Leadership Blog

08 Jan A Ministry Revolution – Insight #1 – Strategic Ministry

In last week’s blog post A Ministry Revolution – The Introduction, I shared about the urgency in my spirit to see a much-needed change in the way that children’s ministry is being conducted today. If there is to be an outpouring of God’s Spirit in our children and children’s ministry, there has to be a change, or, to be bolder, a revolution in the way that we are doing things. I promised last week to begin a series of blog posts sharing insights for launching this revolution. Here is insight #1.If the truth be known, much of today’s children ministry consists of leaders going online, finding a trendy curriculum, downloading the curriculum, assigning the various parts of the lesson to the volunteer staff, doing the series, and then four weeks later starting the process again with a new curriculum series. Am I right? To the overworked, time-pressured, resource-limited leader, this is a sure-fire way to quickly have a lesson for the service and effortlessly provide the auxiliary visuals and creative games. Here is the insight … Teaching anything and everything other than what is needed will keep us from seeing the thing that we desire.
The Holy Spirit gave me this picture the other morning using a surgeon and an operation to illustrate the importance of strategic ministry. A person has been diagnosed with a severe heart problem and needs immediate surgery. Upon going into the operating room, the surgeon cuts open the patient, begins to probe around the kidney, a few minutes later directs his attention to the bladder, and then sews up the patient and sends him home. While the surgeon is definitely operating and performing a service to the patient’s body, the person with the serious heart condition will leave the operating room with the same serious need that he had before the operation. Can you see how this applies to the way that ministry is done today? The curriculums used in many children’s ministries are good and provide biblical truths, but they aren’t strategically moving us towards our desired goal of Spirit-baptized, Spirit-equipped, Spirit-led boys and girls boldly impacting their generation. There is a time and place for these other curriculums … but the time isn’t right now!

In this children’s ministry revolution, we must strategically teach where we want to go. If we want to see our boys and girls baptized in the Holy Spirit, then we must teach about the baptism in the Holy Spirit. If we want to raise up boys and girls that know how to dwell in God’s presence, then we must teach about the presence of God. Push everything else aside and strategically lay the foundation for a move of God’s Spirit through your teaching.

Next week, our Ministry Revolution Insight #2 will be Resourcing for the Breakthrough.

01 Jan A Ministry Revolution – The Introduction

My how children’s ministry has changed during our 38 years of being involved in this ministry. For most children’s ministries, long gone are the days of not having an abundance of curriculums, using embarrassing props and visuals, suffering with “backwoodsy” (I know that this isn’t a word but you get the idea) music, apologizing for antiquated room ambiance, struggling with poorly trained volunteers and staff, and … I could go on and on. It’s a totally different world today for children’s ministry. And yet, with all of these tremendous advances and improvements, I find many children’s ministry leaders and staff that have come to the realization that something is missing. They aren’t seeing the results that they desire. And, because they don’t know what to do, they continue to do what they have always done. While I am no prophet, until there is a change, I will prophesy that they will continue to see the same results week after week, month after month, year after year.

I am keenly aware that among the blog’s readers from over 80 nations there are many children’s pastors and volunteer team members, Sunday school teachers, and mid-week Bible club ministry teams, people that are desirous of a move of God’s Spirit in their ministry and children. These readers are ones who don’t want to have a children’s ministry just for the sake of keeping children entertained while the “real” ministry is done for the adults in the sanctuary. They don’t want to just be dispensers of Bible information nor do they want to be cultivators of a generation that will be church dropouts when the children come of age. These children’s ministry leaders and workers genuinely want a move of God’s Spirit.

With that in mind, in the blogs posted for the next few weeks, I want to share some thoughts focused towards those involved in children’s ministry desiring to discover that missing something. The old way of doing things hasn’t worked. It’s time to start a ministry revolution so that we can see a Joel 2 Generation. I guarantee that what I am going to share isn’t taught in most children’s ministry conferences. Get ready, get ready, get ready.

There is more to come. A Ministry Revolution – Insight #1 will kick it off next week.