What Are We Helping Them Become?

To be, or not to be… that is the question.”

And no, I am not about to start performing Shakespeare tonight, but I do want to borrow that phrase and turn our attention to a different kind of question.

What are children learning from us about who they are, where they belong, and who God is?

Because children are listening. They hear more than we think, carry more than we realize, and remember words we may have forgotten we ever said.

We know that “death and life are in the power of the tongue…” and that means our words aren't small, they're seeds.

And sometimes, without even meaning to, we can plant things in a child that God never intended to grow there. Fear. Shame. Rejection. Sometimes, maybe even the feeling that they're a problem and just tolerated instead of treasured.

But God wants to help us plant truth. Identity. Courage. Belonging. Faith. He wants them to have a love for the house of God.

Ephesians 6:4 tells us to bring children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and that word “nurture” matters so much because children don't just need correction...they need cultivation.

Every time I pray about the people coming in, I pray that they feel the love we have for them.

Will children know they are loved here?

Will they know they belong here?

Will they know the altar is for them, too?

Psalm 78:4 says, “We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.”

We are not called to keep the next generation on the outside looking in. We are called to show them the goodness of God, speak life over them, and make room for them to know His presence for themselves.

Our children are not just the church of tomorrow. They are part of the church right now. What we build in them now will either confront the darkness later or bow to it.

So, “To be, or not to be” may have been Hamlet’s question, but maybe the question before us is this:

Will they be rooted?

Will they be loved well?

Will they be corrected with wisdom?

Will they be prayed over?

Will they be spoken to in a way that helps them hear what Heaven says about them?

And by the words we speak, the example we live, the prayers we pray, and the way we love them, we are part of those answers.

Church, with all of the children that will soon be filling our seats, we need to remember that the way we treat them, the way we talk to them, the way we talk about them, and the way we make them feel may be one of the first impressions they have of a God who loves them so very much.

So tonight, as we worship, we are showing the next generation how good He is, how near He is, and how worthy He is. Let our praise tell them that God is here, He is good, and this altar is for them too!