One of the members of our church had a conversation with me a this weekend they asked me if kids ministry and youth ministry were biblical.
He was asking not out of disagrement but more out curiosity as to what my response would be. This question has started to come up because of the state of the church in the west and the rate in which young people are leaving the church.
There are some people who believe that youth and kids ministry have largely contributed to this phenomenon. Jesus never had a puppet explain the Torah as a child, and neither did he attend a conference as a youth where the Rabbi talked about the hotness of his wife.
So because the Bible doesn’t talk about teaching kids and youth separately from adults, it shouldn’t be done? I say yes and no.
To start off, I would say the ultimate responsibility of the spiritual life of every child lies with his or her own parents. Parents are the primary leaders, examples and communicators of biblical truth in the life of their children.
Having said that, kids need much more than just their parents’ influence in their lives. I had a mom from another church explain to me that she kept her kids away from youth group at their church because she knew that the youth pastor needed her kids to attend because they were more well-behaved than all the other kids that went to youth group. He needed her kids to be a good example of Christlikeness to the other kids that attended. The only thing I could think was, Awesome way to model humility, community, and passion for Christ’s church.
Here are the reasons I think Youth Ministry and Kids Ministry matter.
1. Every kid needs a friend – not a sibling, not a family member, but a friend outside their family unit who believes the same thing they believe.
