A few years ago, I remember getting to the end of a Sunday morning lesson and thinking, “The only thing that made that lesson any different from one I could present in a public school was that I prayed at the beginning.”
I had gotten sucked into the preparation of the set, the lights, the minute-to-win-it game, and somehow missed that the Proverb used could have come out of a fortune cookie as easily as it could have come out of a Bible.
It broke my heart.
That’s not why I got into this.
That’s not why any of us got into this.
If it is, we should be working backstage for Sesame Street Live.
But I’m guessing I’m not the only one in children’s ministry who has fallen prey to this, which is why Matt Markins and Dan Lovaglia’s insights and research in The Gospel Truth About Children’s Ministry are so important to the future of our ministries.
Have we lost sight of the priority?
Of the very thing God called us to do?
Are me making disciples of kids, parents and leaders?
Is the Gospel the main thing?
I so appreciate not only the honest look at the statistics, both qualitative and quantitative, of what is happening in the large sampling of churches that were surveyed, but also the tool to evaluate how our ministries are doing in each of these areas. It struck me that there is a common thread of desire to see disciples made, the Gospel presented, the Bible as central – but there is a mediocre contrast between the desire – or the importance put on certain central principles – and the practice of how those are being promoted in the churches responding.
We know what should be done, but the tyranny of the urgent, the new, the thing that will make our senior pastor happy or board smile and numbers grow, seems to potentially trump the core.
The Gospel Truth About Children’s Ministry is a wonderful tool for evaluating our ministries and will be a tool for this generation of children’s ministry workers to consider moving forward. It’s important for us to conscious of the pendulum swing, and aware of our desires not being practiced within our ministry context. This made me personally look at the calling God gave me years ago to help kids meet Jesus, and where that might have gotten lost over the course of years, or even in the course of my current week.
The conclusion of the book gives concrete resources that Awana is providing, as a consistent leader in the discipleship of children across the globe, in the next year or so to resource churches to better make disciples of kids.
I am grateful for the work AWANA has done to shine the light on what is happening in our ministries and provide the tools for evaluation.
