This article was transcribed from a Ministry Spark Webinar with Raised to Stay author Natalie Runion. You can watch the full webinar here.
To our children’s pastors and youth pastors and nursery caregivers, some of the first to introduce Jesus to a brand-new flock. You are more than spiritual babysitters and Christian entertainment for the Church.
You are some of the very first to pastor our children and young people through biblical creativity, gentle discipleship, and sweet Psalms.
We see you rocking babies, changing diapers, holding hands, wiping noses, all while teaching lessons on blind men, seeing lame men walking, Noah building, Moses partying, Zacchaeus climbing, and Father Abraham marching.
You are some of the first our families meet as they learn to trust God and their littles are welcomed to the family of God. You remember names when they expect you to forget birthdays, anniversaries, and milestones, and watch in pride as they graduate from your arms to running the church halls on their own two feet.
You are the most hidden down long hallways tucked in little spaces, but you are most seen by the Heavenly Father who welcomes the little children. You are about His business. You carry His heart and reflect His love to every tiny soul.
Thank you for being the gatekeepers of a new generation of sheep by protecting their innocence and instilling in them a deep love for Jesus. Thank you for teaching them friendship, how to share that it’s okay to cry, and to celebrate when mom and dad show up to take them home.
You are an eternal extension to our earthly families. And we will never forget the songs you taught us, Scriptures we memorized, and prizes we won. Jesus being the greatest reward.
May you know your labor is not in vain. Walk with authority and purpose as you lead our littles to the feet of a good Father.
Raised to Stay
Because of having children of my own, it’s always an honor to speak with children’s ministry leaders.
This space with our children is really something that just burns in my heart because children are not the future of the Church. They are the Church. And we know that the Holy Spirit who moves and speaks to us is the same Holy Spirit we encounter through biblical formation and worship.
He is the same Holy Spirit who our children can feel in their bedrooms while they’re worshiping and reading their Bibles. He’s the same who guides them while they’re with their friends and while they are learning. The Holy Spirit is a hundred percent moving in them and through them.
Growing up, children’s church was my jam. I knew every song, I was in every play, and I was saved when I was seven. I can remember it happening when I was sitting in a children’s church service, hearing the gospel being presented to me by my children’s pastor.
But get this, I didn’t go to the altar at church that night. I waited until I got home. I do believe that sometimes we think that creating these hyped situations are what will speak to kids. And then we feel like we’ve failed when nothing happens.
It Continues at Home
But I waited until I got home because I wanted my parents to be part of it. And even at seven years old, I went home and processed this message of Jesus Christ in the safety of my bedroom. I then called my mom into my room and had my mom pray with me.
I can remember it like it was yesterday. I ran into my parents’ bedroom. And I started screaming at the top of my lungs to my dad, “I’m a Christian!”
I loved the church like my own family. My dad was a pastor. I was raised by church people. I went to public school, but we lived in church parsonages. So church people were everywhere I went.
If I wasn’t at the church, I was with church people. And I probably saw church people more than I saw my own biological family.
Hurt Happens
But many of us know that if you love something, there is a likelihood that you’re going to get hurt by it. And when I began to grow a little bit older, I would watch my parents get hurt by this very institution, this very place that was supposed to protect me.
While we will face hard times, it is very important that we are not trauma dumping on our children.
I can remember standing on the front of that platform as they announced, unbeknownst to us, that it was our last Sunday. In my life, it was like a funeral. And that was really the first time at 18 years old that I thought, you know what, God, if these are your people, “no thank you.”
What if We're Failing Kids at Faith Formation? (And How Not To)
What if We're Failing Kids at Faith Formation? (And How Not To)
What if We're Failing Kids at Faith Formation? (And How Not To)
Importance of Biblical Formation
The reason we need biblical formation is because there will come a point where children will have to fight for faith. When voices come into our lives through college professors, through friends, through other people’s family members, and they start to say the thing that Satan says, it’s important our kids know what God says and what His Word says.
And if God says it and the Word says it, then that means that it’s true. And if we don’t know the Word of God, then we can’t declare it over the things that are being spoken to us that are lies.
Altogether, we’re a team. A body of believers who want to point children to Him.
For me, I didn’t understand my need for biblical formation until college. It was through Campus Crusade for Christ that I started to develop a biblical literacy. It allowed me to be able to stand up in rooms and say, “Here’s why I believe that God is the God of the universe.”
Biblical formation at an early age must be repetitive.
And so, if we’re pouring into kids every Sunday morning and then they’re going to school, or they’re going to their sporting event, or they’re going to a sleepover, and they’re having other things poured in on top of that, we want that biblical formation to be the thing that’s really taking root in their life. It can sift out anything that’s toxic.
Raised in Christ Vs. Raised in Church
What I love is that I was raised knowing Jesus. And that’s the difference. We can send our kids to church and hope that our kids pastors are going to help us partner in our children’s faith. But really what’s going to keep them going to church is not the programming, but this relationship with Jesus that has them believing with their whole heart. Knowing that they are loved, wanted, believed in, and that they have purpose.
And that’s really what I have been trying to instill in my children as I’m raising my own stayers. It’s not about simply attending church. It’s about knowing Jesus together. We go to church to be with His people, to learn, and then to take all of that out to a world that’s desperate.
Radically Rooted
We have to continue to teach our children that their value—their identity—is rooted and established in Christ, which means we have to raise radical children. When we look at the word radical, the root word in Hebrew means rooted.
It means that they are rooted in something so strongly that no matter how difficult things get—no matter how much persecution they face, no matter how many times they’re made fun of at school, no matter how much church hurt—that they’re so rooted and established in Christ. So then when tragedy comes, when chaos comes, when the enemy blows that hot air toward their house, they will not be moved.
That like a tree planted by the water, they will be rooted and established in Christ so they will not be shaken when people fall, when there’s moral failures of leaders, when there are people that aren’t who they say that they are. They’ll be so radically saved, so radical for Jesus, that they cannot be moved from the foundation of their faith.
Identity in Christ
I believe that when our children believe that they are loved by God, when they truly believe they are loved by God, that is one way that we are going to keep them asking questions about who God is.
I believe the Scriptures when it says that He loves you, that He protects you, that He fights for you. We have to be willing to model that in our homes for our children, because a lot of times our children are going to imagine the love of God looking like the love of their earthly father.
Biblical formation at an early age must be repetitive.
And depending on what that looks like to them, it can skew how they see God’s love. So, in children’s ministry, we must begin to model it for them.
When it comes to ministering to our children to teach them love of God, it doesn’t have to come directly from even the parent or the pastor. It can come from the precious volunteers who are just waiting for someone to activate the passion that’s inside of them.
Altogether, we’re a team. A body of believers who want to point children to Him.
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I want to encourage you that if you’ve been hurt by the church, if you have a little bit of bitterness in your heart, if you don’t do it for anyone else, do it for your children. Do it for your children. Get to a place where you can forgive. You don’t have to forget but get to a point where you can talk about people with a mindset of blessing them.
Because I want my kids to see that a reconciled church is the church that will bring revival, making Christ’s last command our first concern, and modeling His love for our children every single day.
