Summer time is VBS time.
Vacation Bible School is the closest thing to heaven for parents. They get to drop off their children for free baby-sitting with God.
There is a lot of talk these days in churches about adults discipling children. What is rarely discussed is the role children play in the discipling of adults.
The fact that children are called to be discipleship partners with adults is evident in New Testament writings.
When the Apostle Paul wrote about the Parent-Child relationship, he addressed the parents and the children while in the company of each other.
Parents heard Paul say, “Children obey your parents in the Lord.” And every parent said, “Amen.” But then Paul said, “Fathers do not provoke your children to wrath.”
Paul did NOT say “Parents inform your children that they are to obey you.” or “Children leave the room, so I can speak to the adults.”
Paul addressed parents and children together in discipleship.
Three ways adults benefit from being in discipleship with children:
1. Children Simplify Life’s Complexities
Children possess the ability to see through the complexities of life and speak with simple wisdom.
Every adult has heard a child say something so simplistically profound that it left adults speechless.
I heard a child say one time, “Every time I am at home and I get on my parents’ nerves, they wish I was at camp. And every time I’m at camp and nothing’s bothering them, they wish I was at home.”
As Dawn DeVries points out “Children remind us of the fact that God created humanity to live simply. They help adults shed their obsession with the complexities of work and public life. Indeed, children draw adults back into the most basic of human relationships.” The Child in Christian Thought
2. Children “play”, adults “practice”
Growing up should not mean leaving childhood completely behind.
Jesus did instruct his adult disciples to “convert” and become like little children (Matt. 18:1-5).
Friedrich Schleiermacher argues that children are a better model for discipleship because they are content to learn through “playing.”
A child can spend hours discovering and learning with no expected use of their new found developments. Alternatively, adults can display a high amount of resistance to discovery if there is no perceivable purpose. For this reason adults often prefer to learn through practices or disciplines.
It’s interesting that adult Christians call activities such as prayer and Scripture reading, “Spiritual Disciplines.” Perhaps a more appropriate and relational term would be “Spiritual Playings.”
3. Children are valuable as persons
Children remind adults of the value of personhood. A child has value because they are a person, made in God’s image, not because they will become an adult.
We do not value infants for the toddlers they will become. We do not value toddlers for the teenagers they will become. We should not value children simply for the adults they will become.
Jesus did not see a child’s value based on a future-life stage. He said, “Truly I say unto you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”
There is a sense in which children give a gift to adults by drawing them back into a childlike relationship with God. A relationship filled with vulnerable-dependece.
Join the Conversation: In what ways have children discipled you as an adult?
