Friday Communication - 11th August 2023
It is a busy time of year – the congregational meeting on Monday, Bundy Live on Saturday, and the Women’s Conference and Kidswise training day coming up, and our weekly ministries in full swing. There is lots there to engage with. But I am going to today to talk about the second area we need to prioritize as a congregation – our ministries to young people.
The congregation has a suite of ministries that engage children from around six months to adulthood. These are Explorers and Mainly Music, Kid’s Club and Sunday School, Sunday Youth and Youth Group, as well as Get Some Fun in January.
It is an area we have invested in heavily – and not just the financial investment of supporting our Children’s Pastor Clarissa and our Youth Pastor Andrew. Many of us have spent a lot of our time and energy in developing, sustaining and growing these ministries over the years.
Intentional Investment
This investment has been deliberate. We know parents need the encouragement and support of their brothers and sisters in bringing up their children ‘in the discipline and instruction of the Lord’ [Eph. 6:4] as the Lord has commanded us. And many of us know from personal experience that it is during childhood and early teen years that we have become self-conscious followers of the Lord Jesus. The ministries we run for children and young people have been designed to both share the gospel with people who are not yet Christians and nurture those who are disciples of Jesus. Thus someone who is not yet a Christian can have contact with Christians and hear the gospel throughout their growing years without ever setting foot in the church – starting with a mothers and babies group, then Kid’s Club and GSF, and then Youth Group. At every age children can be invited to come and hear about the Lord Jesus and meet people who trust Him. And children who are being brought up in their homes as followers of Jesus can at every age have the encouragement of being amongst those whose families believe the same as they do, can be taught the same truth they hear at home by others who can also field their questions [which they might not want to ask Mum or Dad], and can develop a peer group and friendships with others who are committed to following the Lord Jesus. Our children and youth ministries are intentionally designed to do what we are called to do – make disciples, by being places where the gospel can be heard and young people taught to do all that our Lord Jesus has taught us to do.
At every age children can be invited to come and hear about the Lord Jesus and meet people who trust Him.
Increasingly Important
And these are important ministries. They respond to the opportunities we are given in a suburban church for sharing the gospel. Many people buy homes in the suburbs because they want to raise a family, and often they are keen for connection with other families, and many want their children to associate with those they think have ‘good’ values. But it is a time limited opportunity, one we must be ready to take at certain key transitions in people’s lives – when they first move into the suburb, when they have their first children, when the children first go to school and both parents and children are looking for friends, and then when they are meeting the challenges of high school. Having those ministries running can make a difference in the lives of both believers and those who do not yet believe through those times, connect them to believers and help them hear the gospel. These ministries are important for evangelism.
And these are important ministries. They respond to the opportunities we are given in a suburban church for sharing the gospel.
But they are also increasingly important for discipling our own children. We live in what is now called a post-Christian society where the assumptions Christians have – about God, about judgement, about the goodness of Jesus and His teaching – are no longer shared by society at large. And while a generation ago we might have referred to those outside the church as unbelievers – that is defined them by their rejection of Christian truth – people outside the church are now better thought of as believers – believers in other faiths, adherents of other world views. And our children are being evangelised by those other faiths and worldviews, whether it is an aggressive secularism, or an expressive or possessive individualism with its focus on self as the source of meaning and values, or by those from Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist faiths. Our children need to know the truth of the gospel and be equipped to discern truth from error so they can keep on as followers of Jesus, to know His presence, love and hope all their lives. The key to this is instruction in and modelling of the faith in the home where they can see that being different is better, that it is a life of love and truth. I would encourage you to keep on teaching your children to read the bible and pray, to give your children a pattern of life that includes them in the life of God’s people, to use the catechism to give them a structure of Christian truth that they can apply to other things they hear, and to keep talking to your children about what they see and listen to.
But they are also increasingly important for discipling our own children. Our children need to know the truth of the gospel and be equipped to discern truth from error so they can keep on as followers of Jesus, to know His presence, love and hope all their lives.
Mutual Support
But what goes on in the home should be supported and supplemented by what we do together, these ministries we have for children and young people. Being in a community where they can hear the truth taught in ways that is both age appropriate and applicable to them, and where they can see others living by the same teaching, helps normalise being a Christian in an age where many see it as unusual and abnormal. It contributes to both the intellectual and moral formation of our young people as those who know the truth about the world and how to live in it is found in the Lord Jesus.
And running these ministries also helps our young people negotiate the big transitions they go through, physically and socially – whether that is going to school for the first time, moving to high school, finishing school and moving on to work or further study, whether that is the changes of puberty, or change from having a social life primarily organised around the home to one organised around their peer group. How these transitions are experienced help shape a young person’s character and beliefs for the rest of their lives. It is important that we as a community are there to help them to go through them as followers of Jesus.
Pre or post Covid our ministries to children and young people remain as important as ever. If anything, in the light of the social changes that we are living through they are probably even more important as opportunities to share the gospel in a confused world and to helping our children be equipped to live as Jesus’ followers in our post-Christian world. That is why as a community we will prioritise supporting and sustaining these ministries, why you will hear frequent encouragement to share in them in our services, why we will keep sowing the gospel seed into our children’s lives.
If anything, in the light of the social changes that we are living through they are probably even more important as opportunities to share the gospel in a confused world and to helping our children be equipped to live as Jesus’ followers in our post-Christian world.
And can I encourage you individually to continue to support them. To be praying for our Sunday School teachers and youth group leaders, our creche and Kid’s Club teams, those who lead in Mainly Music and Explorers. To be willing to give so we can continue to employ our youth and children’s pastors, who serve us so well. To give of your time to serve in these ministries, whether that is teaching Sunday School, setting aside time for GSF, helping out at Kid’s Club, being a youth group leader, or at least being willing to drive children to events and camps. To support our Safe Church compliance by filling out forms or updating credentials or going to training when Maxine asks you. To pray for the children of other families, as well as your own if you have children yourselves.
can I encourage you individually to continue to support them.
Evangelising and discipling children and young people is not an area where you often see dramatic change. But you can witness and support a slow maturing. It is an 18 year discipleship program, but that slow maturing nurtures a character and commitment that lasts, and will go on to bear fruit over decades, and finally open heaven’s door to those who come to believe in the Lord Jesus we share patiently week after week in our homes and life together. It is worth all the effort.
Evangelising and discipling children and young people is not an area where you often see dramatic change. But you can witness and support a slow maturing, and finally open heaven’s door to those who come to believe in the Lord Jesus we share patiently week after week in our homes and life together. It is worth all the effort.
