Discipling Children vs Entertaining Them

I recently listened to a message by world famous missionary-evangelist Reinhard Bonnke, who is credited with having led over 74 million people to the Lord in his 50 years of mass crusades. I’ve been amazed to watch the aging Reinhard pass the baton of leadership of his ministry to the next generation of leaders successfully, specifically a thirty-ish young firebrand, Daniel Kolenda. I’m trying to learn how he has done that. Most ministries live and die with their founders. I don’t want that happen to KIMI that’s why I am raising up leaders all over the world — so the vision of equipping little children to walk in the power of God lives on forever.

My God-given mission for the last 15 years has been to “redefine children’s ministry in the 21st century.” Of course, I can only touch my personal realm of influence, and how it spreads is the job of the Holy Spirit. Slowly, slowly, slowly we are seeing a shift in many churches, and even some whole denominations to a focus on discipling children rather than entertaining them with cute little Bible stories.

I don’t know how many years Reinhard has been ministering, and I don’t know how many millions he has led to the Lord in his career. But may God grant me even half of his anointing and impact to reach the 3 billion children alive on planet earth today with the supernatural gospel of Jesus Christ. But it’s highly improbable that it will happen in mass crusades for a variety of reasons, even though it’s easy to draw large crowds of children, at least in developing nations.

So what is it going to take to reach more children? In my world, it’s not just about getting them born again, because we have multiplied thousands, maybe millions of children who have prayed a salvation prayer, but never been seriously trained to walk as true disciples of Christ. They look, talk, and think just like their worldly counterparts. They have little to no knowledge of the Bible as a guide book for life. By their own confession in surveys the majority of them have never heard God’s voice nor felt His presence.

As I have said so often, too many times Christians have seen children after the flesh, and not after the spirit. So while I want to see millions, if not billions, of children reached with the gospel, I am just as passionate about equipping them to walk as committed followers of Jesus.

To reach more children with salvation or discipleship it’s simply going to take more dedicated spiritual mothers and fathers to get in the trenches, shift their mindsets that working with children should be more than “glorified babysitting,” and get down to the serious business of equipping the little saints for the work of the ministry.

“How?” you might ask. “I believe what you’re saying, but I don’t even know where to begin.” Then let me help. Because I can only be in one place at one time, can only preach or teach in so many conferences and churches each year, with the help of the Holy Spirit we developed a training school called The School of Supernatural Children’s Ministry.” It has a two-fold purpose—to train children’s ministry leaders, but also parents, to look at their children differently–as potential disciples of Christ. We have to quit entertaining them for the precious one or two hours a week that we have them in our churches, and start making better use of our time to disciple them.

Here’s what some of our certified graduates of SSCM have said about the course:

“I just finished my last session from the School of Supernatural Children’s Ministry. I can honestly say I’ll never look at children’s ministry the same again. This is the best resource I’ve ever found not only for children’s ministry but also as a parent. I HIGHLY recommend listening to these sessions, you will not be the same!” ~ Children’s Pastor Stacey Linsalata, Ohio
“The more I watch the SSCM DVDs and use the KIMI curriculums, I realize that even though I had the call, vision to make kids true disciples of the Lord and walking in the supernatural, I lacked the powerful method to fulfill this vision. Through your ministry I have now the tools to make this happen.” ~ Pastor’s wife, Angie Ashmore, Arizona
“I can’t stop listening it. SSCM has caught my spirit. I have always had a passion to see children experience and grow in God, but this course really makes a lot of sense. Every time I start listening to another session something comes alive in me.” Children’s Minister, Shirley Fryer, Australia
“SSCM has completely revolutionized the way I work with kids.” ~ Kids Pastor Jody Gafford, Oklahoma

I HIGHLY encourage you to consider taking the full course, or at least some of the individual Classes. This will change your thinking forever on how to raise children in the Christian faith. Each and every Christian needs to get a vision to mentor the next generation, because at the risk of sounding melodramatic, if we don’t, we are going to lose them!

But there’s one more thing. To reach more children, I need your help. Financial help. I don’t have a tree in my back yard that magically grows money. While the gospel is free, spreading it is not. We are working hard and furious to train kidsmin leaders all over the world. Many of them have no way to pay for training, or resources, so we provide it all for free. We now have leaders in many developing nations that we do our best to give even the basic needs of curriculums, books, training materials, training events, chairs for little kids to sit on, and more. Most of the requests I have to turn down because we just don’t have enough money. Please help me reach a billion kids. (I can dream, can’t I?)

Your gifts at KIMI are tax deductible. You can donate by clicking here. (And for all the nasty critics who will accuse me of taking the money for myself, just know I do not draw a salary form Kids in Ministry. I am self-supporting. So there!)

Seriously it’s all about the kids. Please help us make a difference in 2016.