Elemental Children's Ministry

(photo originally uploaded to Flickr by sean drellinger)

As I mentioned in my previous post, my senior pastor sent me a couple of articles that sparked the series on Passing on Faith. The first article is from The National Post, written by Brendan T.N. Caldwell who is a CEO of an investment management company.

Click here to read the article.

I thought the parallel of passing on a financial inheritance with the passing on of faith to be a really good picture. Caldwell talks about going from “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.” In other words, the first generation works hard to earn financial stability, the second generation enjoys and lives off of that, and the inheritance is gone by the third generation who needs to roll up their sleeves and start over.

“When it comes to faith, our nation is somewhere between the second and third generation. We still enjoy the benefits of a society whose ethics are rooted in faith, but we have forgotten how we got here and we may soon need to rebuild again.”

I think the above quote hits the nail on the head. Now, we can look at that assessment and become discouraged by it, or we can look at that and head into the challenge of “starting over.” While this may not be what we want to do, it is what is put before us.

“In a society that has largely forgotten God, how do parents pass along a spiritual inheritance to their children?”

I think Caldwell states something that is key to answering the question he poses. He reminds parents that our children first and foremost belong to God. He wants to be their father as well as ours, and it is our job as parents to introduce our children to him. We do that by sharing our God stories with them. We need to connect our children with community beyond us who hold the same beliefs and values we do. We also need to stay faithful ourselves be an example of a follower of Christ that our children see from day-to-day.

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Today, my senior pastor passed on a couple of articles he came across about passing on faith. In light of reviewing Ivy Beckwith’s book, Formational Children’s Ministry, and the dramatic increase in family ministry discussions (e.g. Orange, D6, Collaborate, etc.), I thought it might be cool to explore a few approaches and views to passing on faith to children. If you are interested in contributing to this series, I’d love for you to. Simply email me your submission to (henryjz at gmail dot com). Just FYI, I won’t be posting every submission sent to me. I am limiting it to 5 submissions, otherwise this might go on and on… and I’m only planning on this series to last a week :) What I am looking for is perspectives on how or why parents should pass on their faith. If your submission doesn’t fit into that, I probably won’t be able to use it. So if I end up not using your submission, it’s not because I don’t like you or disagree with you.

NOTE: I will also be posting this series on Elemental Parenting.

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(photo originally uploaded to Flickr by PrASanGaM)

A couple of days ago, Mark Batterson posted this on his blog about a book assigned to one of his children at school with what he deemed as inappropriate content. He doesn’t mention the title of the book but does cite his concerns over inappropriate language and sexual concepts that are beyond the ability of his children to process.

Here is a brief quote from the post:

“We live in a culture where kids lose their innocence so young. They are bombarded by sexuality and violence and language at such an early age. And it makes me mad and sad. It’s not fair to our children. They ought to be able to enjoy their edenic innocence as long as possible.”

While I applaud Mark Batterson’s awareness of what his children are being exposed to and taking a proactive approach to what his children are exposed to, there are some parents who, in my opinion, are overprotective. Now, I don’t think Mark is one of those overprotective parents based on what I read from him, but I do think that there needs to be more clarity on what is meant by “edenic innocence.” For some that means sheltering children from all that is “secular” to the point of handicapping them from being a missional follower of Christ.

I’m all for parents being active filters for their children. We need to be continually passing those filters on to our children, though, so they can discern and filter things on their own as they grow and are capable of doing so. The difficulty comes in discerning for ourselves, as parents, when to pass on certain filters to our children, giving them responsibility for their own discernment. It should be a gradual process that is governed by prayer and seeking of wisdom from parents who have “been down that road” already.

• If you are a parent, how do you determine what is and what isn’t appropriate for your children?
• How do you determine when it is time for your children to make discernment calls on their own?
• As children’s ministers, how do you counsel parents?
• Are there resources/authors that you gravitate to when partnering with parents?

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(picture originally uploaded to Flickr by brownpau)

Almost eleven years ago, my wife and I found out she was pregnant with our first child (we now have 4 and are done!). At the time, we were making very little money and had just recently moved to Oregon where she had a full time job and I was a temp in the pathology lab at Salem Hospital. We knew that we couldn’t afford to buy disposable diapers so we decided to go the cloth diaper route. There was only one problem. We didn’t have our own washer and dryer, and we definitely could not buy one. Inspired by the story of George Müller that I remember hearing from one of my chemistry professors at Asbury College, I remember saying out loud with Erin, “God, it would be great if you could get us a washer and dryer that we didn’t have to buy.” That’s it. We never really thought about it or prayed about it again. You can imagine my shock when my wife was talking with her aunt, who live in Oregon as well, on the phone and said, “REALLY!! Um, yeah, we’d love to have your washer and dryer.” Her aunt had recently remarried and had an extra washer and dryer in perfectly good condition.

I love to tell people that story of God’s provision. It’s one of many my wife and I could tell about God’s visible hand in our lives throughout our marriage. A few months ago, we told this story to our children… again. It was cool to see the “I’m-too-cool-to-smile” smile from my 10-year-old son. We told him and his sisters a few other faith stories that evening: how God provided a full time job for me just in time for me to qualify for health insurance right before he was born, how he prayed as a 3-year-old for us to have our own house weeks before finding out my parents were giving us money for a down payment on a house, and how he prayed for my brother to find a wife only to get a call from my brother about this really neat girl he met whom he ended up getting married to.

You could see the excitement in my children’s eyes and the conversation we had following that they grasped onto the reality that they were a part of God’s Story for our family and the world around us. One goal my wife and I have for our children is that they discover how they can step into God’s Story for their lives. One of the tangible ways we do that is by sharing our family stories of faith… and not just ones that have to do with our nuclear family but how God is working in the lives of our relatives and friends as well.

This morning I read a blog post on Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed Blog that reminded my of the importance family faith stories have in passing on faith to our children. As children’s ministers, we can get so caught up in making sure we get the right Biblical information into children and families that we forget to facilitate families entering into God’s Story and being a part of the Story. It’s not going to be the amount of information that we pass on to children and families that will captivate them and keep them committed to a relationship with God. (Don’t get me wrong… right Biblical knowledge is important.) What will keep them committed is a connection and participation in a Story that is bigger and more full than any story they could write for themselves. We need to encourage families to keep track of their family faith stories and revisit those stories as a family often as well as continue to create new family faith stories by stepping out and chasing after the Spirit of God and what he has for them.

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(photo originally uploaded to Flickr by cobalt123)

Yesterday, I was inspired by my 4-year-old daughter’s decision to ask God to “be the leader of her life” to dig up an old article on how young children can make decisions to follow Christ. That article was written almost seven years ago when my oldest, who is now 10, made his own decision to follow Christ.

Sometimes, though, a child’s decision to follow Christ can’t be pinpointed to a single moment or prayer. For some children, it is more of a realization that they are following Christ and they can’t think of having decided to do anything else. That was the case for me as a child. I grew up in a Christian household and can’t remember a time that I haven’t loved God or not wanted to follow him and be a part of his family. As I grew up, I would hear of people talking about praying “the prayer.” Since I never remembered doing that, I would raise my hand and repeat after the teacher or pastor or evangelist… on more than one occasion… to make sure that I had done the salvation thing right. Whether that’s good or bad is for a whole other discussion.

Luckily, I had parents who simply reaffirmed my desire to follow God and never questioned whether or not I had prayed some special salvation prayer. They knew that I did have a relationship with God and continually modelled what that meant through how they lived their lives.

I’m so glad that I had an experience like that because my oldest daughter, who is 7 now, never had that “salvation moment” that her older brother and younger sister have had. She simply came to the realization that she was following God and wanted to continue following God and love him and be a part of his family.

I don’t remember the exact day, but I do remember she was five years old when I realized this was the case for her. We were talking as a family during some activity about following Jesus. She raised her hand, along with her older brother, when we asked who was following Jesus. Out of curiosity of what a 5 year old’s understanding of what it meant to follow Jesus, I asked her, “How do you know you are following Jesus?” She answered, “Because I love him and he loves me. I want to do the things he wants me to do. I follow him like you and mommy and Jeremiah.”

At a point like this, the temptation would be to ask if she had prayed to ask God to be the leader of her life. In so doing, I think I would’ve crushed her declaration in faith that she was following Jesus. Luckily, I chose to affirm her. Since then she has exhibited over and over again a growing understanding of what it means to follow Jesus and the sacrifice Jesus paid to make that possible.

Last night, knowing that I was going to write this post, I asked her (in a ritual that gets repeated with my other children as well), “How do you know you are following Jesus?” She answered simply, “Because I love him and I know he loves me. I feel his love for me. I want to live the way he wants me to live. He’s my friend.”

I, then, asked her if she was worried that she never prayed a prayer like her brother or sister. She said, “No. Because I know that I’m following God and God knows, too.”

Every child will respond to the call of God’s Spirit in her own way. Some will have that cliche-ish defining moment where they pray a prayer or make some sort of declaration and can point to the exact time when they decided to follow Jesus. Others will simply come to realize that they are a part of God’s family and are following him and loving him with their hearts, souls, minds and bodies. It is our job as parents and ministers to be there to affirm their declarations of faith and continue pointing them to the author and finisher of that faith.

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(picture originally uploaded to Flickr by babsteve)

This past Sunday when my wife dropped off my 4-year-old daughter in the JK/SK class I teach, she gave me one of those your-daughter-has-exciting-news looks. When I asked my daughter what her news was, she ran over and excitedly whispered in my ear, “I made God the leader of my life.”

As a Christian parent, I can’t imagine too many other moments in my children’s lives that could bring me more joy. It brought back memories and emotions from when my oldest son had a similar moment when he was three. Soon after he had expressed a desire to put God in charge of his life I wrote the following article for my church’s newsletter (you can also find it at the Kidology website):

The evening came and went so quickly. It was a moment that I had been praying for and anticipating for just over three years. My three-year-old son prayed, “Jesus, you can come in my heart. Take my naughties away. Help me not to be naughty. Amen.” It was a decision he made by himself without coercion or coaching. In his own three-year-old way he understood his need for God and God’s desire to enter his heart.

Is it possible for a child so young to understand what it means to make Jesus the Lord of his life? Some people will argue that until a child reaches the elementary school ages, she doesn’t have the capacity to become born again. They contend that the concept of repentance and the redemptive work Christ accomplished by dying on the cross is too abstract a concept for little children to understand. Yet, how many adults can adequately explain and understand what was accomplished on the cross?

It has been my experience in children’s ministry that little children can independently make a decision to ask Jesus into their hearts and understand that by doing so Jesus is removing the sin in their lives that separates them from God. A child may not be able to articulate it in that way, but they do understand at their developmental level. Fortunately, I don’t have to base my belief on my experience alone. Jesus tells us that children are more capable of knowing what it takes to enter heaven than adults do. “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3, NIV).

How does a little child reach the conclusion that she needs God in her heart? It is a process. Everyone has to go through a process, initiated by the Holy Spirit, before they come to a decision to allow Christ in their hearts. For little children, though, that process can begin as early as, even before, conception. There are three things that my wife and I have done to help our children understand their need for God: (1) Pray for them; (2) Be intentional in their spiritual training; and (3) put Jesus first in all aspects of their lives.

Prayer is the most powerful tool given to us as parents. “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (James 5:16b). The wonderful thing about praying for your children is that you don’t have to wait until you have children to begin praying for them. My wife and I began praying for our children soon after we were married. We knew that we would eventually have children and desired that they would some day come to know Christ as their personal Savior. Much of our prayers were centered on equipping us to effectively model and pass on our faith to our children.

Once my wife became pregnant, our prayers became focused on our child. I can remember many evenings placing my hands on my wife’s belly, feeling my son move around, and asking that the Holy Spirit already place a desire within his heart to seek out a relationship with his heavenly Father. As our son has grown, and now a daughter, we have continued to pray for them. We pray that their desire to know God increases with each day.

As soon as our children were born, we realized a need to put our prayers into action and be intentional with their spiritual training. From birth, I’ve sung hymns and choruses to my children. I am constantly reminding them that God loves them, has a plan for their lives, and wants to live in their hearts. The evening before my son asked Jesus into his heart, I asked him, as I did on many nights before, “Who has a plan for your life?” My son answered, “God.” He then asked me a question, “What is God’s plan for my life?” I told him, “Only God knows that. Maybe He’ll tell you while you sleep.” I will always remember the contented smile he had on his face as he nodded and said, “Yup!” The next evening he knew that Jesus wanted to be in his heart and followed through with the first step in God’s plan for his life.

We need to be intentional in the spiritual training of our children by not letting any moment pass to recognize God’s hand. As you admire a beautiful sunset, point out God’s wonderful creativity. As you hold your child tight, let her know that God loves her even more than you do. As you tuck him in for the night, read an age-appropriate Bible story to him and pray with him. Be sure your child is saturated with spiritual instruction at home and at church.

As you pray for your children and intentionally teach them spiritual truths, be sure to put Jesus first in all aspects of their lives. As soon as our son was able to verbally communicate and understand, we began connecting his behavior with how Jesus would react to it. If he misbehaved, it not only made mom and dad sad, it made Jesus sad as well. When he behaved, he knew that Jesus had a big smile on His face because Jesus wants us to obey our moms and dads. When he hears an ambulance siren, he knows that Jesus wants us to pray for the hurt people. On the day he asked Jesus in his heart, my son told my wife, “Jesus wants to come in my heart. He wants to take my naughties.”
If children are taught from a very early age to consider what Jesus would do or how he would feel in certain situations, they will take that with them as they grow older and begin to make moral decisions on their own. “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

Can parents ensure that their children will choose to follow God for the rest of their lives? No. Each person has the free will to choose how they will live their lives. We can, though, lay a foundation that our children will be able to build upon. As parents we must be proactive in steering our children toward God. We live in a fallen world and must safeguard our children while we are able to. Pray for your children. Be intentional in their spiritual training. Put Jesus first in all aspects of their lives. It is never too early (or too late) to start.

I asked my son this morning where Jesus was. He pointed to his chest and said, “He’s in my heart. He’s bigger!” Exactly!

Since writing that article, I’ve had two more children. (Yes, if you are keeping count… that is 4 kids! We’re crazy.) It is my hope and desire for all of my children to realize at a young age that they can follow God and have a friendship with him. From that point on, it becomes my wife’s and my responsibility to help them continue to follow God and grow closer to him and become more aware of him and experience him as they are able to through their different development stages.

A question, though, that needs to be asked is, “Do all children have that cliche-ish ’salvation moment?’” I don’t think so. Tomorrow, I will post about my oldest daughter’s experience in her realization that she is a part of God’s family.

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(photo originally uploaded to Flickr by afiler)

I am still reeling from editing a video for Mothers’ Day. (Ha! I didn’t mean the pun… I’m soooo funny…) The video isn’t done yet. What I did was take some video of a group of ladies that my wife meets with every other week. When they meet, one person brings a question or discussion topic (it could be anything) that the group will talk about for the duration of their time. I asked Erin if I could film their group talking about motherhood and how their spirituality and being part of a church community affects their motherhood. I am putting together some of what was said into a documentary type video.

I was struck by some of the things that came up in their conversation. Some of it very encouraging about the what we are doing in children’s ministry at Redwood and some of it made me stop and question some assumptions we make about parents and volunteerism.

One of the things that made be sing for joy (internally… because that would’ve been distracting to the group if I did it out loud), was when one of the ladies stated her satisfaction that the church was a support to what parents are doing at home. I’m convinced that I had one of those stupid grins on my face when she said that. It was encouraging that parents have caught on to the value that parents are their children’s primary faith model and the church is here to support and equip them to do so.

There are a couple of things that were said, though, that made me stop and reconsider some assumptions I’ve made.

One of the ladies expressed immense gratitude that we had children’s programming because they knew their children were being well cared for and taught… but also because that hour and a half, many times, was the only time that week in which she was able to spend time as an adult and worshipping with other adults as well as being with her husband.

Another thing that was expressed was thankfulness that we don’t “pressure” people to volunteer. We don’t have any kind of co-op or require parents to volunteers. The sentiment was that there are different seasons of life, and she did not feel guilty for stepping out of volunteering to care for her newborn. Because of that she has a greater respect for the leadership and is looking forward to being able to step back in and be more involved as her kids get older.

It was really neat being able to be a fly on the wall of sorts and hear some unedited conversations of parents who are a part of our ministry. I was also honoured that these ladies trusted me enough to crash their personal connecting time. I’m already thinking of how I can do something like this periodically to get some unscripted thoughts from parents about their life, their children, what they think about church and how we might be doing to lift them up as families.

How do you evaluate your assumptions? How do you get feedback about what you do in ministry?

What do you think about what was said about the importance for parents to have children in their own programming at church?

What do you think about “no pressure” recruiting/volunteerism?

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(image originally uploaded to Flickr by fattytuna)

About a month ago while me and my family were in Chicago for Conspire 2009, my wife was talking to our oldest son (9 years old) about what the word holy means. She explained that it literally means “to be set apart” or special. Too many times we confuse that holy means being perfect. She, then, went on to explain that it was sort of like our china… we use our china for special purposes. When we are holy, we are special sort of like our china is special.

My son jumped in saying that when we aren’t holy, it’s like being paper plates instead of china… wow! I was floored that he caught on so quickly and understood what we were trying to convey to him about being holy.

If that wasn’t enough, he went on to say that there are some people who think they are better china than others, and they treat other people like paper plates. He ended by saying that we need to treat the people around us like china and not paper plates.

It was at that moment that I had trouble seeing where I was driving. I still get emotional even thinking about the amazing grasp and simplicity with which he stated what so many of us who claim to follow Christ miss. He understood and could articulate in his own words loving God and loving others.

It’s moments like those that remind me that I can do nothing to make my child grow spiritually. No amount of family devotions or memory verses or family ministry curriculum can make children grow spiritually. God’s Spirit is the one responsible for that. All I (or any other parent) can do is daily give my children over to God and model for them what a surrendered life to God looks like… bumps, messups and all.

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