Coming Demographic Disaster. New York. Encounter Books, 2013. 230 pp. $18.01

According to our God, both the little screaming child who just slapped its mother across the face and the infant peacefully cooing itself to sleep are blessings from above. But the divine perspective of Psalm 127 is quickly losing traction in the world as record number of couples doubt the wisdom of having a house full of children. Seeking to understand why, “only 3 percent of the world’s population lives in a country whose fertility rate is not declining,” what affects childless societies will have upon the world, and how to combat the effects of this childless trend, Jonathan V. Last published What to Expect When No One’s Expecting: America’s Coming Demographic Disaster.

Though not written from an openly evangelical perspective or from a desire to “convince you to have babies” the book’s statistical revelations affirm a gospel centered world view (p. 10). As the reporter turned author found, children are an empirical blessing. When populations begin buying more adult diapers than baby diapers, the world becomes increasingly unstable. In the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the government launched a program that converts prostitutes into elderly care nurses (p. 99). In Japan, a nation that is projected to have one baby for every citizen over the age of 100 in 2040, the minister of finance encouraged the elderly to simply, “hurry up and die”[i] to save the country from financial ruin (p. 142). And by 2040, the United States will face its own financial crisis as there will be only be two workers to care for each retired baby boomer, costing each worker $8,578.00 just in Medicare expenses (p. 109). Although Last is aware that a childless world is an unprecedented event, his extrapolation of current research darkens our expectations.

Thankfully, Last does not leave us excepting only gloom. He offers several helpful suggestions that could encourage couples to have babies. He also gives his readers some good news discussing France, Georgia, and societal groups that have seen their fertility rates stay consistent or even rise above the fertility replacement rate of 2.1 children.

Not surprisingly one of these groups with higher than average birth rates is the church. According to Last, 41% of Protestants who attend church at least once a week “say that three or more children is ideal” (p. 86). He goes on to write:

Religion helps marriage and marriage helps fertility – the end result being that religiosity winds up being an even better predictor of fertility than either education or income (p. 87).

In short, Christians who value the gospel are having more children.

The challenge for Christians going forward will be to maintain their fidelity to the gospel. The world has increasingly less tolerance for religious ideals. As Last notes, one’s-self is now the highest priority. Instead of godliness, humanity wants happiness. “Best Life Now,” anyone? And as a result of the world’s narcissism, procreation has become, “an act of self-actualization” (p. 93).

Self-lovers consistently advocate for less and less children. In Japan, a nation formerly known for being pet-crazed, self-love has spawned a new social class, the “parasite single.” These working, college educated women have become Japan’s biggest consumer class by choosing to avoid marriage and to live with mom and dad well into their thirties (p. 145). These women devote almost of their incomes to the pursuit of pleasure. Consequently, Japan’s birth rate hovers around 1.4.

The United States is following suit. The love of self is driving Americans to view pets as “low-maintenance replacements for children.” As late as 1985, fewer than fifty percent of Americans had a pet. Today American pets, “outnumber children by more than four to one” (p. 2). And over the past 16 years, the pet business has grown from a $17 billion to a $43 billion industry. America’s birth rate now sits at 1.9.

So when we hear people wax kindly about how their dogs are their children or when we hear people encouraging a couple to delay having a child until they can get that car, house, raise, etc. we must remember the source.[ii] And then, we must remain faithful to scripture. We must affirm that children (not pets) are a blessing. We must remember that, “the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches,” place our souls in eternal danger (Mark 4:1-13). We need to abandon troubling earthly treasures and embrace the blessing of God (Mark 9:36-37).

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Rom. 12:2).

When people or our own hearts doubt the wisdom of God’s plan, we should direct them to scripture first and foremost. But if you are in need of real world evidence that children are a blessing or if you want to know the real world cost of abandoning this divine directive, I would encourage you read What to Expect When no One’s Expecting: America’s Coming Demographic Disaster.

[i] McCurry, Justin. http://www.theguardian.com/. January 22, 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/22/elderly-hurry-up-die-japanese (accessed January 21, 2014).

[ii] One word of caution: Speak kindly with those who advocate the above positions. Speak truth in love (Eph. 4:15). It’s possible that the “money lover” truly wishes to spare others the suffering of poverty or that the “ridiculous pet owner” might be barren mother. We need to address the concerns of their hearts with scripture and encouragement.