I Thought I Was Making Disciples. I Was Wrong. Here is What God Showed Me.

“I want to make disciples and fulfill the Great Commission, but I must fulfill the needs of the kids’ ministry first. There is so much to do that I cannot even think about adding one more thing.”

This statement is a journal entry from my heart for most of my 20 years as a Preschool Ministry Director and a Kids’ Pastor. I knew that my calling was to make disciples, and I suspected that all the ministry activity was incidentally pecking away at that calling while I made copies, texted volunteers about serving, attended staff meetings, and did the million other things that kids’ leaders do to make everything happen in kids’ ministry every week.

The kids' leader position is the hardest job at any church. So many of the tasks and demands of a kids’ leader are similar to those of the Lead Pastor and exceed most other staff pastor positions. The kids’ leader must preach, teach, recruit, staff, counsel, plan, and execute big events, maintain processes and procedures, including safety for the most vulnerable population, perform care ministry, and develop leaders and disciples along the way.

At one point, it dawned on me that I was operating a large church inside my church every week. Our kids’ service occurred at the same time as the adult services. We were hosting four services at our main campus and one at a satellite campus at that time. We had live musicians leading worship and a delightful variety-show-style teaching time with small group breakouts afterward. There were 150 kids attending across the five gatherings and more than 100 volunteers under my leadership.

Much of this workload is unseen and uncelebrated by the larger church audience. The rewards and motivation of visibility and the energy of the greater church pass by the horses pulling the wagon of the kids' ministry.

At that time, we were using an established mid-week curriculum that was doing a decent job of creating good experiences for many of our kids. But I noticed that it was not producing disciples. It continued that public-school model of teaching—I teach, you watch. Kids were spending all day in that environment at school, then coming to us tired. We expected the kids to spend another 90 minutes watching and learning from an adult. I did not see much fruit, nor many disciples coming from this model.

So, for all my effort, I felt that I was falling far short of the most important command that Jesus gave us—the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20.) How sad to work so hard and do so much, but to feel like I had not done the first and most important thing that Jesus told us to do.

I asked God for a new vision. He gave me Psalm 1:3:

“He shall be like a tree

Planted by the rivers of water,

That brings forth its fruit in its season,

Whose leaf also shall not wither;

And whatever he does shall prosper.”

I assumed this meant that all my toil would produce disciples someday…later on, when the kids grew to become adults.

This was wrong!

God was asking me to invite the kids to learn with me, study with me, serve with me, evangelize with me, and walk with me as my disciples while I walked with Jesus. He was breaking the “incubator model” that the church taught me as a kid. The incubator model says that if we protect the children and keep them safe from the world, they will wait until maturity and want to participate in the church when they become adults. I believe this model is the main reason that research shows that 64% of young people leave the church when they move away from home. The incubator model is a failure and needs to die.

But instead, God was teaching the paradigm that Jesus gave us in the gospels.

1)      I had to notice that kids could do so much more than anyone was asking them to do.

2)      I had to trust and allow them to try things that I needed help with even if they might struggle and fail at times.

3)      I had to give them meaningful responsibility and walk alongside them as they built the muscles to carry it.

4)      I had to believe that they could read and understand the Bible just like an adult, that they could be filled with the Holy Spirit and use the gifts of the Spirit just like an adult, that they could actually preach the Gospel with their own words and lead people to Christ just like an adult.

5)      Then, I had to do everything to create opportunities for them to do all this.

Dr. Clint at Leaders In Training (L.I.T.) had become aware of this and created a process to accomplish this revolution in kids’ ministry several years before I started to chase this kingdom mindset. He had written the training and the devotionals that helped me put all this into practice. So, when I discovered his website (www.leadersintraining.com) and his resources, it was like God had dropped the answer in my lap.

My church began a weekly program to help turn my kids into disciples. They gobbled up this experience with gusto and came back for more! They could not get enough of the Word, the Spirit, and the responsibilities to serve and be on mission.

What started as a far off and disappointing sense of failure, turned into the greatest wind beneath my wings that I could ever have imagined. Instead of being frustrated and overwhelmed trying to carry all the weight of kids’ ministry, now I had an army of dedicated, trained, passionate disciples to help me carry the weight. And everyone involved in the whole process was so full of joy because they could see and taste the fruit of what God was doing in the kids, the L.I.T. disciples, the adults, the greater church, and the next generation!

Jesus said in John 15:16:

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.”

I was given the opportunity to see this verse come true in my life, in my family, in my church, and in my next generations. And, it has not stopped reproducing and bearing fruit! This is truly the slow burning, multi-generational revival that Jesus prophesied in the Great Commission.

Wouldn’t you like to experience this, too?

Russ Zacek, VP Director of US Operations