Gospel-Centered Children's Ministry

—Chase Russell and Chris Krycho

In the first two articles in this series (Part 1 | Part 2), I made a distinction between an active relationship with God (two-way communication that results in internal transformation) and a life marked only by biblical knowledge and good behavior (rules and willpower in place of a changed heart). I explained that it’s important to know the difference because it appears to be the difference between salvation and dead religion. All the while, I mentioned that this is crucial to children’s ministry. But why?

First, we don’t want children to think they’re Christians simply because they’re doing the right thing. Works-based salvation is an easy trap, and one that we need to work hard to avoid. When our teaching implies that being a Christian simply requires knowledge and good behavior, rather than having transformed hearts and experiencing intimacy with God himself, we set children on a path to the failure and destruction of empty religiosity or bitter abandonment of faith. In some cases, they may have someone who comes alongside them and provides the missing element of their gospel so that it finally clicks. In other cases, though, they won’t, and in any case we should not place all our hopes on children learning what they need to about God “somewhere else”. Although it should be noted here that we have no actual power to guarantee a child’s salvation—only God can save—parents, Sunday School teachers, and anyone else who influences children are responsible to connect them with Christ and not lead them astray.

Second, in the same way that it’s all too easy to try to make our own “fruit” apart from the Holy Spirit, it is also too easy to inadvertently teach children to make the same “fruit” by presenting God’s Word as a mere rulebook or as writing containing entertaining but unconnected stories. Over time, this dilutes the impact of Scripture and teaches children that the Bible is about them—not about God. When the story of David and Goliath is presented as a picture of standing up to bullies, or facing one’s fears, for example, and doesn’t point back to God—that He took care of Israel His people because He is faithful, that He seeks His glory, that He uses the insignificant to accomplish His will, or (for older kids) that Israel needed a Savior King who came from Bethlehem to save them when they could not save themselves—it misses the point. The story points to God’s sovereignty, not our own ability to overcome giants in our lives!

In fact, I suggest that all of our lessons presented in group education need to point to an element of the gospel. While not every lesson needs to be a full-on gospel presentation, who God is and what He has done should be a part of every lesson we teach. Since the Bible is about God’s character and actions, this isn’t too difficult to do. It can be simple or complex based on the children’s age and ability to understand. Returning to the stories I mentioned in my first article, it could look like this:

• Joseph:
  • God sent him to Egypt because He had an incredible plan to save thousands of lives.
  • He can bring about good results even when people plan evil things.
  • We know that God has provided a Savior for us, one who had even greater evil done to him than Joseph did.
  • We can trust that God is doing good things even when people are cruel or spiteful toward us.
• Noah:
  • God hates sin, and that is why he destroyed the world in Noah’s time.
  • God loves us and doesn’t want to destroy us (but he will destroy us if we don’t repent).
  • We must actually repent, not simply put on a show of good works to impress people.
• Naaman:
  • God has the power to heal not only disease but our sinful lives.
  • Only God could cleanse Naaman’s leprous skin and only He can cleanse us from our sins.
  • God even loves and heals people that we think are evil.
• The feeding of the 5000:
  • Jesus is God (and that’s how he was able to feed 5000 people so easily). Since Jesus is God, He has the power not only to provide for our physical needs, but also our spiritual ones.
  • God can do the impossible.
  • God can provide for our needs even when it seems unlikely.

Occasionally we ought to string all the elements together into one lesson as a holistic reminder of the gospel.

It is good to teach other aspects of the Christian faith, to reveal the many attributes of God, and to talk of other people who have loved Him, but all teaching should fit into the worldview of who God is, who we are, how that gap is bridged, and how we should grow in Him thereafter.

All of the teaching in the world, however, is useless if kids can’t see Christ in our lives. If we don’t model prayer and the fruits of the Spirit—in other words, a relationship with God that can be seen—why would we expect kids to have a relationship with Him? We need to have deep, vibrant walks with God ourselves. Children need to be able to look at us and see adults who consistently demonstrate the fruit of the spirit—not just in public, or when it’s easy, but when we’re tired, frustrated, and have no one to impress. We need to dedicate ourselves to walking faithfully with God.

I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I do have a little bit of experience from being a child of Sunday School and now leading a children’s ministry full-time. I welcome and encourage any feedback.