Begin With The End In Mind

Think about the kids in your class. Get their faces in your mind. Now imagine it is ten years in the future and those same kids have graduated from high school.

How many of the kids in your current class will still be in your church when they turn 18?

Statistics show that only 20% of the kids that grow up in church, stay in church. I don’t think that 80% of our kids backslide. Many of them are attending other churches or have moved to other cities, but I do think we can be proactive toward keeping more of our adult children in church.

At the start of my ministry to children I could not think past the next service. I would make it through Sunday morning and I would think, “Whew, I made it.”

Then I woke up on Monday morning and I would think, “Oh No! It’s almost Wednesday.” I couldn’t think past the next three days.

One Saturday, I was begging God for a sermon and He said to me, “All you have is five years to prepare the kids for their teen years.”

Eventually, I began to think more long term. I wanted to see the kids graduate into youth ministry, and then make the jump to the sanctuary.

Here are some questions we need to ask ourselves:

• What can I do to insure, that kids stay in church when they become adults?
• What can I do to prepare kids for youth ministry?
• What does a strong 5^th grade Christian look like?
• What types of skills do they have?

Your list may differ from mine, but this is the list I came up with. These are the skills I want my 5^th graders to have.

1. Salvation – I want them to be confident in their salvation experience. They remember the day they asked Jesus in their heart.
2. Devotions – They have the ability to read the Bible for themselves and get something out of it. (Without this skill they are doomed.)
3. Prayer – They have confidence in their prayer life. They know how to pray and get answers to their prayers.
4. Church – They attend church weekly.
5. Ministry –They are actively involved in ministry using their gifts in the church.
6. Friends – They have strong Christian friends in the church.
7. Worship – They are passionate worshippers of Jesus Christ. They are not concerned about what their peers think.
8. Holy Spirit – They know how to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit and want to obey him.
9. Leadership – They are not just followers, but they are leaders. They don’t run to their parents for every decision. They know how to think for themselves and make wise choices.
10. Evangelism – They have a heart for the lost. They don’t just focus on their friends at church but they reach out to new kids. They know how to pray the prayer of salvation with a peer.

If this is where I want the 5^th graders to be when they graduate to youth ministry, then my programs and my teachings need to center around these goals.

This is why I have spent so much of my time writing curriculum. I want to make sure my kids are spiritually strong.

If you have some of these same goals, then Super Church 2.0 is for you.

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