Children Are Our Future

Yes, it might be a bit cliché to say that “children are our future,” but it is true, of course. Everyone who has a passion for working with children knows this, and they invest their lives to make sure that the children’s future is bright. As Christians, we need to make sure that we are obedient to Scripture as we seek to train the next generation. Scripture has a lot to say about training children—one of the common themes in the Bible about instructing children is diligence.

In Deuteronomy 6, God pleads with His people to pass his commandments and statutes along to the next generations. He then goes on to give them some guidelines to help them remember that God should be first in their lives and that we are called to teach constantly! A staff member observed, “In modern language, we might say that we are to be teaching while we eat our Cheerios, while we drive to the supermarket, after soccer practice, and on Sunday morning. If you are working in children’s ministry on a Sunday morning, you are only a small part of the training that should be happening constantly in each child’s life.”

But this doesn’t mean that a worker in children’s ministry is not important. If you’re thinking biblically, it should disappoint you to know that if you are the only one pouring Jesus into their lives, you have a challenge. You should desire for the children’s parents and friends (and grandparents) to be doing what you do on a Sunday morning every day of their lives!

Rather than seeing a church ministry as the main venue for teaching young people, children’s ministry workers should be seeking to come alongside parents, equipping them to continue the teaching through the week. Of course, this isn’t always possible, but that should be the goal since that is what God clearly teaches us in Scripture. Working together, the body of Christ can function as it was intended to, and the children that are “our future” can be equipped with Scripture.

As we all work together to teach our children diligently from the Word of God, let us remember that as Christians we need to work as a community and not isolated individuals.

AiG staff, including me, will share more at our upcoming Children’s Ministry Leaders’ Conference.

I have a passion for seeing God honored through the teaching that occurs in the body of Christ. In fact, in addition to the March conference, our new Answers Bible Curriculum (to be released in a few months) seeks to incorporate some of these ideas, and all of us at Answers in Genesis are excited to see how God will use this project to glorify Himself.

Let us pray that we can be faithful to teach the next generation just as God is faithful to us.

“Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness endures to all generations; You established the earth, and it abides” (Psalm 119:89–90).

Over 6,000 So Far in New Jersery

Not including the two school programs and the evening sessions Monday night, we have already seen over 6,000 in attendance at the Saturday night, Sunday morning, and Sunday evening sessions at Calvary Chapel in Old Bridge, New Jersey, for the Answers in Genesis conference where Dr. Gary Parker and I are speaking.