In 2014, the French train operator SNFC had brimming excitement that turned to embarrassment. They’d spent $20 billion on 2,000 new trains to massively upgrade their system. It wasn’t until they’d received the first units that they realized their mistake: over 1,000 of their stations couldn’t accommodate the new trains because they were just a bit too small.
When designing the new trains, SNFC overlooked that many regional stations were much older and built for slimmer trains. In the end, the project costs doubled because of this error. They faced a peril they hadn’t foreseen. So too, when my church built a kid’s ministry building, we encountered a danger we didn’t anticipate.
Before building this structure, we made do with an old facility. We divided a big room with some barriers to squeeze in three classes of 4- to 9-year-olds, turned the conference room into the crawler room, and made prodigious use of the outdoor playground. Our teachers faithfully taught about Jesus and God’s epic story of rescue through all of Scripture. We had to trust that Christ and the gospel would be enough to influence these little souls—we certainly couldn’t put our hope in the facilities.
When the new building opened it was a relief and a joy. There was ample space, real safety measures, an industrial kitchen, painted murals, and child-sized restrooms. Parents were impressed and new families who joined identified our children’s facility as a major factor in their draw to this church. But we encountered an unexpected danger. We could drift toward trusting in our new facility to keep kids safe and happy and impress parents. We could do amazing childcare and wink at soul-care.
We were in danger of what Jared Kennedy describes as “trusting hard work or the glitz and glam of attraction programming instead of trusting Christ and the gospel” (14). Kennedy’s new book, Keeping Your Children’s Ministry on Mission: Practical Strategies for Discipling the Next Generation, is a helpful tool to gauge if your kid’s ministry is built to care for souls.
4 Pillars of Children’s Ministry
Jared Kennedy—an editor with The Gospel Coalition and author of The Beginner’s Gospel Story Bible—guides the reader through four critical elements of ministry to children: hospitality, teaching, discipling, and mission. Kennedy admits these are not “silver bullets,” but they are biblical priorities, no matter the size of your church.
Smaller churches and new church plants will benefit from Kennedy’s basic framework, which can be applied with limited space, budget, and volunteers. Think of it as a quick start guide for kid’s ministry. You don’t have to invent a ministry approach from scratch or import a copy of what others are doing. Kennedy answers the question, “What are the most important things to do in children’s ministry?”
Think of it as a quick start guide for kid’s ministry. Kennedy answers the question, ‘What are the most important things to do in children’s ministry?’
Some churches, regardless of size, can have children’s ministry practices that are functional and become entrenched traditions. These ruts work well enough to justify leaving them be and giving attention to other areas of church ministry. On the other hand, churches with multiple staff, generous budgets, and facilities that rival amusement parks can tend toward constant innovation, which on the surface seems helpful and exciting. The novelty, however, can mask weaknesses. Both entrenched children’s ministry practices and dynamic environments are at risk of moving from a gospel-centered focus. This book functions as a rapid test for such mission drift.
Slowing Down in Jesus’s Name
While each of Kennedy’s four components is valuable in turn, he rightly places creating welcoming spaces as the first crucial practice. Such spaces require “slowing down and giving kids and families the gift of our grace-filled presence. In other words, it means welcoming kids in Jesus’s name” (56).
Some church members will assume everyone already understands the importance of welcoming others and knows how to do it. These are the people who acknowledge everyone when they enter a room. They’re the parade throwers when someone arrives. These are the people you want as the first-impression team who greet kids and parents. Recruit them.
But not everyone has this mindset, which is why need to heed Kennedy’s recommendations. We express the gospel’s call to welcome children in Jesus’s name by “valuing children enough to build a relationship with them” (57). For example, remembering a child’s name is more powerful than we realize. It communicates, “You’re part of this community” and “I was expecting you.” Does it matter that we have a great Bible lesson or snack if we’re too lazy to learn names? We should work hard to do both because as, Kennedy posits, “If you want to reach parents, you need to reach their children. If the kids don’t like the church, the parents won’t come back” (60). He also emphasizes how crucial it is to ensure the safety and security of your children’s ministry with a child protection policy.
The Word Does the Work
The section on teaching alone is worth the price of the book. Kennedy synthesizes several sources into a simple methodology that’s clear, accessible, and biblical. This approach shifts Bible lessons from summary reporting (“this is what happened”), or focusing on examples (“be like this good person and don’t be like this bad person”), to the gospel center of the passage (“how is Jesus our true hope?”).
He has framed this approach in a helpful chart to guide interpretation. A church member doesn’t need seminary training or loads of experience with the Bible to practice these methods. Volunteers, with a little effort, can navigate the four questions:
1. Who in this story needs good news?
2. What is God doing for his people in this story?
3. How does God do the same for us—only better—in Jesus?
4. How does believing this good news change the way we live?
Answering these questions guides the teacher to the key truth of the passage. It will make an impact on young learners by constantly presenting Jesus as he’s revealed in the Word. This approach is key to understanding and teaching the historical narrative genre which makes up a disproportionate amount of children’s curriculum. You can stop searching for the perfect lesson plans; use the ones you already have and apply Kennedy’s grid to convert them to gospel-centered lessons.
Another consequence of using Kennedy’s method will be growth in your children’s ministry workers. As they interpret familiar passages with a gospel grid, they’ll see afresh that Jesus is the hero of every page of Scripture. This has a compounding effect. Kids are more likely to be in awe of God as they experience their teachers being in awe of him.
Kids Big and Small
Though this book focuses on engaging children under 10, these practices will enrich the ministries to all age groups in your congregation. Everyone needs to be strong in the “grammar” of faith. Everyone needs to be a living invitation to others for life in Christ. When it comes to a gospel-centered life, adults and kids are more alike than different. They all bear the imago Dei and the same fallen condition. Ministries to adults can improve with Kennedy’s matrix of hospitality, teaching, discipling, and mission.
Kids are more likely to be in awe of God as they experience their teachers being in awe of him.
Even outside the church, every person you’ll ever encounter is more like you than they are different. Sure, there are differences in aesthetics, personality, worldview, and sources of authority. There are contrasts in our language, culture, and history. However, those differences fade when we consider that all people are made in the same image, broken by the same fall, and have similar needs. Every one of us needs redemption and restoration. Equip yourself to engage little hearts in the church and all hearts outside the church! God is inviting you to care for souls, big and small.
The Gospel Coalition