Do Children Really Matter?

Volume 14 Issue 2, 2007

The desired response of an awakened church

If children really mattered to God’s people, it would affect numerous areas.

• We’d start making 30 year plans instead of three year plans. We would launch courageous, long range strategies to affect the next generations. We would ask ourselves, “What effect will this current action, initiative, or expansion have by the time our kids are grown? What should we be doing now to prepare the way for their ministry era?”
• Christian colleges and seminaries would re-examine every academic discipline in light of the question “What about the children?” Pastors, for example, would not be allowed to graduate without taking a series of child-focused courses. Missions, social work, communications, and other majors would likewise deal with the strategic place of children.
• In light of the fertile harvest that awaits among the young, what if church boards earmarked 40 percent or more of their budget to reaching children and teenagers?
• What if every senior pastor was absent from the pulpit two Sunday mornings a year because he was working in the church nursery? Wouldn’t that send a novel message to the congregation!
• What if all the children in the church were provided with personal champions or sponsors, adults who committed to remembering their birthdays, taking them out for ice cream after every performance no matter how minor, inviting them to special outings together, and praying daily for their growth in the faith? Can you imagine the impact of a man saying to a 10-year-old boy, “I’m going to a college basketball game next month. Want to come with me? Want to bring along two of your best friends?” Or something like, “I don’t know what you want to be when you grow up, but I’m a mechanic. Would you like to come to my garage for a day and see what I do? I’ve got stuff you can help me with.” In this day of so many single parent households, the influence of a godly adult on a young boy or girl could be dynamic. How many churches would step up to organize such a contact?
• What if Children’s Day was as big a deal in our churches as Mother’s Day and Father’s Day? Do you even know when Children’s Day falls on the calendar? The United Nations says November 20, while other traditions point to the second Sunday of June. All in all, it means we’re unfocused on honoring the young. Virtually nobody celebrates the holiday. But what a day it could be if, across the country, pastors preached on the place of children in God’s kingdom, children’s workers in the church were honored with gift certificates, and reports of the church’s success among children were celebrated. A special offering could be taken for a children’s project. How about a potluck luncheon afterward with nothing but desserts? (Just kidding!)
• What if mission organizations decided to do what’s best for the sons and daughters of their career missionaries, even if it made waves in the overall program? God does not expect His work to be built on the slender backs of neglected children. The days of expecting missionary kids to put up with the leftovers must stop.

As God’s agents, His hands and His feet in this hurting world, it is our mandate to remove the “cement blocks” that suffocate children: poverty, abuse, neglect, and injustice of all kinds. We are called to provide safe, nurturing environments for them. It is our job to “train a child in the way he should go” (Proverbs 22:6). In these ways God’s plan can be wonderfully realized in their lives.

Reprinted from Too Small to Ignore. Copyright ©2005 by Compassion International, Inc. Used by permission of WaterBrook Press, Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved.

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