Tag Archives: salvation
How about equipping our parents?
Posted on17. Apr, 2008 by Kenny.
A few weeks ago I wrote about “The Essence of Orange” DVD from the reThink group. In this DVD, Reggie Joiner mentioned this very things I’ve been writing about. Since it was Orange, it was in the family ministry context. However, it made more sense to me than anything else I have ever done or heard.
*** Preface **** Now I could have heard this wrong or I could be off, but I think this is the gist of what he was saying.
All of us agree that we want parents to be more involved in the spiritual development of our kids. If asked though, most of us would probably admit that we were doing little to equip parents to spiritually lead their kids. There are many, many good reasons to invite kids to Christ in a kids church or event. However, why can’t we create more opportunities for parents to be involved in actually leading their child to Christ?
Reggie explained that in many of their services they wouldn’t necessarily call kids to make decisions but more call kids toward wanting to make a decision. Once they got to that point, the invited kids and their parents to a class. In this class, both the parents and the kids learned what it meant to make this decision and were giving the tools to do it. Then, the class dismissed and sent everyone home. Parents could then use the resources, materials and training to actually lead their kids to Christ (possibly even themselves in the process). Sure, it’s probably a little messier and perhaps you have fewer kids go though this process than letting them make decisions without their parents, but it does show a commitment toward equipping the parents. If a mom or dad can do what it takes to lead their child to Christ, perhaps with the right materials they can begin leading their family in Bible study?
I’ve been thinking a lot about what this might look like in my ministry. Still processing it, but I like the way it looks.
Sorry, I lied. I have one more thing to say on this matter.
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Parent involvement?
Posted on16. Apr, 2008 by Kenny.
Amazing. I remember being the 20 year-old, part-time Children’s Pastor at a small church in Jenks, Oklahoma. A parent approached me with his 4th grade daughter (this did happen on more than one occasion) and said, “Mr. Kenny, my daughter want’s to receive Christ. Will you pray with her?”
I look at this situation differently now than I did 11 years ago. I said “Absolutely… let’s pray!” Now when I look back at this situation I see a different picture. It’s a little strange (but far too common). A grown man, a father, was handing off his child for me to share in the most important decision of her life. I understand. He probably saw this as my “job.” He also probably felt unqualified. However, how hard would it have been for me to coach him in leading his daughter to Christ. She was ready. Has this ever happened to you?
How about this one? On occasion I would get a phone call from a confused (sometimes angry) parent. The child came home from church or from VBS and told his/her parents that he/she had committed his/her life to Christ. The calling parent would sometimes just question if we really believed a child could make this kind of decision. They’d sometimes question our approach, asking kids to make a decision before they really understood what they were doing. I had one parent angrily accuse me of luring kids to raising hands, praying a prayer so I could go back to my staff and tell them how many I had converted.
Yikes!
I have always felt a heavy responsibility for inviting kids to follow Christ. Certainly I was to take advantage of my opportunities, but I also made every effort to contact families of kids who made decisions. And this is the struggle I had. We would see hundreds of kids come to Christ at VBS. Over the following months we would baptized dozens. However, I’d always have one or two of these phone calls/conversations. I rationalized that it was okay to alienate one or two people as long as we would see kids come to Christ by the dozens. But I still didn’t always feel great about this, it just didn’t seem right. In situations where kids are given an opportunity to receive Christ, how do you involved the parents? How do you respect them as the spiritual authority, regardless of whether they take it seriously.
Here’s how we “fixed” this:
We’d give an invitation whether it was VBS or regular weekend service. We’d either send home a packet with them that day or mail on to them the next day. Ultimately the packet explained that the child had made a decision, we were excited and we’d love to help follow-up. We’d give them options to attend a baptism class or meet with someone on staff. However, we were putting the “ball” in their court. A portion of these parents did call us, come to baptism classes or meet with the staff. Many did not, but we decided that we needed to respect the parents in this process. We would usually send a follow-up letter to those who didn’t respond to our previous letter a few weeks later, but after that we would let it go. The result? I stopped getting those phone calls. Kids were coming to Christ and I felt like we were respecting the parental authority boundary.
Wrapping this up tomorrow.
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Children’s baptism
Posted on14. Apr, 2008 by Kenny.
I won’t deny it. I love praying with a child to receive Christ. It’s one of the things I love most about my job. Yeah, I also love to baptize kids. When I baptize them, I know I’ve had a chance to walk through this decision with the child and his or her parents. But what do I think is even cooler? When I get to stand by a parent as they baptize their own child. Over the years I’ve baptized hundreds of kids. Certainly it has been very special to me. Several of my facebook friends are kids I baptized years ago. Sometimes I’ve seen endorsements for a speaker/evangelist coming to speak somewhere that state the number of kids he’s baptized. “Brother Mark has baptized 4,000 kids.”
What does that tell me? No, I don’t initially think it’s bragging. It tells me that Brother Mark has likely had a powerful and effective ministry. Praise God! But how do I want to be known (not that I really need to want to be know)? How many kids has Kenny Conley baptized? Maybe by the number of times I’ve enabled parents to baptize their own kid. Now that’s cool. I’ve got some more thoughts on this I’d like to share with you.
Technorati Tags: baptism,parents,Childrens Ministry
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