I was 13 when the Lord saved me, and I’m grateful for the Sunday school teachers and youth ministers who taught me, challenged me, corrected me, and supported me as a teenager living in a non-Christian home. Still, my church then used the language of “the future of the church” for students—and I’m not convinced that’s the best language. Here’s why:
- We’re called to evangelize students and make disciples of their generation today. We don’t wait until they’re “adults” before we minister to them. We must reach them today and challenge them to serve God and His church today.
- Students today face issues at an earlier age than many of us did—and, distractions and diversions they face come to them in digital form. Long gone are the days when students began to face real issues only as they moved toward adulthood. Now, some of them are exposed to sin issues even in elementary school. Sin crouches at their door (Gen 4:7).
- Students often have more access to non-believers than they will the rest of their lives if they get cocooned in the church world. Particularly if they’re in a public school, they’ll likely have friends who need to know about Jesus—more lost friends than many of us adult believers do. I’m ever grateful for my 12-year-old seventh-grade classmate who told me the Good News!
- Some students desperately need and want a church family that offers them love and acceptance. I was that student a long time ago. My parents loved me, but my Christian family became security for me. In addition, they showed me by their lives how to walk with Jesus.
- Depending on your church’s polity, your saved and baptized students may be fully accepted voting members of your local body. If so, they’re just as much a part of the body as the senior saints. We must equip them just like we would any other believer, regardless of age. We need their input.
- Students are gospel witnesses of today, and they’ll be the next generation of pastors and missionaries tomorrow—if we challenge them today. They’re already thinking about what they’ll do with their lives—where they’ll go to school, what they’ll study, what kind of career they want—and it’s our obligation today to lead them to consider God’s calling on their lives.
- Frankly, students sometimes put to shame the faith of their parents (and, in fact, sometimes the faith of their church’s leaders). I’ve seen students pray with weeping, evangelize with abandon, stand alone with fortitude, and go overseas without reservation. I’ve seen them taking notes during preaching and holding each other accountable to godly living. All of us need that kind of example.
I encourage you to invest in your students in your church (and, for that matter, in your preschoolers and children, too). They are the church, and they will be the church for years to come.
Many of our children lack a disciplined lifestyle as well. We all need discipline in our lives, being a believer brings a spiritual discipline that leads to a disciplined life. It gives us a foundation, a base, a starting point. Children thrive on loving direction with expectations, it gives them structure. I think this is why children, especially those in troubled homes, come to God because they are learning to know and love Him through someone who is showing them love and caring in a biblical fashion. I believe also that God being always present gives them a strength they would otherwise not have.
Treating young people as a part of today’s church, not as “the church of tomorrow,” cue spotlights, smoke machine, fireworks, drum roll, and brass fanfare, helps to build bonds between them and the church that will last a lifetime. I taught a fourth grade Sunday school class when I was a tenth grader. I did not just babysit the class, I read and studied Scripture with them in an age appropriate way. (It was the only way they could get me to set foot in a Sunday school class. I preferred to listen to our pastor’s sermons.) I have long held that it is a mistake to separate children from adults and send them off to their own service. I have long advocated the participation of older children and teens in the worship service, not just as members of the congregation, but as readers of Scripture, leaders of prayer, gatherers of the offering, members of the choir or small ensemble of instrumentalists and vocalists, soloists, and servers of the Lord’s Supper. The younger children in the congregation should be able to look forward to a time when it will be their turn to take on these roles, not have to wait until adulthood. It should be noted that people took on roles in the church at a much earlier age in the past due to a shorter life expectancy. As I was reading this week, the disciples were most likely in their teens when Jesus called them. I also believe that young people should be encouraged to share their testimonies, take an active role in the church’s evangelistic and outreach efforts, and if they show an early gift for preaching, to be given an opportunity to preach, not once a year at a youth service but throughout the year. Giving young people a large role in the life, ministry, and worship of the church helps to cultivate in them a sense of ownership, “This is my church.”