by Abram Kim
Children’s Ministry, like any other ministry, can have those moments when you, as a staff volunteer, can feel burned out. The wear and tear during the year can be draining physically and emotionally. The repetitive and sometimes mundane tasks of service can quench the excitement that was there at the start of the year. The prayers become rehearsed and rote. The songs are stale and dry. The lessons are familiar and contemptible. Our Christian life takes us through valleys like these, and when they do, our service suffers and Christ’s glory dulls in our lives.
What is the solution? Athletes go back to the fundamentals when they are in slumps. The Christian must also return to the fundamentals of the faith. We must remember the kindness of God to give us another day to live, a kindness that ought to lead us to repentance for taking His grace for granted (Romans 2:4). We must recall the MVP of Lighthouse Bible Church and discover once again the great purpose of our lives.
The 2013 Shepherds’ Conference once again featured powerful and timely plenary and seminar messages for my soul, even though I did not physically attend the event. Of particular impact this year were John MacArthur’s first message on John 3 and the seminar session on Children’s Ministry by Grace Community Church’s Children’s Ministry pastor, Matt White. The fundamental concept from these messages that strengthened me was that the ultimate goal of ministry, and our purpose in this world as Christians, is evangelism, yet at the same time the work of salvation is not under our control and we can add nothing to contribute to it.
The supreme purpose of the Christian is to make disciples of Christ in the context of the local church in obedience to the Scriptures out of a love for God and others (MVP of Lighthouse). This is in one sense an impossible goal. No one on our staff is capable of turning a heart of stone to a heart of flesh. No one can raise the spiritually dead, or give sight to the spiritually blind. This is a supernatural work. This is a re-creative work. This is a work that God alone can perform.
Nicodemus and the religious leaders of Jesus’ day did not understand this. Nicodemus came to Jesus and was curious at what he would say to him. He knew Jesus was from God, “for no one can do these signs that [He did] unless God is with him.” (John 3:2) Jesus, knowing what was in the heart of man and the key question that Nicodemus had on his mind (John 2:24-25), addressed the issue of salvation from sin to be a part of the Kingdom of God.
The world of the Pharisees was founded on the idea that religion earns merit in God’s economy. But Jesus shattered that notion with his earthly analogy of birth. No baby contributes to their own birth. What did you contribute to your own birth? Did you give the doctor or your mother a helping hand or an encouraging word? If anything, perhaps you complicated your mother’s labor and there were risks of injury or death. Nicodemus, the preeminent teacher of the day, understood Jesus’ analogy well, for he too taught in analogies to help people understand the truths of God’s Word. But Jesus’ analogy on how to be saved, well, this lesson undermined the core of his philosophy. There was absolutely nothing he could do to contribute or secure his own salvation in God’s Kingdom. “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” (John 3:4) Isn’t there anything you can do to contribute to your spiritual birth? There has to be something you can do, isn’t there? The answer from Scripture is clear. There is no hidden knowledge to acquire or religious action to perform to gain favor with God. Just as we contribute nothing to our physical birth, we contribute nothing to our spiritual birth. It is an act of God from beginning to end.
Jesus offers Nicodemus one more earthly analogy to help him understand the heavenly realities he pondered in his heart. The salvation of a soul is like the wind. We can hear it and see its effects, but we have no control over where it comes from or where it goes; the wind will blow where it wishes. Nicodemus’ understanding of spiritual realities is crumbling from its foundations, and all he can say is, “How can these things be?” (John 3:9) He is silent for the remainder of the conversation as Jesus continues to expound on the love of God for sending a Savior to save sinners in this wind-like manner. The task for the sinner is to believe Jesus is the Christ and the only way to be saved. But this belief (faith) will not happen unless the wind blows, until the Spirit breathes spiritual life to the spiritually dead.
The earthly analogies Jesus taught Nicodemus are helpful in understanding how we should evangelize the lost. As parents and as the church, we all must be diligent to teach the full counsel of the Word of God and to preach and model the gospel to the children in our care. But this is our duty and responsibility in obedience to Christ and the Scriptures, as ones alive in the Spirit. Knowing Scripture and the gospel will not raise the dead or direct the wind of salvation. Salvation is God’s work alone, and He alone will receive the glory for the salvation of a soul. This can certainly happen to a 5-year old, and we praise God for that, but the salvation of a soul is not and never will be dependent on the quality of a Children’s Ministry curriculum or the skills of the staff.
This of course doesn’t negate our responsibility as a church and parents to be faithful to our calling to diligently and prayerfully instruct and disciple the ways of God, as written in the Word of God. Our work is in obedience to our Lord. All the more, our work must have at its core time on our knees before the throne of grace in prayer for the wind to blow in the direction of the little ones we love and care for. And this is the chief goal of our ministry. At the same time, we must continually remind ourselves to have the perspective that salvation is not our work, lest we find ourselves as Nicodemus did at the end of his conversation with Jesus, confused and dumbfounded by our inability to contribute to salvation.
Each week as we gather, there is an opportunity for the wind to blow. Let us earnestly and eagerly pray that the wind blows today for someone we love, young or old. “Behold, now is the favorable time; behold now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2)