Justification & the Shape of Children's Ministry

[This essay was initially written Fall of 2015 in Theology of Christian Leadership class at Criswell College under the supervision of Dr. Christopher Graham.]

What happens when a child who receives Jesus fails to ever understand the implications of his new standing before God? This is an unfortunate reality in the life of many churches and children’s ministries. There are children in the church who never (or late in life) come to a lived-reality that their lives are reoriented toward God’s kingdom because of their new standing before God. While they have access to God, they neither understand his power nor the worldview of his kingdom. They continue to be enslaved to the social practices and norms of their culture, rather than living under the reign of Christ. While it may be granted that responsibility lies on the individual, particularly once these children reach adulthood; yet responsibility also lies with the church and in particular within the children’s ministry.

To what end do we enact the structures, practices, and activities in children’s ministry which embodies the reality of our new standing before God? Children’s ministries have enacted structures, practices, and activities for numerous reasons. Some of these reasons have been based on pragmatic and/or theological grounds. This essay explores the relationship between the doctrine of justification and children’s ministry.

Justification is a forensic term denoting a change in our legal standing before God. Stan Grenz writes that justification “is God’s ultimate answer to the condemnation that stands over us because of sin…As a result we can enjoy new standing before God.” Thus, how can a children’s ministry structure its practices and activities to operate with this reality in mind?

1. Recognize that our new standing before God enables our worldview to be reoriented by the power of the Spirit. This includes both a (re)structuring of children’s ministry and the (re)orientation of the child’s life to this end. I fear that some Christians fail to recognize that our new standing before God has brought forth particular new realities associated with God’s redemptive activity in Jesus and by the Spirit. When we fail to recognize these realities, we fail to shape our life—ecclesial and individual—from the reality that we now are in fellowship with the Triune God and living under his reign. This failure effects not merely ourselves but those to whom we minister the gospel of Christ. Our new standing before God enables us by the Spirit to be reoriented to the practices of God’s kingdom.

2. Evaluate our practices in light of our new standing before God. Coming out of and living in a world predisposed to sin and rebellion against God makes it necessary for us to evaluate the social practices and structures in which we participate. Evaluating our practices in light of our new standing before God helps us understand and participate in God’s present reign. So how do we evaluate our practices in light of our new standing before God? It may be helpful to begin with questions, such as: How does this practice support, demonstrate, and/or embody the reality that we (Jesus followers) have a new standing before God? How does this practice support, teach, and/or help a child understand her new standing before God?

 3. Perform the realities that our new standing before God has given us. Because of our new standing before God, we live as justified ones. We are no longer alienated from God, but have put on the righteousness of Christ Jesus. This reality enables us by the Spirit of God to be in fellowship with the Triune God and live under his reign. For all Christians, this new standing before God transfers us into his kingdom. No longer are we to represent the way of sin, rebellion, and death, but we are to represent God’s way—a way of peace, reconciliation, and freedom. We are not merely made right before God in order to go our own way, but to come into fellowship with him in his kingdom. 

Central to structuring the practices and activities of children’s ministry under the reign of Christ is the fundamental reality that we who follow Jesus have a new standing before God. This is a fundamental aspect of our worldview, both for those leading children and children themselves, and must be embodied—ecclesiastically and individually. Children’s ministries cannot leave children grasping for their identity in the world and before God, but must lay the child’s foundation as one who lives in new standing with God (and all that it implies) through its structures, practices, and activities. May a child not fail to grasp the lived-reality that she has new standing before God, because we choose a model of children’s ministry that does not negotiate this theological reality.