Scripture: Selected Scripture
Date: April 1, 2012
Speaker: Sean Higgins
From the start of Trinity Evangel Church and our very first “family meeting” we have emphasized our desire to nurture the vine (people) and then to build trellis (programs, structure) when it was clear that the vine was growing in a particular direction or when the vine developed a certain need. Since the beginning also, when we’ve invited questions and feedback, a regular topic of discussion has been children’s ministry.
It’s a normal question. It’s normal because that’s what most of us are familiar with, what we’ve come from, what we’re used to. Probably what makes the question even more natural though, is that we care about our kids, about their salvation, about providing the best resources for them to grow in knowledge of and likeness to Christ.
Historically, especially within the last 100 years or so, the answer to training our kids has included some sort of Sunday school or children’s church. That’s what most of grew up in and, once we grew up, that’s what we provided for the new ones growing up. Of course, we’ve also known a few people who argue against children’s ministry—and boy can they argue. They often fight with such a high pitched shrill that it’s hard that to hear if they have any reasonable points or not. They usually pull out Deuteronomy 6, maybe Ephesians 6 too, and condemn churches with ministries that replace parents. Well, that is bad, right, to disobey the Bible in order to teach the Bible?
Initially at TEC we didn’t even have the facilities for a full-blown children’s ministry, nor did it seem at the time like a wise use of our trellis building energies and tools when we didn’t even know where we were going to meet or who was going to bring the folding chairs.
By God’s grace things are much more settled now. We’ve been in the same building for 50 Lord’s days and have a better idea of how many people are likely to show up on Sunday. So various questions about children’s ministry have come up again over the last few months. Some have been more constructive, some have been more critical. But as we said from the start, we don’t want to fear jumping into the “mess,” and here we are.
Our trajectory may be more clear after the recent series on worship and parenting. Numerous implications are floating around from those messages and discussions. The implications are circling the field, visible up in the sky, but not on the ground. After multiple conversations among the elders and at L2L groups and with individuals, it seemed like a good time to attempt to bring some of those implications in for a landing. In other words, I want to provide an explicit list of our priorities and our plans for ministering to our kids and parents as they raise their sons and daughters in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
By “our” priorities I mean all the elders. I get to be the mouthpiece, but this isn’t something I came up with by myself.
Most Sunday school ministry takes place on…Sundays. While some children’s ministries have mid-week meetings, young kids can’t drive themselves. Sunday stuff makes sense because the parents are already driving to church and they can’t leave the kids home by themselves anyway.
Our discussion about children’s ministry, especially in a Sunday school type setting, can’t be separated from our corporate Sunday priorities. Here are three.
When the church assembles on the Lord’s day, she gathers to worship, to draw near to God, and to meet with Him as an assembly. That means that worship is more than instruction. While there are many good things that have come, and could come, from age-specific teaching on the Lord’s day, we believe that there are other and better things. Even if we agreed that young kids could not understand anything from the big church teaching, worship is more than teaching.
It also means that worship involves work for everyone: singing, praying, hearing the Word read, giving, and participating in (or watching) the ordinances. Kids can do all of that even if not at the same level.
That’s part of the reason we talk about liturgy, not because we’re focused on externals or trying to make others feel bad that they don’t have our order of service, but because what we do and how we do it makes a point to our souls, and the souls of our kids. It means that worship is learned by observation. Why do we confess our sins as a congregation, and why are people kneeling? Why do we have communion every week? Why do we have a charge rather than an altar call at the end of a service? These are the kinds of questions we want everyone, including our kids, to be asking.
Kids also learn by being included. They are part of us. We want them to worship God. We want them to see what that’s like, to see our joy in meeting with God together. We want them to taste it. That can’t happen if we send them to another room.
We want kids to learn that worship is more than instruction (which is a truth-tube holdover for many of us). We want them to learn that worship is their responsibility and joy. We want them to learn worship by imitation, as we fulfill our responsibility joyfully. And we want them to learn that they are with us, part of us. Those without kids or grown kids, need to be patient and encourage those doing hard enculturating work.
We do not want to separate the kids, or a staff of Sunday school teachers, from corporate worship. [Babies and nursing moms are a bit different, so we will continue to provide a place for them where they don’t need to be as quiet.]
Worship of God on Sunday is patterned by Israel’s worship of God on the Sabbath. God established the week with six days for work and one day of ceasing work devoted to Him. After Christ rose from dead on the first day of the week, the early Christians transitioned to meeting on the first day as a weeklyversary of His resurrection.
The Sunday purposes of a gathered celebration and vocational rest still continue and are a priority for our church. The very first Sunday night I mentioned our desire to avoid scheduling weariness on the day of rest.
This priority is significant because one option for having kids worship with us and having a Sunday school could be to start earlier. We could plan a Sunday school “hour” and then a corporate worship “hour” for everyone. That would certainly be better than separating them, but it adds a significant amount of trellis work (finding and training staff, finding and preparing materials, preparing and cleaning up rooms, etc.) for what may not be a significant gain.
Even though we currently have some space we could utilize for some level of Sunday school, and while we have a few who have expressed their willingness to serve, we are more excited about promoting more rest, with less events and expectations.
There is no verse that tells us how many hours to hold meetings. The decision requires wisdom and, we acknowledge, wisdom grows, so we may realize at some point that the flock, and kids, would be edified more by more meetings. But we do not believe that more meetings than we currently have would do the body that much better, especially when it comes to the day of rest.
We do not want to add extra burdens to Sunday.
This may not initially seem like a Lord’s day priority, and it isn’t only for Sundays, but separating dads and the Lord’s day shows how little we understand worship, how little we appreciate liturgy, and how little we appreciate God’s use of examples.
If we want (and we should want) our kids or grandkids, the next generation, to be worshippers of God, what should we do? Of course we should tell them about God’s worth. We should tell them stories of His work for His people, especially in His Son. We should also tell them that God requires worship and punishes those who don’t or who worship another god. We should tell them how to worship. But we must also show them how to do it!
Enculturation is not a class. Our tastes are not shaped by cook books, but by smelling and tasting food. Our taste of the Lord’s goodness is not shaped by crossword puzzles or duck-duck-goose with little Christian peers, but by tasting. And who do kids look to first to know what’s good? Their parents, and especially their dads.
As a church, we want to encourage kids to watch. As a church, we want to give dads and moms the opportunity to show the tastiness of fellowship with God. As a church, we want for kids to see what their parents love most.
You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. (Deuteronomy 6:5–7)
Consider it another way. We could arrange to teach your kids Bible stories here and you can teach your kids Bible stories at home. But you can NOT arrange to show your kids corporate worship at home by yourselves. It isn’t an either/or decision, but we do believe that many parents, dads especially, do not grasp the power of their humble, joyful, faithful, weekly worship in front of their families. If you want to lead your family, it takes more than getting everyone here. It’s showing them what to do once you’re here. Then you can talk about it afterward, too.
We do not want to remove the opportunity for parents to enculturate their kids. Granted, not all parents are the same. However, every parent’s responsibility for his kids is the same. Depending on others to do what parents won’t do usually ends in disaster.
Alright, what are we going to DO ? Priorities are fine, but priorities don’t do anything, they only aim the works to be done. For now, we have four broad strategies to make worshipping disciples of the next generation without starting a Sunday school ministry.
I was a youth pastor in a couple different churches for over a decade. As I look back on that ministry, the best we could do is stimulate what was supported at home. I can’t think of more than a handful of spiritual “success” stories where a student thrived in Christian joy and service without his parent’s support. What’s more, in those ministries, we typically offered a lot more than an hour or two of classroom activities each week. We did a lot of work that supplemented what was happening at home, but it could not stand on its own.
To serve kids in a sustaining way we must strengthen their parents. I suspect no one disagrees in principle that parents are responsible, but we really mean it. It is not without intention that we have Men to Men and invite all the men of the church to come. While we’ve been reading and discussing a book on eldership, it is equally a book on faithful Christian leadership in the home.
an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? (1 Timothy 3:2–5)
As men are strengthened, as they get a clearer vision of Christ-like leadership, they will raise stronger kids.
Titus 2 is a ministry aimed at encouraging women to love their husbands and to love their kids.
Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. (Titus 2:3–5)
A husband and wife are the first place the kids learn what the Trinity is like (implied from Genesis 1 and 2) and what Christ’s relationship with His Church is like (Ephesians 5).
“a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:31–32, quoting Genesis 2:24 in verse 31)
The Life to Life groups are also part of children’s ministry because, again, parents who are growing spiritually, who are learning to do the word not only hear it (James 1:19-25), who are learning to live in community with others sinners (Colossians 3:12-17), will shape the micro-community of their home differently (Colossians 3:18ff).
We do plan, also, on having occasional parenting series (like the one we finished a month ago) as well as parenting classes in the future. There is also already significant personal shepherding (“counseling”) taking place with numerous families having marital or parenting troubles.
The kids are being considered and cared for even though there is obviously more work to do.
Since we’re making such a big deal out of corporate worship and wanting everyone to be together in our services as much as is reasonable, we have been and will continue to think about ways to help.
It’s not easy to take care of kids depending on age, or the kid himself. But it is worth it. Corporate worship is challenging for everyone. It challenges quiet people to be loud at times and loud people to be quiet at other times. It challenges lazy people to participate and it requires leaders to follow. It requires squirmy kids to sit still and lumps on a log to engage.
But sitting still is not the end, as helpful of a life skill as that is. Paying attention is not the end, as helpful as that can be. Having affections for God stirred and expressed in meeting God is the end.
We have singing mixed throughout Sunday morning . Young and old get to stand up and participate and they don’t need to be quiet. The longest time for sitting still is the sermon, which are somewhat shorter as I aim for 40-45 minutes. I also try to engage the kids purposefully at different times in different messages. And Gail Martin has faithfully prepared Kids’ Korners .
Mo lead an entire discussion a few weeks ago at Titus 2 on practical things to do , and much of it involves work at home throughout the week and before church starts. We can make that audio available if you’d like to hear it. Dads, you also need to work and not expect your wife to do it all. Make it enjoyable for them which starts by enjoying it (and them) yourselves. Make the service sweet/tasty (even with candy) and warm (with hugs and pats). There are things parents can do before and during the service to enable the whole family to worship.
Evangel Classical School is a key component in our strategy to serve children and families, a key strategy for worldview enculturation and additional, weekday catechesis.
First, not everyone is interested in Christian schooling for their kids, let alone classical Christian schooling, let alone a brand-new school. That’s okay. Not everyone is interested in Sunday school even when it’s available. No parent has to use every resource, though they are responsible to do something. There is a difference between parents being primarily responsible to God for their kids and parents acting as the only influence on their kids. Wise parents will seek additional influences and helps.
Second, not everyone can afford a Christian school for their kids. In some sense, calling a school a “ministry” may not fit. But we also aren’t doing it for profit. Trinity Evangel Church is working and planning and supporting ECS in such a way that as many like-minded families can take advantage if they desire.
Without doubt there is a lot to teach our kids (including catechesis), and it includes much more than school on Sunday only allows for. Plus, because God made and cares for everything, not just Noah and the flood, Moses and the Red Sea, David and Bathsheba, Saul on the road to Damascus, we want to train the next generation with a comprehensive eduction under Christ’s lordship.
All parents should be teaching their kids to love God (again, Deuteronomy 6) and we want to support parents in their work of giving their kids a worldview that never forgets or assumes that Jesus’ lordship is inconsequential.
We see the school as a help to shape worshippers. Note also, a school isn’t the church nor can a school replicate the church’s corporate worship. A school can help train individuals at different levels and help inform them for greater joy on Sundays.
We totally think that occasional events such as Vacation Bible Schools or Backyard Bible Clubs would be fantastic. We’re looking forward to providing resources for those events.
For the older students we have “after glows” on evenings when we have services, we plan to have more camps or retreats with another camping retreat this summer. We hope to have more of these ways to serve them and have them serve as well.
There is nothing stopping Life to Life group events set aside specifically to encourage the kids. But again, these supplement our corporate worship rather than separates us during it.
It can’t be targeted at this alone, but the final key strategy to helping our kids is to worship God, to learn how and why and what we get from worshipping Him. Specifically, we are changed as we meet with God. We become different people, week by week, as we behold His glory. He is transforming parents, and kids, every Lord’s day. Some parents aren’t comfortable because worship is rooting out sin. Some are realize the power of it, the gospel power to change life, from the heart and into the home.
Our kids will learn to love what we love. If we love not having to deal with them, they will come to love not having to deal with us. If we don’t love dying to bring them life, we will tell them the gospel and they won’t know what it looks or tastes like. Here is a great opportunity to show them that we love God and His gospel.