Kids Ministries: More than child-minding
Most of us bring our kids to church without thinking too hard about why. It's just what we do on Sundays. But rhythm can become routine, and amidst the routine, we can quietly forget what we're actually doing.
So here's a question worth sitting with: what do you actually think Sunday Kids is?
For some of us, there’s a subconscious assumption that Kids Programs are like training wheels before children are old enough for an adult bike. Like the aim is to “keep them” at church until they are ready to graduate to adult church, where there’s proper teaching, and proper faith.
But this misses something important. When the disciples tried to wave children away from Jesus—presumably because they thought Jesus had more important things to do—he stopped them.
"Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven" (Matt 19:14).
Children aren't people who will one day be ready for God. They're people God actively wants now. Sunday Kids isn't preparation for church. It is an expression of church for our kids: their gathering with God's family; the real thing.
So what actually happens in our Kids Ministries on a Sunday? Three things, every week.
1. They learn who God is
The most foundational thing that happens in Sunday Kids, week after week, is this: children hear the truth about God. Who he is. What he's done. And what that means for them.
The Bible is one grand story spanning creation, fall, rescue, and restoration, and every individual story within it is a chapter of that bigger one. We do want children to know the stories—Noah, Moses, David, the disciples, the women at the tomb—but more than that, we want them to see that these are much more than moral lessons. They're the story their own life is part of. God made them. He loves them. He sent Jesus for them. And he wants them to be involved in his purposes for the world.
Faith comes from hearing. What children hear—repeated and layered across hundreds of Sundays—forms a foundation for them to see themselves within God’s great story, and begin putting their trust in Jesus. The stories, the songs, the prayers, and the crafts represent the gospel being placed, piece by piece, into the minds and hearts of children who can put their trust in Jesus now.
To paraphrase the Apostle Paul in Romans 10:14, “How can they be saved if they don’t believe? How can they believe if they have not been taught?”
2. They practice how to have a relationship with God
Knowing about God and actually relating to him are two different things. Sunday Kids isn't just trying to tell children information about God. It's giving them space to begin actually begin walking with God—even if they’re not old enough to know all the things about who God is.
So every week, children pray out loud to a God they're beginning to trust. Not practice prayers, but real prayers. "Thank you, God, for my dog." "Please help my mom." "I'm sorry I was mean to my brother." These prayers are genuine. And God really hears them. They also hear the Bible as something addressed to them, not just ancient history or something for their parents. They say sorry and ask for forgiveness—including with and from each other in the room, when things go sideways.
These are the habits of a life with God, being built early, gently, and consistently, and in their Kids Programs, they practice these habits with other kids who are working out what it means to love Jesus.
None of this makes a child a Christian. Faith is a gift, and every person has to receive it personally. But these habits help our kids begin to relate to God for themselves now, and actually build their trust in God as they hear him speak and learn to pray.
3. They experience belonging to God and his family
This one might be the most surprising.
But God's family is meant to be a place of warmth, welcome, laughter, and belonging. It’s a foretaste of the new creation, the community of people who are loved by God and learning to love each other. And their Kids Programs are meant to be an expression of this for children (albeit, an imperfect expression on this side of eternity).
Children come and feel glad to be there. They look forward to it during the week. They run to their friends when they arrive. On the way home, they tell their parents something that happened that made them laugh.
All these experiences, however big or small have a greater impact than we realize: they actually teach what God and belonging to him is like. They experience God’s love for them (through the love of their leaders). They experience that being a Christian is joyful (through how much fun they have in their programs). They experience that God is generous (through the abundance of the morning tea they get to enjoy).
Having a good experience of church isn't something a “bonus” to our Kids Ministry. It's part of it. The child who loves coming to church is learning, in the most embodied way possible, that it is genuinely good to be part of God's family.
And alongside the fun, children are also experiencing the harder and richer parts of community: what it looks like to say sorry when you've hurt someone, what it feels like to be forgiven, what it means to look out for someone who's having a hard day. These things can't be taught by talking about them. They have to be lived.
We're in this with you
Everything that happens in Sunday Kids matters. From the teaching, the prayer, the friendships, the belonging—all of it is significant and we don't take any of it lightly.
But it’s not the whole picture either, and we don't want you to think it is. You are the primary person in your child's spiritual life. Not us. The hour they spend here on Sunday is one piece of something much larger that is built at home—in the conversations, the prayers before bed, the questions in the car, the way you talk about God in ordinary life—whether we do this well or not.
What happens in Kids Church is most powerful when it connects with what's happening at home. It’s not easy, but it’s a joy to come alongside you in it. And we're genuinely glad to be doing this together.