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Discipling Kingdom-Hearted Children

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By Rochele Griffin

A few weeks ago, my children and I were feeling like we just needed to get out of the house. So we did just about the only thing we could do on a rainy quarantine day, and went for a drive. 

Just a few minutes down the road, one of my children asked, “Mom, do you think this could be the end of the world?” His question was not said in a joking manner, and it kind of caught me off guard. I hadn’t realized how much my children had been processing what was happening around us. They didn’t just see a change of schedule or plans; they were keenly aware that everything feels different. 

We have a choice in these moments with our kids to give a quick and comforting answer: “No buddy, it’s not, and we don’t need to worry about that.” Or we can stop for a moment and ask the Lord to meet us with wisdom as we speak to the souls of our little ones.  

2 Timothy 3:14-17 says:

14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom[a]you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God[b]may be complete, equipped for every good work.

It’s our job to teach the word of God to our children. We are the ones “from whom they will learn it.” And we do so knowing that all of it is profitable and can and should be used for training in righteousness. 

During this season filled with hard questions from the searching souls of our children, we are given a special opportunity to address parts of their discipleship that may normally be overlooked. Coronavirus gives us the opportunity to step outside of the normal day-to-day training and teach our children that not only do we keep our eyes on Jesus, but we do so with strides toward heaven. 

So how do we point them to the joy of eternity in everyday coronavirus-impacted conversations? 

As our children deal with disappointment over canceled events, plans, and birthday parties, we draw their attention to the ever-certain, never-ending celebration that Heaven will be. (Revelation 19:6-9)

As we grapple over our rights and freedoms, we teach them (and remind ourselves) that eternity holds perfect fellowship with God and one another. It will never be interrupted—nothing and no one will ever strip it away. (Revelation 21:3)

As their tears of loneliness, frustration, and pain surface, we teach them that soon every tear will be wiped from their eyes. (Revelation 21:4)

As these days seem to get long, we tend to become irritable, and things aren’t as peaceful in our homes as we’d like them to be, as we take the steps to repent and make amends, we can teach our children that in heaven, every relationship will be made perfect. We will no longer have to seek peace, but will live in it, completely. 

It isn’t easy, but this is also a great time for us to open the eyes of our children to the sufferings of the world, to show them what it is to have a heart that cries “Lord Jesus, come quickly!” When our children have an opportunity to see pain in the world, we give them the opportunity to desire true healing. When our children are exposed to the results of widespread sin and the realities of depravity, when they glimpse the pain of life lived without Jesus, they can begin to understand not only their need for Him, but also the need to share Him with others. 

In this season, we ought to be expressing the joy of eternity come, so that our children can’t help but want to share it too.

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Resourcing Community Groups and Group Leaders at Elim

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By Larry Short, Community Ministry Director

This is the third in a series of seven posts on guiding principles for community groups at Elim. To read all seven principles together, please click here.

It probably sounds way “obvious” to make the following observation: those programs that a church (like ours) places a high value upon are those things that church spends its greatest time and energy focusing its resources on.

If you think about it, this becomes quite clear. At Elim, we rightly place a very high priority on what happens in our Sunday morning service—worship, preaching, fellowship, etc.

Can you imagine us saying, “Hey, it’s pretty darned expensive and time-consuming to have professional pastors spend all that time preparing and delivering sermons. So let’s just go without, okay?”

And how about children’s and youth ministry? Elim (obviously) places a high value on the next generation, and rightly so. As a result, we focus a lot of resources and efforts raising up leaders who will help train and care for our children and youth.

Missions? We have a long tradition of faithful support of various critical missions programs. We send out short-term missionaries and have even raised up and helped resource professional missionaries from within our own congregation.

As I’ve thought about community groups here at Elim in light of this reality, I have experienced some conviction that I believe is from the Holy Spirit. In the first part of this seven-part series, I spoke of the value that community groups have in discipling people in this church. In the second post, we discussed how it is God Himself who raises up group leaders and who works in the midst of these groups of believers.

If all this is true, then we should therefore be placing great emphasis on how we resource group leaders and their groups—how we recruit leaders, equip them, and encourage them in the task. This reality forms the commitment behind our third principle for community groups at Elim:

We will prayerfully consider what recruiting, equipping, and encouraging group leaders should look like. But here are some early principles we will seek to live by:

  • “Three Hands” and Leadership Pipeline principles must play a key role in raising up and training new leaders. Group leaders are encouraged to pray about and seek to identify a potential leader or leaders they could mentor. If you would like to become a leader, your first step should be to get connected to an existing group and mentor under its leader.
  • All group leaders should also themselves have identified mentors who can encourage and help equip them. The Community Ministry intends to help connect leaders to mentors.
  • Group leaders also need Barnabases in their lives—other leaders they meet with for encouragement and prayer. This can’t be accomplished without spending time together, which the Community Ministry intends to facilitate. Part of that process will be group leaders sharing their stories, successes, challenges, best practices, and dreams with one another.

If you are unfamiliar with the “Three Hands” model, it basically says that all serious disciples of Jesus need a hand up (to someone who is mentoring them), a hand down (to someone they are mentoring), and a hand across (to co-laborers who can encourage them in the task). You may have also heard this stated as the “Paul, Timothy, and Barnabas” model. The Apostle Paul was a mentor to Timothy and a co-laborer with Barnabas in the task for which God commissioned him.

(Pastor Brian Sharpe has developed a cool “Three Hands” booklet which explains this well, so touch base with him if you’d like to know more.)

Please be praying for our first Community Group leaders’ meeting of 2017, taking place Sunday afternoon, May 7 at our home after worship. If you are a group leader or trainee, a leader mentor, coleader (or other “Barnabas”), you are invited! Hopefully you have already received details by email. (Leaders of men’s and women’s groups here at Elim are also encouraged to attend.)

If you have any questions, please drop me an email. Thank you!

Next in this series: In the most effective community groups, people “live life in proximity.”

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