Children’s ministries need to be more than just fun

Over the summer, I had the privilege of attending CMS Summer School. It was great! And if you haven’t read about it, make sure you check out the Growing Faith article, The unexpected benefits of family camps by Antony barraclough.

My children attended the excellent children’s programme (with around one thousand other children and youth) and at the end of each day, I would pick my two girls up and out of my mouth came three simple words, “Was that fun?” Now these words sound harmless enough. “Was it fun?” is the sort of thing you might ask a child after they have been at a birthday party or ridden on a merry-go-round. But something very different and much more significant was happening and does happen when children come together around God’s word, whether it is at Sunday School, a Christian Camp or a Christian holiday programme.

It's not all fun and games

As many adults know, it is not always fun when the fallen people of God gather together around his word. Sometimes it is hard as the word of God convicts us of sin. Sometimes it is painful as we see the brokenness of the world we live in. And sometimes it is desperate as we long for the return of the Lord Jesus.

My worry is that by asking our children if the children’s ministry they were part of was fun, we are making 'fun' the high point of their gathering. Rather than focusing our children on Christ and what he has done, we are inadvertently focusing them on fun and whether that was achieved. The problem of course for the children’s ministry team is that they feel the pressure to make everything fun, as they might think this will please both the parents and the children.

Asking the right questions

Now I don’t want to be a joyless party pooper and I am totally in favour of a children’s ministry team working hard to run age appropriate, interactive and engaging ministry. I do think that children’s ministry like adult ministry should be marked by great joy (Phil 4:4, Rom 5:3, Luke 10:20 for a start) but joy of course is fundamentally different to fun.

So what should we ask our children? Some ideas I have considered are:

• What did you do?
• What did you learn?
• What part of the bible did you look at?

 

I think these are all good questions and certainly superior to “Did you have fun?” but I have started making a point of asking my children, “What are you thankful for?” So far it has started some good conversations.  I have learnt things about what they are doing, what their teachers are like, and their understanding of certain things. But mostly I think it has refocussed us as a family.

It has reminded us to be thankful for the many blessings we have as we meet with God’s people, blessings both small and large and it has reminded us most of all that meeting with God’s people doesn’t need to be fun, but we can always be thankful. Whether we are rebuked, corrected, taught something new or reminded of something we already know, we are thankful above all else for Jesus. His death and resurrection make our earthly gatherings a sure and living hope of the promise of the great eternal gathering.

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