Empowering Children to Disciple: Go and Make Disciples

Go and make disciples.

These were the last words of Jesus. His instructions are for the whole church and clearly include the children. Yes, those same children who witnessed Jesus perform miracles and even helped Him feed the 5,000. These children heard His parables and were called to go out and make disciples.

In teaching others, we learn much about our faith. We have seen this time and again as children have led their friends to the Lord.

The Thrill of Going on Mission

Going on a mission is always a thrill. Being placed in an environment where you are not comfortable makes you depend on God a little more. When you return home, you are not the same; you have a new boldness of faith.

So, it seems logical that we would take our children on mission.

Types of Missions

There are two main types of mission in the modern church:

1. The doing-nice-things-for-people-because-we-love-Jesus-and-want-to-show-his-love mission.

2. The preaching-the-Gospel-because-we-love-people-and-want-them-to-know-Jesus mission.

   
   

There is also a blend of the two, where we aim to do both. Preaching and love are both essential to share the Gospel.

Taking children to meet the needs of others is a great way to counteract our selfish society. With the right support, it can be life-changing for them. It takes them beyond merely raising money for the poor to actually meeting the poor and helping them.

We've done this locally. Children have made food and taken it to a homeless shelter, given out cookies on the street, and cleared areas. All of this was done under full supervision with many safeguards in place. It helped transform love from a theoretical concept into a practical action we did together. This, in turn, encouraged them to be more practical about their faith in school. As one girl said after a week of 'Project Love', "I sat next to the new girl at school for lunch because she needed a friend."

Preaching the Gospel

What about helping our children to preach the Gospel? When we discuss this, valid concerns arise. The most pertinent being: Whose faith are they sharing?

There is a danger when we encourage children to preach the Gospel while they are still at an early stage of their faith journey. Perhaps even earlier than we think. After all, it is only when our faith is tested that we truly see how strong it is.

At the worst end of the spectrum, we could find children simply regurgitating a distorted version of the Gospel. This version encourages them to judge sinners, shout at the lost, or feel pressured to speak under the threat of the lost going to hell. At the other end, we risk not sending the children out at all. We may neglect to focus on the commission God has given us or fail to encourage and equip the children to share their faith with their friends. Not far from this end of the pendulum, we might send children out with flyers and prepared scripts.

How can we send children out to share their faith in God without risking spiritual shipwreck later? What can we do so that, no matter what happens to their faith, they will reflect positively on the experience as adults? Perhaps it could even challenge backsliders to return to the Lord as they reflect on the experience.

What if, instead of us telling them what to say, who to speak to, or what to do, God spoke to them directly?

We developed a local mission programme where children who wanted to participate would meet for several weeks, praying into the mission and asking God who they should reach out to. They would write messages on cookies to hand out and on T-shirts to wear. They would also write a letter to one individual that God wanted them to meet.

The first mission we ran, about a decade ago, involved taking several children out onto the street. One twelve-year-old girl felt God tell her to speak to a lady named Margaret, who was old and used a walking stick. We left our comfortable surroundings in London and went to a small market town in England.

When we arrived, it seemed like every person there was an old lady with a walking stick. The girl ran around for several hours giving out cookies and asking each lady, "Excuse me, is your name Margaret?" It seemed that all the Margarets had stayed at home that day. Nonetheless, it was satisfying to see the children searching for their treasure.

The final person the girl spoke to was indeed Margaret. The girl screamed and handed her the letter she had written. As Margaret opened the letter, she burst into tears right there on the street. The letter told her how she had been unwell, but that Jesus was with her in it. As Margaret spoke, she shared how she was going to the doctors the next day to get some test results. It felt as if someone had read her mail (which, of course, God had).

Margaret left feeling prayed for and happy, while the whole team went away thanking God. When a child has experienced God working through them like this, you know they will either grow up loving God more or they will KNOW that they have walked away from the truth. In this girl's case, she loves God more and spent most of secondary school sharing her faith with anyone who would listen, even sharing testimonies of her faith and the miracles she has witnessed in front of the whole school at assembly.

The mission not only connected Margaret to God but also strengthened the bond of the whole team with our loving God.

What If We Fail?

What if God doesn't show up? What if we fail? How will this affect our children's faith? First off, God is real. He genuinely wants to show up and touch people's lives through His body—the church, which includes the children. When we ran the first mission, I told the team that this would either be the greatest thing we've done so far, something we would talk about for the rest of our lives, or it would be the biggest failure, leaving us with many pastoral issues to address.

As someone once said, faith is spelled R-I-S-K. Sometimes you've just got to take the risk to see what happens. After all, what if God does show up? Without God in the equation, this is a pretty crazy way to run things. But with God, it becomes one more way to encounter our Creator. Fear of failure should never hold us back. In my experience, children often are less fazed by one thing that didn't go as planned, as long as it is within the context of a whole package designed to help them grow with God.

The Context of Discipleship

Any time we encourage children to do something for God, it should always be in the context of discipleship. Parents are the primary disciplers, so we need to work alongside them in all things. However, we as church leaders also have a role. Parents focus on their child's relationship with God, their schoolwork, their personal hygiene, their social lives—essentially, their everything. For those ministering to children in the church, we have the privilege of having one main focus—their relationship with God. When we collaborate with parents, we can help children grow closer to God. Ultimately, that is surely the aim of all our efforts. In the words of Paul in Galatians 4:19, “My little children, for whom I again feel the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you” (or as the children's Bible says, "...until you become like Christ").

Jordan was gifted in many ways; everyone in the church wanted a piece of him. He helped with the worship team, the technical team, the youth work, and the children's work, and he wasn't even a teenager yet. Everyone could see God's hand was on him, but not everyone was watching his spiritual life.

One day, I noticed that his love for God was not as strong as it had been, so I pulled him aside for a chat. Jordan admitted he had not been spending time with Jesus at home for the past month. We talked more, and together we decided that he would take time to get his relationship with God right. I acted as a shield from all the well-meaning leaders who wanted him to stay on their team during that time.

Now, several years later, he is a young man still serving Jesus in the church, living for Jesus outside of the church, and loving Jesus wherever he goes. All of this is because someone cared enough to keep an eye on his spiritual life. As Paul says, “You have many teachers, but not many fathers.” It is the fathers who care enough to look beyond testimonies and watch for signs from the heart. It is also the spiritual fathers who have the right to speak into the lives of these children. This right comes from months and months of care, prayer, and personal interest.

At the end of the day, we want our children to be lovers of Jesus above everything else. If we pull them onto the stage to perform, we are encouraging them to be performers. When people applaud the children at the end, we reinforce the idea that it is all about their performance. When children are in love with Jesus and we release them to minister, then people will be touched. After one instance of children sharing testimonies from a mission with the local church, the response was not, "Wow, these children are amazing," but rather, "I want God to use me like that too!" The focus was on God. All of this helped the children to delight in serving God, rather than in being something great.

Let’s allow our children to be part of God’s mission this year.