Reaching every child

Chris Cartwright discusses the benefits of focusing on children's ministry and the power of early evangelism

Evangelical Alliance UK News recently reported a startling result from its ‘Talking Toddlers’ research. They found that church-based toddler group leaders are missionally engaging with over 74 per cent of families with children under the age of five in their communities.

The report may seem to go against the grain of our expectations, but it’s really good news. It demonstrates that families with young children living near a church community which is giving thought, energy and focus on families are far more open than we might anticipate.

I can’t help but think back to the moment at the Everyone Conference in Amsterdam last summer when one of the speakers asked the audience of some 6,000 people to stand if they came to faith in Jesus before the age of 10. Then he said: “Stand if you came to faith before the age of 15”, then 20, then 30 and so on until everybody in the room was on their feet. What was striking was that by the age 15, 80 per cent of the people in the room were already standing. By the age of 20 it was 90 per cent.

The speaker made the powerful point that if our direct experience is that almost everyone who follows Jesus today came to faith in childhood or in their youth, then why are we not focusing more on ministry and mission to children and young people? Why does it not occupy more of our focus and a higher priority in our finance, our resources, our programmes and our local churches?

Put like that it’s a no-brainer. And yet in reality right across the churches and movements we would recognise that so often our attention and priorities are elsewhere.

Some years ago, Tim Alford and members of our Limitless leaders team, out of their passion to reach and equip young people for Christ, came to the National Leadership Team with a vision to help Elim churches with no youth ministry to start one. They had identified 111 churches that did not have any youth ministry – many of which had no young people. Along with their passion they had a plan to pioneer new youth ministries.

That’s how Limitless Pioneers was born. Over the next few years they got together gifted youth leaders and churches that wanted to help others get started. They prayed, they identified the need and shared the burden, they raised finance, trained workers and volunteers and, most significantly of all, they made a commitment to doing something targeted and radical.

Today there are new and growing youth ministries in 26 of those churches and others in the prayer and planning stage for the year ahead. You can check out the amazing stories and updates on the Limitless website. As part of Elim’s Advance Vision for this decade and inspired by what’s been accomplished already with youth ministry, we want to see a fresh emphasis on children’s ministry and outreach across our movement. We believe the Holy Spirit is leading us to focus on reaching and equipping this generation of children for Christ, and we sense a burden to pray, to mobilise and to work towards that goal. And we are inviting all Elim people to stand with us in the season ahead as we seek to respond to what the Lord is calling us to do.

Elim has an extraordinary history of courageous, creative and Christ-centred children’s outreach and ministry. From the outset, Elim pioneers proclaimed that the gospel was for every person – and that that included every child. During the Second World War a vibrant national children’s initiative called ‘Sunshine Corner’ was launched with gatherings all over the nation. Pastor Archie Biddle conducted huge children’s outreaches for over 15 years, drawing average attendances of 3,000 and more on Bank Holidays.

From such initiatives local churches were encouraged to develop creative outreach to children and families in their communities, and many children came to faith. After the war, children’s evangelist Sunny Blundell led innovative evangelism to thousands of children and inspired the strengthening of ministry to children in our local churches.

We have amazing children’s ministry leaders and workers across Elim. For a number of years they have been dedicated to helping, training and supporting others. They have come to the NLT with a growing burden that we need to – and can do – so much more.

Times and styles change, but in an increasingly secular culture, the need to reach children with the good news of the gospel has never been more important. I believe the Lord is not only calling us to fresh adventures in children’s ministry but he is also preparing and calling many to respond.

At the Elim Leaders Summit in May we will be sharing more on the challenge and opportunity of reaching and raising up a generation of children and young people to live for Christ. And we will be taking an offering to advance children’s ministry across our movement.

Please join us in praying for a move of the Holy Spirit to give us all fresh vision, heart and faith for this great task that every child should have an opportunity to know and receive Jesus as their Lord and Saviour and to follow him all the days of their lives.

You can give financially to the Elim Children’s Ministry Appeal via the Elim website: elim.org.uk/c1.

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.

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