Children Today

Jarrod Stackelroth

I still remember the day she was born-my gorgeous baby sister. I was attending my first Pathfinder camp, which was an exciting event in itself. I do not remember much of the camp, only that there were cabins by some water. Even more exciting however, was when Dad picked me up and drove me to the Women's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide (South Australia) to see her.

I have never been so afraid of anything in my life. I was a large, clumsy boy. This tiny bundle of life seemed so fragile, so precious-the most precious thing I had ever held. I had the irrational fear I would drop her and she would break into pieces.

This year, my sister started high school. She is growing up. She is a talented musician and seems wise beyond her years. This week is her birthday and she becomes a teenager. But, late last year, I was blessed to attend her second birth-her baptism. She made her decision and her faith is deep-like a precious jewel to her.

I remember growing up in church and making my decision early in life. I loved the Bible stories Mum told me. I loved going to Sabbath school, and winning prizes for knowing the answers to the Bible quiz and saying my memory verse correctly. I am thankful for the upbringing I received. I commend those members of our church who work relentlessly-I do not say tirelessly because I know they do tire-to create a place of belonging in the church and longing for the kingdom in our children.

Yet many children in the church are not as fortunate as I was. This year is the 30th anniversary of the International Year of the Child. Children are an important, yet too often forgotten, part of our church. During Jesus' ministry, He held them in high esteem. The boy with the loaves and fish, the many children He healed and the little children brought to Him for blessing were never turned away.

Jesus said at the time, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these" (Matthew 19:14*).

As a child and young adult, without the pressures of work, relationships and growing up to be independent, my faith was strong. The misconception is that a childlike faith is a simple faith. But children grasp complexities, and can know more Bible stories and verses than adults sometimes do. This is why it is so important to educate our children while they are young.

As Solomon says, "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it" (Proverbs 22:6). The presence of my brother, sister and me in heaven will be largely due to our parents, and other people at church taking an interest in us and sharing God's love with us.

In an article by Heather Haworth, director of family ministries for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Britain, she points to some shocking statistics in her area of ministry.

Out of 100 children born into churchattending families, only 48 will give their lives to Jesus and continue attending. She also points to a calculation by Tom Ashlock, an associate director in the Adventist world church's Sabbath school department in the 1960s. At the time, there were only 1.55 million Adventists. He worked out, using the number of Adventist families in 1848 and the average family size of each generation, the number of Adventists-with no outward evangelism, just retention of children-would have been about 128 million.

Fifty years later, we are just reaching 16 million church members worldwide.

Children's author and storyteller Pastor David Edgren puts it this way: "The foundation of human experience is developed in childhood. Our adult practice of faith and family are directly built upon what we had modelled to us as children. Adults who value the future of the church and community value children above all else, and are intentional about creating experiences and modelling practices that will help the children around them mature healthily."

It is time to challenge our churches and conferences to put greater resources into children's ministries. It is an investment that is well worth it. As someone has said, "We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he [or she] is someone today."

*All Bible quotations are from the New International Version.

This has been an editorial from Record, February 21, 2009.