Remembering the Importance of Children’s Ministry
Mark A. Taylor reflects on how easily adults can stop thinking about children’s ministry once their own children are grown. He urges church leaders to keep children visible before the whole congregation so older adults continue to value and support this vital ministry.
- Adults without young children may unintentionally lose touch with children’s ministry.
- Church leaders should keep children’s ministry visible to the whole congregation.
- Children can serve meaningfully through music, drama, Scripture reading, prayer, and worship participation.
By Mark A. Taylor
When I was a young parent, I cared a great deal about the children’s ministry at my church. Every week I asked my kids what they’d learned in their classes. I fretted over the issue of child care vs. Bible teaching for young children. I questioned whether lessons were appropriate for their ages.
When I was a Christian education staff member at my church, I gave a great deal of attention to children’s ministry. I struggled to find enough workers, and the right workers. I labored over choices of curriculum. I tried to figure out how to train and encourage teachers and helpers.
Now my children have long since left home. It’s been years since I’ve seen the inside of a children’s classroom. I have a friend who was a children’s minister, but she’s moved away. And I don’t think about children’s ministry at all.
I know the need for workers is as great or greater now than during those long-ago years when I was involved. I hear that Bible knowledge—of workers, let alone the children!—is suffering today. But other concerns have occupied my thinking, and children’s ministry has faded far away from my attention.
Please keep reading. The above is not a prelude to a plea for you to care more about kids.
Instead, it’s an appeal to church leaders, especially children’s ministry leaders, to pay more attention to people like me. I have a feeling that many like me in the 50-plus crowd (maybe even in the 40-plus crowd) have quit thinking about the children at their church, too.
We shouldn’t. And you shouldn’t let us.
Keeping Children’s Ministry Before the Whole Church
In his excellent and thorough manual, Growing a Healthy Children’s Ministry, Steve Alley suggests some ideas for keeping kids in front of the whole church (p. 171):
- Children’s choirs. Let the kids sing for the whole church as often as possible.
- Children’s drama. They can set the stage for the minister’s sermon or introduce a thought for worship as well as adults. Sometimes better.
- Seasonal performances. Incorporate children into your all-church pageant, concert, dinner theater, walk-through nativity, or service project.
- Worship servers and leaders. Children can read Scripture, pass the offering plates, bring special music, pray, share testimonies, and more. Find ways for them to serve with their parents and siblings. This will remind the church that whole families as well as children are important to your ministry.
Alley shares specific ideas for making these ideas work. We’d like to hear yours too, because this won’t be the last issue we’ll publish about children’s ministry. It’s a topic too important to forget.
Growing a Healthy Children’s Ministry (item 03506) is available at http://www.standardpub.com/detail.aspx?ID=824 or from you local supplier.
Author: Mark A. Taylor
Mark A. Taylor, who served as Christian Standard editor from 2003 to 2017, retired in June 2017 after almost 41 years with Standard Publishing (Christian Standard Media).
