Sometime during my first week as a “pastor in training” of a small but growing church, the associate pastor approached me, holding a plastic crate full of files. The smile on his face telegraphed that I was about to become the new owner of whatever ministry responsibility lay inside. I didn’t mind; I felt God’s call to ministry and was glad to help.
“I’m so glad you have joined us on staff,” he said with a smirk, exercising his newfound seniority over the new guy. He said, “From now on, you are in charge of our Children’s Ministry.”
With the passing of the crate, he commissioned me, a 24-year-old single guy, as the new Children’s Pastor. Little did I realise the significance of that decision.
I took the files back to my broom closet of an office and dropped them on the lone folding chair. The jumble of information inside made little sense to me, so I decided to call Cindy, the wife of the couple who oversaw our Sunday morning children’s program.
Cindy expressed gratefulness for my call. She made one request, “Can you help us know what to teach the children? We’ve passed a collection of curriculum samples for the associate pastor to review. I don’t think he’s had the chance to review them. You’ll find them in a plastic crate.”
“I’m looking at it,” I said. “He passed the crate to me earlier this morning.”
“What we teach our children is really important,” she explained. She wanted our children’s ministry to be more than babysitting. Over the 35 years I’ve continued overseeing our children’s ministry, I’ve come to understand the importance of discipling our kids. The children who show up to your children’s ministry on a Sunday morning are an essential cog in the long-term health of your church. Churches that fail to reach the next generation die with the baton of the gospel still in their hands.
Here are three keys to help you ensure your children’s ministry will effectively help parents pass their faith onto the next generation.
Curriculum is key
The curriculum you choose sets the direction for your ministry program, like the needle of a compass pointing north. Your curriculum must point the children to the gospel. Ensuring the content of your curriculum points the children to Christ is your most important responsibility as the pastor of your children’s ministry program. Make sure the curriculum you pick out of the crate of options showcases the gospel. The Apostle Paul summed up the core of our message with these words:
“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.”1 Corinthians 15:3–4
The message we teach our children at every gathering must align with the scriptures’ gospel message. Crowd breakers and games will help keep the kids in your classroom safely entertained, but children’s ministry is meant to be more than babysitting. An hour of animated cartoons will hold their attention but can’t change their hearts. Only the life-transforming message of the gospel can plant a seed that can sprout into faith and repentance in the heart of the next generation.
Beware of moralistic curriculums that teach the next generation to be “good kids” but miss critical gospel truths. While teaching the children to tell the truth and be respectful is important, our children need to understand why we lie and show disrespect in the first place. We are all sinners, helpless to save ourselves. Jesus is the truth we need, and only the Holy Spirit can transform and redeem a disrespectful heart. Take the gospel out of the curriculum, and you’ll raise a generation of Pharisees who think they can be good without Jesus.
Avoid curriculums that hold up the heroes of the faith as character examples for the kids as the main point of their lessons. While we do want our children to demonstrate the obedience of Noah, the strength of Samson, and the courage of David, we want our children to recognise that without Jesus, we are the sinners outside of the ark. All the strength of Samson cannot save us from our sins. We are more like the sinful Israelites frozen in fear against Goliath than David. David’s life points to God’s salvation plan through Christ. Choose a curriculum that centralises the gospel in the Old Testament Bible storyline.
Deciding what to do with the kids in your children’s ministry is one of the most critical decisions a pastor will make. The moment we gather children into a classroom under our care, we, as pastors, become responsible for the content of that care.
Providing a safe environment for children is a key priority, but once we gather the children under our care, the program we present can make a lasting impact – or not.
Enlist the dads
Passing the gospel onto the next generation should not be left to our wives alone. I thank God for the many mothers and grandmothers involved in our children’s programs, but I do all I can to involve the dads of our church. The scriptures call us dads to disciple the next generation, yet many of us are unsure how to accomplish that goal.
Involving fathers as teachers in children’s ministry provides a training ground for them to do at home what children’s ministry requires in the classroom.
Every dad engaged in children’s ministry gets essential hands-on training for gospel work at home. Our ministry to children is critical gospel work that will help ensure our grandchildren and great-grandchildren have a church to attend and a place of discipleship for their children.
Delegate the details
Perhaps the most important key to an effective children’s ministry is finding the right person(s) to shoulder most of the workload. I regularly receive calls from pastors asking, “How do you serve as the Executive Pastor of a thousand-member church and still lead your children’s ministry?” The answer is found in balanced delegation.
I have a team of servants who run our ministry to children. They do most of everything. I retain a few key responsibilities. First, I maintain the vision for the ministry and participate in key meetings two or three times a year. I help recruit leaders to ensure we have the right people in leadership.
Finally, I preach once a month to the primary school children. The teachers assigned to that week manage the classroom, but I come in to preach the message. This serves several important purposes: it allows me to maintain the pulse of the ministry, offers support to the key leaders, and provides a service example for the dads of the church. Altogether, I spend two or three hours a week leading our ministry to kids – about a half hour a day. I am convinced that when I reach heaven, I’ll discover that half an hour will have reaped the greatest impact.
I’ll be glad for the time I spent watching over the church budget and managing our building. I may receive a “well done” for leading the other pastors and deacons. But nothing will compare to the reward of knowing God used my leadership and teaching to lead a young person to Christ.
©2024 Marty Machowski. Originally published on focusonthefamily.com
Marty Machowski
Marty Machowski is a Family Pastor and an author of gospel-rich books and curriculum for children, families, and churches.