If you are involved in any sort of church ministry, you’ll know that it’s not long before you come up against questions about where children fit in God’s church. Do we run a children’s program? How many? What’s their purpose? The Child in God’s Church: Faith-formative Relationships that Grow Disciples Who Know, Love and Obey King Jesus by Tim Beilharz answers these questions. If you are a ministry practitioner of any kind, let me recommend this excellent book to you. It challenged and stimulated me.
Imagining church for children
We often ask the practical questions about children’s ministry but the fundamental questions that lie behind good children’s ministry are rarely asked: Where do children fit in God’s church? What even is a child, according to God? The answers to those questions will shape how we imagine children in our churches and families.
The Child in God's Church
Tim Beilharz
In The Child in God’s Church, Tim Beilharz provides the biblical reasons for including and nurturing children as precious members of the body of Christ. He sets the theological and theoretical foundations for understanding children and the church, then provides a framework for practising children’s ministry in the local church.
These questions are explored in part 1: The Foundations of Children’s Ministry. Here Beilharz explores childhood, church, and faith formation, and provides two key insights:
1) Children are developing disciples. They are growing, learning, and developing in ways particular to childhood.
2) In God’s church, children are shaped by sitting under God’s word, and by the community.
In part 2: The Structure of Children’s Ministry, wisdom on the ‘how’ of ministry to children is offered, including age-specific, household, and intergenerational ministry strategies.
Esteeming Childhood
Child in God’s Church esteems childhood as a place of rich discipleship, where children are welcomed as members of the body of Christ and expected to grow as disciples of Jesus and expected to be of mutual benefit to God’s people. In chapter 1, Beilharz helps his readers see children with the Lord Jesus’ eyes: as precious, known, loved and dear to him.
Tim posits that children are capable of saving faith (Acts 2:39; Ephesians 6:1-3; Colossians 3:19; 2 Timothy 1:5). When we treat children as incapable of saving faith, we rob them of opportunities for real gospel growth when we treat them as less than capable of saving faith. We should, however, expect that their growth will involve some wobbling and failing. This expectation should build an abundance of patience in us and with them as they test the boundaries and work towards faith.
This book’s high estimation of childhood leaves us with a great responsibility to give our best when discipling young people. We shouldn’t shrink back from working out what will be most helpful for them. This responsibility and work confronts us with the questions: 1) How do we meet them where they’re at? and, 2) How do we help them grow?
In the author’s eyes, the most important way we can serve children doesn’t start with what we can do for them (James 1:19). Instead, the best thing we can do for children is to listen to them. In his own words: “As we seek to understand them, their world, their interests, and their understanding of the Bible, Jesus, and Christian faith, we will be more effective in our communication about these important things back to them.” Listening helps us develop ministry that is not just directed at children but is influenced by them so we can apply the gospel deeply to their hearts, minds and lives.
Esteeming the Local Church
In chapter 2, Beilharz explores what the church is, and there is a beautiful simplicity in Beilharz’ picture of the church: “a gathering of God’s people … hearing God’s word … representing the heavenly gathering.”
And yet, per chapter 4, despite the simplicity of this picture of church there is a “richly communal aspect” to faith. Christians need each other for faith to flourish. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses of all stages, ages and backgrounds. Children should be given ample opportunity to grow into this community so that they learn the faith from those who have gone before them, and adults should have space to be served and blessed by children.
Beilharz provides wisdom on both structured aspects of church life (i.e. liturgy, prayer, song), and the purposeful curation of unstructured down time (i.e. creating spaces over meals and purposefully engaging young and old together in unstructured time) to help develop deep relationships.
Overall, Beilharz tends towards an optimistic vision of Christian life. There’s something beautiful about his bounding optimism and yet the opportunity to really ‘do faith’ alongside one another requires a level of vulnerability within a community that is difficult. It’s important for kids to see adults appropriately win, fail, and learn how to respond to that with grace. It is important that children see adults in victory, struggle and growth. If they only see the results of hard-won Christian growth, they will be surprised when they struggle in the Christian life.
Esteeming the Household
Child in God’s Church esteems the household in chapter 6. As a children and youth ministry practitioner, I can attest that it is easy to focus on immediate and pressing issues. These immediate and pressing issues are often the children directly in front of me. When I focus on the children, the parents can become peripheral, rather than essential partners in the discipleship of young people. What a shame!
It can be hard as a children’s minister to adequately equip parents for ministry to their children, because I can’t easily control parent-to-child ministry. I can set vision and direction, encourage parents, communicate what’s going on in my children’s ministry programs, and provide leadership. But ultimately, that is a whole lot of a child’s life where I am leaving ministry to others. Beilharz has challenged me to trust parents with the discipleship of their children, because we don’t do this work alone!
Parents are challenged to have faith on their tongues, hearts, and lives all the time. There’s an endless list of programs and routines you could add to your family life to enhance your family discipleship. That list can be daunting. Beilharz advocates that parents should model lived faith to their children. But parenting is hard. He finishes this chapter with a discussion on God’s grace in parenting failure. “[Parents] are usually very aware of their failings … all their fears and failures are taken up in the once-for-all atoning death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.” His power is made perfect in our weakness. This is precious news for struggling parents.
Grace For Our Failures
The privilege and responsibility of ministry to, for and with young people is huge. There’s an endless number of programs and methodologies out there that promise to be a silver bullet, and it can be exhausting trying to keep up. Beilharz helps us see there is no silver bullet. Instead, he encourages readers to reimagine how they see children in God’s church: as vital, beloved, and developing. We’ll all likely wobble on our way to doing our best for young people. But God’s power is made perfect in your weakness! Keep wobbling forward in faith for the gospel growth of children!
And yet…
And yet, I wonder how to teach kids that the joy of diversity can also mean we have to sacrifice our own personal preferences for the sake of others. We can smooth out a kids church experience so much that kids think that church is for them, which of course it is, but church is also for the whole community, per chapter 7. We come together as the church to encourage and serve one another as well as be encouraged and served regardless of age and stage.
Beilharz’s deep commitment to children and the local church unifies the book. He imagines a rich and hopeful vision for what the church and family could be under Jesus. Churches are diverse. You may disagree with people about liturgy and non-essential doctrine. All of us need to accommodate those differences. It’s good for adults to learn to adjust, so that we make things simple and concrete when we join in worship with children. I think every generation needs to recognise that concessions and compromises are needed so that church can be a place for all. We need to help each other do church well together. And that might mean children will be distracted in church sometimes. There is a goodness to kids learning to do church with adults. It provides space for parents to tell their children that church is not about them. Sometimes church will seem disinteresting. Sometimes it will be fun. But church is not for you. Church is for us.
