Every pastor has found the occasion to use the famous quote
by Jesus, where He said, “Let the little children come to me and forbid them not; for of
such is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19:14) Certainly, Jesus was being
very directive to those of us who would lead His church today.
One of the tragedies
of the church today is that children’s ministry across the church is so
easily neglected. When budgets are cut, we cut out of the children’s ministry.
When we are looking for staff, we staff first, the choir, then finance office,
then the youth director, then a personal secretary for the pastor and maybe,
sometimes later we hire one of the parents to do a little part-time work for
the children’s programs.
It is so easy to
neglect the children. We would not call it neglect, because we know there
are parents who will take care of the needs or there will be some kindly
grandmother who will teach the third grade Sunday school class. Maybe we can
find someone who will do the children’s sermon. With a lot of persuasion and
arm-twisting we recruit the workers for Vacation Bible-School and the Children’s
Christmas Program. It seems that in the work we do in the church, it is so easy
to put children’s ministry near the
bottom of our priority list. This is ironic because most pastors have spent a
good part of their lives trying their best to be good parents to their own
children and to see that they had a good Christian education.
Most pastors realize that to have young families as a part
of your church, you must have an effective
children’s program. Yet, we as pastors, along with the partnership of older
lay leaders of the local church, often put children’s ministry as our last
priority.
I believe that Jesus’ advice about children is to the church
today. It’s time for us to change our
priorities and make children’s ministry at the top of the list!
*Note*
Leadership Nexus Foundation
will be presenting “Leadership
Conference 2012” at First UMC of Colorado Springs, Colorado, July 30 –
August 2, 2012. This is going to be a powerful
training event for clergy and lay leaders. The event features topics, such
as “Leadership in Children’s
Ministry”; “Youth Ministry”; “Social
Media and Worship” and more! Speakers for this event are experts in
these areas and include: Author and Professor, Dr. Lovett Weems;
Director of New Church Starts and Author, Bob Crossman; Rev.
Dr. Leanne Ciampa Hadley; Associate Pastor and Author;
Speaker, Professor and Award-Winning Writer, Bob Whitesel; Craig Miller; Director of Evangelism, NCD, UMC
GBOD and Author; plus many more.... For more information please email
us or visit our event
page.
