A DIFFERENT TYPE OF SITTING, WALKING, RESTING, RISING

 A DIFFERENT TYPE OF SITTING, WALKING, RESTING, RISING

I was recently reading one of the world’s leading theologians, Dr. David deSilva, who specialises in what the New Testament teaches about Christian community. He reflected on how he had the privilege of being invited into many churches across the United States and Asia. He then made a comment about what he considered was the saddest and most heard appeal given in the hundreds of churches he had been in. 

“It is always a grievous thing when pastors have to call time and time again for Sunday school teachers and youth group leaders—better an empty choir loft than a lack of investment on the part of mature Christians in the lives and the training of the youth in the ‘instruction and discipline of the Lord.’ Our children’s roots in the faith will be all the deeper, and their equipment to engage adult life as Christians all the more complete, if many adults take a keen interest in them, making opportunities to talk with them about God, about living a life that honors God, about the ways in which one can sink deep roots in God’s love.”
David deSilva, “Honor, Patronage, Kinship and Purity”, 2000:239

Dr. deSilva goes on to discuss how every church needs every adult to recognise their responsibility to help teach and disciple the children within their church centre. This doesn’t necessarily mean every adult should be out in Kids Church each Sunday, but it does mean that every adult needs to be extra-aware that they are already teaching each of the children in the church by their example. It’s uncomfortably amazing just how much children indirectly learn about Christianity from observing grown-ups at church! Secondly, it should mean that more mature adult believers will volunteer to regularly teach in the Kids Church. Most of our Kids Church team leaders are qualified teachers who spend time training volunteer Kids Church teachers. Please prayerfully consider how you can be a part of our church’s ministry to children.

 

SITTING, WALKING, RESTING, RISING FOR THE SAKE OF CHILDREN 

You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
Deuteronomy 6:7

You don’t have to be a parent to be an everyday teacher of the children in our church. The kind of teaching, training, and discipleship that the Bible calls for involves talking about the Lord when you sit, when you walk, when you lie down, and when you rise. But if you are a parent, then you have the privilege of teaching and training your own children every time you sit, lie down, and rise up. The children of our church need to know what the bible says, why the bible is true and reliable, why Christianity is true, and how to apply what Jesus taught.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Ephesians 6:4

We each bear a responsibility to ensure that the next generation of Christ-followers are taught, trained, prepared, and equipped, to walk confidently with Christ and to be able to make Him known. “Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:13-14). Doing what we can to help a child to know and love God is something that we can each contribute to—even if we are not a parent. Note this closing New Testament verse from a follower of Christ who never had his own children, but saw himself as a father to many which would have caused him to share the Word of God when he sat, when he walked, when he rested, and when he arose for the day -

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
3John 4 , Apostle John

 

Your pastor,

Andrew