Authentic Community & Ministry to Children

Sam Hamstra | Oct 21, 2008

While some may not take advantage of the opportunity, planting a new congregation allows for careful evaluation of every idea for a new ministry or initiative - BEFORE launching it. As a person who never grows tired of asking "Why," I find this opportunity envigorating. So, when asked about the launching of a particulate ministry, I counter with a simple question - "Why?" Take a ministry as prevalent and popular as Sunday School, which is a relatively modern ministry, originating in the late 18th century to provide rudimentary teaching for the poor on their one day off from work. Why Sunday School? What purpose does it serve today? Is it necessary or does it encoruage parents to neglect their responsibilties to nurture their children in the faith?" If we have some version of it, what shape should it take?  Should it be intergenerational?  Or should we divide participants into small groups according to gender and age?

After wrestling with questions like those, as well as others, I have concluded that specialized ministry to children, whatever shape it takes, may, perhaps, best be viewed as a fruit of authentic community between brothers and sisters in Christ. Let's take, for example, a ministry for preschool children we hope to launch in November called "Little Lambs." Here's the plan: during the thirty minutes dedicated to the reading and preaching of the Word, a couple volunteers will escort our preschool children to a side room for biblical instruction suitable to their age. Why do this? We can imagine several reasons:

  • Option 1 - To give children a break. In other words, its hard on little ones to sit in one place for the entire ninety minute service. 
  • Option 2 - To allow parents to better listen to the sermon.   
  • Option 3 - To lead our children to Jesus Christ.  
  • Option 4 - To help our parents raise their children in the Lord.

I am thinking each of those options has some validity, but don't you think the best answer is the last.  Won't one adult among us gather a few preschool children, not just because children hold a special place in her heart, but because she loves the parents of the children. Because she loves the parents, she longs to help them raise their children in the Lord. I might make the same application to my desire to hang-out with teenagers. As a pastor, I not only love relating to teenagers, but believe they hold a place of prominence in the ministry of the pastor. But my motivation for pastoring teens is deeper than my love for them. It also includes my love for their parents.  More specifically, my extra-efforts with teenagers flow out of my love for their parents whose most fervent prayers include the names of their children. In other words, I love the teens because I love their parents.  

Ministry to children, then, may be viewed as flowing out of the covenant relationship between adults who have pledged to seek authentic community as brothers and sisters in Christ. Of course, love for one another represents the heart of such community. In seeking to love a brother or sister in Christ, the lover necessarily loves the child or children of the beloved. He or she can not help but do so for one can not love another without sharing that person's deepest joys and sorrows which, in the case of a parent, more often than not, have something to do with his or her child.

One of the benefits of this approach to ministry for children is that it removes it from the realm of obligation or duty. Hopefully we won't volunteer to serve children because we feel obligated to do so.  We will choose to serve children, not ony because God has gifted us for  such service, but because we love the parents of the children. 

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