A biblical model for discipling children
Every Generation Ministries is working with children’s workers in churches around the world to develop transformational children’s ministry.
We look to the Bible itself for ministry guidance as we learn how to disciple children. Deuteronomy 6 has been our foundation for developing a growing number of “model” children’s workers around the world.
We believe that Deuteronomy 6:4-9 provides five simple qualities of transformational teaching. Each one is essential to the mission of giving every child a chance to respond to God’s Word.
Relationship
Deuteronomy 6:5-6: Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give to you today are to be upon your hearts.
Discipling children begins with the children’s worker’s heart. Their love for God flows through them to the children. As they live according to God’s commandments, their example teaches the children. Their words and deeds often speak louder than words.
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Experience
Deuteronomy 6:7:…when you sit at home and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you get up.
Teaching should be intertwined with what children experience every day. Children’s workers seek to create an activity that takes learning past a cognitive exercise and into an actual objective of the lesson.
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Truth
Deuteronomy 6:7: Impress [these commandments] on your children.
God’s Word is the source of truth. Children’s workers must seek to teach the Bible itself to children – not stories or curriculum. The truth of Scripture is effectively taught not when a traditional “children’s” Bible story is repeated in a traditional way or straight from a curriculum book, but when the Bible itself is studied, read and communicated creatively to children.
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Discussion
Deuteronomy 6:7: Talk about them…
Many children are taught the Bible as a collection of stories that have no connection to their real lives. Through an open and honest dialogue, children’s workers help boys and girls understand the scripture as more than a story. They discuss how the Bible applies to them, individually and personally. This application of Scripture when discipling children will bring about the transformation in their lives.
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Response
Deuteronomy 6:8-9: Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your house and on your gates.”
The Word of God should affect what a child does. It should affect how a child thinks. No child should leave the classroom without knowing how they can personally respond to the Word of God in the way they think and what they do in day to day life. Children’s workers give children practical opportunities to respond to the Word of God both inside and outside the classroom.
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In order to see the lives of children around the world transformed by Christ through His Church, EGM is committed to developing a growing number of children’s workers around the world – equipped to lead transformational children’s ministry in their churches.