Helping Kids Have A Real Relationship With Jesus

Do your church kids know God?

Do they have a real relationship with Jesus Christ?

How do you know?

One way to tell if someone has a real relationship with Jesus Christ is do they have compassion for people who are lost?

Do they care about kids who don’t know Christ?

“For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.”

The mission of Christ is straight forward – to seek and save the lost.

If you are close to Christ, you will have the same mission that he has – but I find that most church kids don’t.

The truth is we assume that because church kids are well behaved that they love Jesus but that may or may not be the case.

Most Sunday School curriculum is relentlessly moralistic.

We teach Bible stories and tell kids to be good.

We teach on honesty, self control and obedience and here-in lies the problem.

We can teach kids to be good without teaching them about Christ simply by rewarding them for good behavior and disciplining them for bad behavior.

Here is my question for you…

Are you rewarding the good kids and pushing the bad kids away?

My point is this – Christ didn’t push the bad people away.

“Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. Then Jesus told them this parable…” Luke 15:1-3

Notice that tax collectors and sinners were drawn to Christ, but the people who obeyed all the rules wanted to push the bad people away.

In Luke, Chapter 15, we find the parable of the two sons.

Jesus continued, “There was a man who had two sons,” – Luke 15:11

Most of us know this as the parable of the Prodigal Son, but there are two sons in the story.

Part one focuses on the younger son and is a powerful picture of the grace and love of the Father.

Part two focuses on the elder son.

The elder son was the good one who didn’t stray.

He never left home, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t leave the Father.

In fact, it’s clear in the scripture that while he obeyed all the rules, he obeyed for the wrong reasons and he didn’t have a real relationship with his Father.

Do you have kids in your class like the elder son?

They obey all the rules, but they really don’t have a relationship with the Father.

I love this quote by Tim Keller.

“This means that Jesus’s message, which is the gospel, is a completely different spirituality. The gospel of Jesus is not morality, or immorality, moralism or relativism. Nor is it something halfway along a spectrum between two poles – it is something else altogether. The gospel is distinct from the other two approaches: In it’s view everyone is wrong, everyone is loved and everyone is called to recognize this and change.”

This why I recently wrote an entire curriculum entitled Finding God.

Finding God is for lost kids and it’s for church kids.

Both groups need to have a real relationship with Jesus.

Church kids do not naturally have a burden for the lost.

In fact, many times kids that go to church are afraid of the kids that don’t go to church.

They see them as bad kids.

The only way that church kids will catch a burden for the lost is if we teach on it and then trust the Holy Spirit to give them compassion for kids that don’t know Christ.

As leaders we need to see the lost the same way the Father does – they are the precious fruit of the Earth.

One way that I teach kids about the heart of God for lost people is through the parable of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl of Great Price.

I believe the merchantman represents Father God and the pearl and treasure represent you and me.

When the world sees us they just see dirt, but Father God saw us as valuable.

So much so that He sold everything He had to buy us.

No greater price has ever been paid than what the Father paid for you.

We need to teach on these scriptures and trust the Holy Spirit to give our church kids a heart for those who are lost.

This is why I am so excited about our new curriculum, Finding God. I want you to teach on the Father’s heart so your kids connect with the mission of Christ. This teaching will be good for the bad kids in your class and the good ones.

Finding God will do three things:

1. First, it will give your kids a heart for lost people.

2. Secondly, it will give your volunteers a heart for the bad kids in their class.

3. Third, it will teach your church kids what to do when God seems far away.

You can take a look at it here.