The priority of discipling children

I am writing to you from Brazil. A small team of our Texas Baptists staff attended the Brazilian Baptist Convention’s Annual Meeting in the city of Fortaleza. After the annual meeting, two of the team members returned to Texas while another two traveled to the Amazon to visit our Missionary Adoption Program (MAP) missionaries.

Monica and I traveled to São Paulo, where I had the privilege of preaching at the historic yet vibrant First Baptist Church of São Paulo. We also visited two impressive ministries of the Brazilian Baptist Convention’s National Mission Board: a refugee village and a crack addict rehabilitation program. As you know, Texas Baptists have a partnership with Brazilian Baptists.

I hope to share more about this with you next week, as well as why it is significant to us as Texas Baptists. For now, I want to share with you about our Texas Baptists Preschool and Children’s Ministers’ Retreat.

As you know, Texas Baptists churches and ministries are about the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. The Great Commandment has its origin in what is called the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:1ff). As Moses teaches the Hebrews the Law of God, he begins by declaring that God is one and that they are to love Him with every aspect of their lives.

Immediately after this invitation to love God in this manner, the next instruction is to keep these commandments in their hearts and impress them on their children. Parents were to model loving God. They were to also have everyday conversations with their children about God. Loving God was not limited to one day of the week or the Tabernacle or Temple.

When I think about my spiritual formation as a child, I am thankful for my parents, Sunday School teachers, VBS directors, an aunt and a grandmother who did both. They modeled with their lives what it looks like to love God. They also taught me about Jesus on Sundays at church and during the week everywhere else. I was discipled before I even trusted Christ, and after I did, too.

I believe that is God’s heart. Discipling children is a priority. I am so thankful for those in my life who understood the importance of family and church discipling the next generation. This partnership between parents and children's workers is what our children need today. I came to know Christ that way, and I am unsure what would have become of me were it not for them.

For that reason, it was my joy to attend and share Bible studies with a wonderful group of women and men who are committed to discipling the next generation in our churches. They are key partners to parents in the spiritual formation of children. They are unique disciplers of children whose parents are not believers.

I was so encouraged during the two days we spent together as I met these ministers, heard their stories, worshiped with them and saw them interacting. Some are in full-time roles working with large teams. Others are serving smaller churches in a part-time capacity. And yet others are volunteers. But all of them are committed to growing, serving and discipling preschoolers and children.

I am thankful for Jennifer Howington, associate director and childhood ministry specialist, Discipleship & NextGen. She is doing an excellent job of equipping and encouraging children’s ministers and assisting churches as they minister to these little ones whom the Lord loves and who are the future of the churches and state and of the missionary force in the years to come.

I encourage you to reach out to Jennifer’s office should you have any questions or need assistance with your preschool and children’s ministry. I ask that you pray for our children’s ministers as they face multiple challenges to feel supported in the important task they carry out. And most of all, I urge you to consider the priority of children’s ministry in your church.

Let’s invest in and pray for the next generation of disciples! Let’s lift our children’s ministers!