By guest blogger Janet Logan
In September of 2019, Barna research organization announced that the number of kids raised in the church who drop out of fellowship and faith between 18-29 years old has reached 64%. That’s nearly 2 out of every 3 who drop out! What we’ve always done to disciple children isn’t working.
Barna research organization announced in Sept. 2019 that 64% of kids raised in the church drop out of fellowship and faith between 18-29 years old. What we’ve always done to disciple children isn’t working. -Janet Logan Share on XWhat can we do differently?
Look at faith through a child’s eyes. Children need to talk about God. They need the space and opportunity to develop their souls like they need to develop their bodies, emotions, minds, and social skills.
Developing their souls is what we call discipleship and it’s not primarily about knowledge. Rather than teaching children to agree with our perspective, discipleship opens them to their own journey with the living Christ. For example, when the Lord spoke to young Samuel, Eli recognized a unique way God was communicating with Samuel. God had not communicated this way with Eli.
Our role is to come alongside children and walk with them as the Holy Spirit guides them on their path of spiritual discovery. Deuteronomy 11 describes what Hebrew parents wandering in the desert did to guide their children. They taught them; they talked about God at home, on the road, when they were going to bed and getting up.
Our role is to come alongside children and walk with them as the Holy Spirit guides them on their path of spiritual discovery. -Janet Logan Share on XA practical tool
Here’s a sample of a practical tool you can use in the car or in your home to give children the opportunity to talk about God. The resulting conversation could take 3-5 minutes—or more. If they ask you what you think, keep it simple and brief.
- Ask your children: “What do you wish you could ask God?”
- Listen to their answers, neither correcting them–even when an answer is theologically inaccurate—nor providing an answer. Trust God to respond in God’s own time and by whatever means God wants to use (and it still may be you, just not in this context).
- Tell them, “Here’s something from God’s Word. “God is greater than [your] heart, and he knows everything.” I John 3:20
- Ask them what they think or feel about God knowing everything.
- Listen to their answers, neither correcting them–even when an answer is theologically inaccurate—nor providing an answer. Trust God to respond in God’s own time and by whatever means God wants to use (and it still may be you, just not in this context).
- The main idea: God knows all the facts about any subject you can imagine. God encourages you to use your imagination to wonder about things, make discoveries, and come up with ideas.
- Share parts of the main idea as they fit with your conversation
Want 51 more tools like this? One for each week of the year? You can download Kids & God @Home for FREE.
The likelihood of a different result
Engagement in the home with children’s discipleship builds their bond with a primary caregiver who is higher than their disappointments, with this God who celebrates their victories, who cares about their loss and hurt, and who offers to walk with them through it giving them comfort, security, and peace in a way that nothing else can. Who wants to walk away from that?
Also available from Janet Logan
Child-centered Spirituality- Whether you are a parent, grandparent, teacher, foster parent, or other caregiver, this is a book to help you engage with the children in your life about their spiritual needs.