WELCOME TO

TRIAD BAPTIST CHURCH

CHILDREN'S MINISTRY

MORE OF OUR PHILOSOPHY FOR PARENTS:

            As a preface, I contend that the concept of “partnering with parents” is so vital in our approach to children’s ministry.  As much as we’d like to think that our influence is first and foremost in the lives of the children in our ministry, the honest truth is that we will never eclipse the importance of the influence of their families, namely, their parents.  Working off of this assumption, we will strive to enhance this partnership by fostering parent communication, parent involvement and even parent education.  In essence, we fully admit that it is very difficult to compete with the family influence, so instead of trying to do so, we instead aim to utilize parents as valuable members of our ministry.

            To really conceptualize the primary elements of this vision statement, one must recognize three basic elements of direction:  up, in, and out.

            The first direction is upward.  As a child begins to develop, our first intention is to create a working knowledge of God, His creation, His love, His plan for us, etc.  These foundational truths from scripture are taught as absolute facts as each child is taught to look “up” and learn these truths. 

            In a nutshell, before a child can reach the developmental stage of understanding (much less exercising!) faith, he or she must have a working knowledge about the object of faith.

            As the child continues to develop in all phases of life (physically, mentally, emotionally, etc.), he or she is challenged to make application of these Biblical truths to a personal walk with Christ.  Our part of this process (beyond knowledge dissemination) is to guide each toward this personal relationship with Christ, while allowing the Holy Spirit to convict.

            After salvation, it is not only critical that children be given opportunity to further learn Biblical truth and its application, but that they also be taught and have chances to ex that children be given opportunity to further learn Biblical truth and its application, but that they also be taught and have chances to exercise their faith.  (Here is the second direction … inward.)  I feel that each young Christian must be provided ample opportunity for service and ministry.  In essence, after being must come doing, which is the road to finding God’s perfect will for us as His children.

            Finally comes the outward direction, being able to use Biblical truth, and seeing our children use their own experience in coming to Christ and mission in life to see others come to Christ.  Real live organisms reproduce, and so should real children of God!

            If our children’s ministry is to ever be successful, it will have been because we see children mature and develop into Christians who become light in a dark world.  The “proof in the pudding” will be when these children naturally birth other Christians, thus carrying on the cycle of ministry to the next generation!

Because of Him,

Mr. Tim