Children's Ministry Value #1: God Matters Most

Values dictate what a person will and won't do. Likewise, in ministry, values define the boundaries of the playing field. They point us toward "success", so that if the values are upheld, we know we're on the right track.

In our children's ministry, we have a value that says "God Matters Most". This might seem incredibly obvious, but it's actually quite simple to lose focus - whether you're a children's ministry worker or a parent - and allow children's experiences at church to become about other things.

That's because we're human, and we spend a lot of time thinking about our needs. And yes, God cares about us - but we're not the center of the universe. God is. When we use church to preach other virtues, like being kind or trying hard in school or being a good sport or obeying your parents, but we isolate those things from the context of God and the life of God, we end up with some noble human teachings, with God as an add-on.

And when God becomes an add-on, he becomes optional. Have you heard of Sunday Assembly? Their mission is to help people live healthy, fulfilling lives, to serve others, and to help people connect to one another. In San Diego, members gather once a month for fellowship, songs, and a speaker. Kids go to a separate program to be taught lessons on morals and ethics, like making good choices, having healthy relationships, and valuing education and learning. Parent workshops include how to keep your kid safe from drugs. And they're starting a youth group, with free pizza and lasertag. They've organized service projects at the San Diego Food Bank, and make pastoral care available to people who need help or need someone to officiate at a wedding or a funeral.

In other words, Sunday Assembly has a lot in common with any church - except that it's not a church and professes no belief in any God. Sunday Assembly is distinctly for people who believe in this life and no other life. So despite all this common ground, it is not just another flavor of church. It's not even in the same category.

God matters. He matters in the sense that he preceded all of us and will outlast everyone on earth. As Christians, we believe the Creator enjoys some prerogative over the lives of His created ones. So it's not enough to gather kids and tell them nice stories and teach them good things if it remains all about them, and us, and God is merely alluded to in support of things everyone wants (kindness, sharing, peace).

Sadly, if you look at a lot of Sunday school curriculum, you'll see lessons that I call "Jesus-optional": you could remove all references to God or Jesus and substitute other illustrations and the point would remain the same - AND you'd have a lesson that would be entirely unobjectionable to a parent who was Buddhist, Muslim, Mormon - or Sunday Assembly.

That's a problem. In Galatians 2:21, Paul says, "I do not set aside the grace of God, because if righteousness could come to a person by their observance of the law, Christ died for nothing!" Well, Christ did not die for nothing, he died for you! And he calls you out of your own life, with its narrow and provincial concerns, into His life, which is an adventure.

Again I say: when God becomes incidental to the point of a teaching, we're peddling something other than Christianity. That's why the full value for our children's ministry reads like this: God Matters Most. Only God saves, and only God transforms. Kids must know God’s love for them and respond to it before they will submit to him.

Knowing God and accepting his offer of relationship precedes obedience. And submission precedes transformation.

But we're impatient! We want all the good fruit, now! So we dangerously short-cut the process, picking and choosing whatever Bible story or verse might "work" to make kids "good". But are kids really loving God? Are they knowing him? Are they encountering him, personally? Is their sense of wonder engaged, to the point that they begin to grasp that God is an inexhaustible being, endlessly fascinating and eternally satisfying?

I've heard the argument that young children can't grasp all of this. People trying to impress me will cite Piaget and tell me that "concrete thinkers" can only handle "do this" and "don't do that". My one-word response is: baloney. Kids, even young kids, can absolutely have spiritual relationships with God, communicate with him, wonder about him, trust him - and they do.

Leading kids to know God and be in awe of Him is a tall order. It's not easy. But we'll never get there if we don't aim high. Teaching kids to resist peer pressure and work hard in school and be nice to their siblings and be honest (and, and, and...) are things we all want. But God matters most. And if God, in fact, matters then teaching Him as anything less than the main thing is a crime. He's not only the basis of community and loving others and forgiveness and serving one another, He's intrinsic to those things.