Welcoming Kids, Welcoming Jesus

 “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me” (Mark 9:37)

We are a society that tends to value children for what we hope they will be & do.  Parents, grandparents, and teachers look forward to kids becoming ‘productive members of society’, and ‘successful and well-adjusted adults’. While such aspirations for our children are perfectly normal, this can mean we become overly fixated on children in terms of their future.  Although most of us value children deeply, so much of what we do as a society, perhaps without realizing it, becomes focused on their future value.

Jesus had a different approach to children. He valued them, in the moment, exactly as they were. When his disciples decided that Jesus was far too busy to be bothered with some children brought by their mothers for a blessing, Jesus chastised the disciples. He told them, in no uncertain terms, that they needed to welcome children, in his name, and that when they did so, they welcomed Him.

What could ‘welcoming kids in the name of Jesus’ look like on the ground in our churches? Surely, we already welcome children. Right?

A number of years ago, I had a conversation with someone who told me that her recently ordained pastor had started a ministry among skateboarders. Some leaders in his church had started to complain that this ministry, which took up several hours each week, was not “generating any new givings”. For those leaders, it seemed that welcoming children was less important than recruiting more potential donors.

It’s so easy for the church to get turned completely upside down in its thinking, isn’t it? Sometimes we don’t recognize when we are not actually doing what Jesus commanded us to do. The members of that church could be saying, “Thank God! We’ve got ourselves a pastor who can connect with skateboarders. Now, how can we direct some of our budget to make sure this key ministry continues?”

To welcome children, in Jesus’ name, means we welcome and minister to them on behalf of Jesus. Sharing the faith with them is one of the most important tasks of the Church, for both their sake, but also for ours. Just as in Jesus’ day, children often teach us things about faith as we share the faith with them.

Toddlers are often amazed by God’s creation, noticing little things that we completely overlook, like the movement of ants on the sidewalk. School-aged kids often display a wild and wonderful courage and thirst for adventure. Teenagers often question things we accept grudgingly as ‘normal’ and often make life-long commitments to faith.

What lessons might the kids in the neighbourhoods surrounding our churches have to teach us? And how might we share answers to some of the spiritual questions and longings that they have?

One of the moms at a Messy Church once told me that her three-year-old asked her, “Does God live on the clouds like the Care Bears?”  Imagine, such a little guy wondering about the nature of God.

A seven-year-old girl, whose parents were both afflicted with serious epilepsy, once asked me, “Doesn’t God like my mommy and daddy?” Imagine a little girl carrying around such a profound question about human suffering.

Trigger warning: mentions self-harm.

A fourteen-year-old, who had been engaging in self-harm, once asked, “How can we know God is real when we can’t see him?” Teenagers are often the boldest at naming the questions humanity has long grappled with.

Each child comes bearing gifts; passions, and perspectives that can enrich us, even as we share the good news of God’s unstoppable love for them and for the world.  Now you might be thinking, well, this is sort of a ‘motherhood and apple pie’ issue, isn’t it?  What church doesn’t welcome children?  It doesn’t cost anything to be welcoming.

The fact is, though, that truly welcoming children does come with a cost.

• The cost of putting up with a little playful noise, or even an occasional unholy racket, during worship.

• The cost of offering a summer choir camp, an after-school reading club, or a Family Day event for the neighbourhood.

• The cost of being distracted as an 18-month-old breaks free from their parent and does laps around the altar.

• The cost of not knowing what on earth to do with the odd wafer chewed and then spat out during Communion.

• The cost of waiting patiently as a child haltingly reads one of the Scripture passages.

• The cost of filling some backpacks with school supplies.

• The cost of removing a pew and putting down some floor mats, to create a quiet play area so toddlers can be present for worship with their parents.

• The cost of installing change tables in the washrooms.

• The cost of bags of Easter eggs that kids from the neighbourhood search for on the church lawn.

• The cost of parents sitting on the edge of their seats as their child says something completely off-the-wall during the kids’ focus.

• The cost of putting together colouring kits that little ones can use during the sermon.
• The cost of putting up with the pandemonium of kids playing tambourines, shakers, or triangles during the final hymn.

To welcome children, in Jesus’ name, will always come with a cost.  But these ought to be costs that we are most excited to pay.  Because Jesus told us that when we welcome one new baby, toddler, child, or teen, in his name, we welcome Him.

What an amazing thing!  What a Gospel-centered way to view the kids that come through our doors, and the kids our churches can serve in our surrounding neighbourhoods!

Your church may not be called to offer a ministry to skateboarders, but you are definitely called to ask God to show you the children that your church should be welcoming.  Then, get busy planning, funding, and working to build yourselves into a church that offers children the extravagant welcome that Jesus offers us all.