JOINING UP CHILDREN AND CHURCH
Oh my God! Jesus Christ!
I hear these words frequently exploding out of the mouths of the children and young people connected to our outreach activities. Of course I’d love to tell you that these were expressions of praise and adoration but the truth is – for most – Jesus is a swear word, not a world Saviour. And therein lies our challenge.
So what is it going to take in the next ten years to see a revolution (or a revelation) in their understanding? What’s it going to take for children and young people to realise that when you speak about Jesus Christ you’re talking about the forgiveness offering, life changing, purpose giving, living God?
I’d like to suggest that the following three commitments would make a significant impact in seeing this landscape change.
Firstly, it’s going to take grassroots commitment. The fact that approximately 50% of churches in the UK have no form of outreach to children and young people in their community is shocking. If every church in the country was engaged in some form of youth and children’s work, either individually or better still in partnership with other churches, then we could see a massive step uplift in lives reached almost overnight. I know I’m preaching to the choir, but my question to you is this…what can you do to encourage churches around you to get mobilised into youth and children’s outreach? I recognise that some churches have specific ministries, but I passionately believe that every church must be involved in working with the young for their sake – and for the sake of the present health and future of the church itself.
Secondly, it’s going to take generational commitment. What do I mean by that? I mean that churches, denominations, and any other Christian endeavour working with children and young people, are committed to journey with them from childhood to adulthood. More often than not churches and denominations have programmes and people for children’s ministry and then programmes and people for youth ministry – and never the twain shall meet. I’d love to see churches develop a coherent strategy over their whole youth and children’s programme, and denominations to do the same, and local churches working in a village/town/city to do the same. It’s way time that we lay down our denominational barriers and our secondary issue theological walls and came together as the body of Christ in a certain geography to pray and act together to reach the local generation for whom God has put into our care. Recently, I had the privilege of speaking to a group of volunteer children and youth leaders from a local church. They were spending a day together to strategise about how they could ensure they were reaching and discipling children and young people in their community as one team with different functions. This is all too rare today, but it has to change if we’re going to see genuine journeys of faith offered to the emerging generation- halting the gradual exodus as children and young people get older.
Thirdly, it’s going to take a lifelong commitment. It seems to me that too many youth and children’s workers (particularly paid) seem to model their local church stay based on Jesus’ three years in ministry, yet I don’t believe that Jesus was trying to model an ideal where we hang around for three years and then move away. Following on from a generational commitment (which I would suggest is at least a ten-year investment) we need to see more youth and children’s leaders, paid and volunteer, who are giving their life to this cause in a specific place. That means that they’re not deacons, home group leaders etc. etc too. When I launched Urban Saints Hitchin, I didn’t invite people to help out on a Friday evening, I invited them to become part of a missional community who were committed to reach and disciple young people by sharing their lives with them. If you want to see your church change and more importantly if you want to see a child’s life completely change, then it’s going to take more than three years. If you want to see real ministry fruit – real lasting change – then you need to be willing to stick around a while. In a decades’ time, I’d like to see the average tenure of a youth and children’s leader at least ten years in length. Leaders need to have walked the childhood to adulthood journey with at least one generation.
No doubt there are endless other commitments I could name: commitments to risk taking, creativity, learning – to name but a few. But for me a lifelong, grassroots, generationally committed church (and Church) could really make an impact. Who knows? Perhaps a whole generation could discover that Jesus Christ is not a swear word… He’s the Saviour of the World!