It Takes a Church to Raise a Child

Part of the reason the church exist is education and equipping of the people in it. It’s ultimate message is the Gospel but also teaching the concepts and precepts of God’s word. The church’s mission is helping people understand the need of salvation and a relationship with God and the bringing help to mankind but all this is done through a system of training and preparing christian workers to do the Kingdom work.

When we think missionally about the church, or the equipping of the saints, it is easy to forget that part of the process involves our children. Even in the earliest days of the Hebrew people, God was insistent about helping children learn about Him. This duty fell mostly to the parents but was also about the spiritual community’s effect on children.

One of the accomplished works of Jesus was the founding of the church. He was, in effect, passing on His duties to us. God’s plan, and His will,  apparently involved a system where people would work together to accomplish His work.

God is very concerned about giving children foundations and the heritage to insure that each generation will affect the next. The church is the chief avenue for this.

The church has come a long way from the mentality of “children should be seen and not heard,” in which children were shoved into back rooms with a coloring sheet and whoever was brave enough to oversee the process. We have come far in understanding the need to invest into children. We have finally began to see the pay-off of that investment and are wisely hiring Children’s pastors, building children’s facilities, and equipping children’s workers with the latest technology, and well designed curriculum, in order to win and teach children. 

But it seems that we are once again returning to the same cliche. We may be pushing the children aside once more. 

How?

Parents may be neglecting the commands of God that said to teach your children. 

"Listen, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up." 

                         Deuteronomy 6:4-7 

Parents seem to be so distracted by the noise of life they do not hear the cry of the child, or the voice of God. God’s plan was for the greatest spiritual impact to come from the parent. It has become easy to expect a children’s pastor or Sunday school teacher to build the complete spiritual foundation of our children’s lives, and to do it all in a weekly, easy to take, quick, one hour dose. But this was not God’s plan.

We may be expecting the church’s children’s program to undo all the lessons learned at home. And, sadly to say, most homes may not be teaching the value of God in daily living because God is not part of the lifestyle, the talk, the decision making, or given any part of the family time. Is is very rare and very difficult for the value of God to rise above the model set up in the home.

Often there are many children that attend church who come from no spiritual background or have no Godly influence at home or from the family. Then what? Then the responsibility falls on the church. If the church will not take this responsibility, who will? There is no other human source for spiritual guidance. Who else has the love of Christ and the commission from Him but the church.

God expects the church to impact lives. No matter the age or learning level.   But the church is falling short. We have forsaken our children with words like, “ I don’t like children,” or “That is not my ministry,” or “I don’t have the time to invest.” We have convinced ourselves that as long as we have someone with job description that involves children’s ministry, or someone is paid “to do that,” then God will somehow will dismiss His expectations for us. 

Nancy Reagan made famous the African saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.” We can go farther and say it takes a church to raise a child. When the church raises a child, they are doing more than feeding and housing a body, they are forming character, developing a lifestyle, building a citizen,  erecting a spiritual leader. The church is re-writing tomorrow’s headlines. We are emptying tomorrow’s prisons. We are removing the worry of walking down tomorrow’s dark streets. The church has the opportunity to change tomorrow’s world.

When I as a children’s pastor make a plea to my congregation for help in children’s ministries, this is not just a request but a reminder that we are a spiritual “village.” We don’t place the responsibility of our children as a society on public school teachers alone, they are only part of the factor. Our society in many way is responsible to impact our children. The same is true with the church. We are given the task as a church to change the lives of our children.

The task of the church is not only teaching children, but also protecting and guiding. We are not only here to build them a shelter for their training, but to shelter them in our arms of love and acceptance. The church is more and more become the spiritual and emotional surrogate for the children around us. 

The church, the body of Christ, should still voice: “...Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.”


It takes a church to raise a child!