Which way are they facing?

A line to cross, or a direction to face?

Leaders are often rightly concerned with whether a child is saved. There is much debate about whether a child can lose their salvation. But in practical terms, whether salvation can be lost or not matters less than another question: Which direction is this child facing today?

Picture a line. Once you cross it – if you believe in ‘once saved always saved’ - a brick wall goes up behind you. If you don’t, there is no wall. But even if there is a wall, I’m concerned about a child who is facing that wall wanting to cross back over the line away from God. And the opposite is true, too: a child who has clearly not yet crossed the line, but is walking steadily towards the things of God, is one I'm glad to journey with. If they keep going they will encounter Him. I am more concerned with a child with their back to the Lord than one who is heading towards Him but has not yet encountered Him.

Of course, there has to be a moment when someone decides to follow, in whatever language they use. They will need to confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in their heart that God raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9). If it's real, it changes everything; their lives will show the fruit.

We once had a girl who had led many of her friends to the Lord. She was wonderful. But we noticed her heart cooling, so we took her aside and suggested she step back from the choir for three months to focus on just her and Jesus. She admitted she'd lost something. We cared more about her heart than about her usefulness in ministry.

It's often the best-behaved children, the ones who always know the answers, who struggle most when a church shifts from head knowledge to heart knowledge. The same goes for pastors' kids, who are expected to answer every question and never put a foot wrong. There can be huge pressure on them to perform in the way that people expect. We need to watch our children’s heart direction, not their performance in church.

Children are the thermometer

Raising children who pursue the Lord is not a one-person endeavour. It is a community project. A friend in children's ministry says children are the thermometer of the church. If our children aren't interested in prayer, it may be telling us our adults aren't praying, because if they were, the children would be more likely to catch it. Churches strong in intercession tend to raise children who are strong in intercession. Churches that excel in worship or teaching see those strengths in their children too.

That is why, when people say, ‘we just need to train children's leaders better,’ I agree and then ask for one step back. I travel around training leaders and parents, and I'm all for it. But I've been in places where the whole church is discipled. Almost everyone could preach the sermon. When hard times come, it isn't a crisis of faith; it's ‘my God is God and I will serve him until I die.’ Leaders from a church like that pass on the same DNA without needing a special programme.

The West has a bigger problem than our discipleship of children: we are not discipling adults well enough. If every member of a church knew how to pray in a way that changed things on earth, nobody would struggle to lead a child in prayer. But often our prayers are not targeted for kingdom advancement. One question has stuck with me: if all your prayers were answered tomorrow, would the world be a better place, or would you just have a better life?

Remember, worrying about something is not the same as praying about it. True prayer ascends to the throne room of God and returns with more of God’s mindset and more of His kingdom to invade this fallen world.

What church leaders can do

Research conducted after the pandemic found that church leaders said they loved the next generation and wanted to support their leaders, while children's leaders wanted support but struggled to specify what kind. Both sides sense the gap and want to bridge it so the church works together in unity for the next generation.

I suspect real support is not just asking "how are you doing?" or saying thank you from the front. Often children's leaders are frustrated because they can't do it all, and they need the church leaders and the wider church to carry it together: standing up on a Sunday and talking to families, and embedding discipleship principles into the whole church. That might be more supportive than any amount of thanks.

We don't need perfect answers. We do need to start the conversation, with the whole church in the room.

Questions to take away

• Which direction are the children in our care facing?

• What would our children tell us about the spiritual temperature of our church?

• What more can we do as leaders to demonstrate a life with Jesus that crosses generational lines?