Ministry Then and Now

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how different my ministry looks now than it did a decade ago.

During my last three years of college, I was meeting with five to six people on a regular basis. We met for discipleship and accountability, and we read Scripture and good books together. We shared the hard stuff in our lives and we prayed together. Sometimes we sat in the hall of our dorm eating cereal while it was still dark and roommates were sleeping. Sometimes we grabbed lunch in between classes and finished sharing prayer requests as we sped-walked to our next class. Sometimes we shared notes from our journals and discussed what the original Greek words meant.

As a member of campus leadership, I memorized this definition of discipleship: Discipling others is a process by which a Christian with a life worth emulating commits himself or herself for an extended period of time to a few individuals who have been won to Christ, the purpose being to aid and guide their growth and maturity, and equip them to reproduce themselves in a third spiritual generation.

Discipleship looks different now, ten years later. I’m currently discipling five little people every day, and it’s no less valuable than the focused times of Scripture reading and prayer with college girls in 2005-2009.

My kids ask tough theological questions. They want to know more about who God is and why they can’t see Him. We read the Bible, yes, but we also read the Jesus Storybook Bible a lot. We talk about the resurrection and what it means that the curtain tore in two. They memorize the answers to catechism questions, and we talk together about the sermon from Sunday.

More than that, though, they see Tad and me living as flawed believers day in and day out. They see me reading the Bible in the morning when they come into my bedroom. They see me cry about things that break my heart. They see me sin, and they see me ask for forgiveness.

Maybe you’re in a season that looks a lot more like my life today than my life ten years ago. Maybe instead of early morning Bible studies, you’re doing early morning cuddles and mid-day boo-boo kissing and sweet bedtime prayers that turn into please-make-them-sleep prayers.

This discipleship you’re doing matters to Jesus.

Then people brought little children to Jesus for Him to place His hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” When He had placed His hands on them, He went on from there.

Matthew 19:13-15

The disciples in this passage minimized the importance of ministry to children. We don’t know exactly what they were thinking, but their response indicates hearts that thought Jesus was wasting His time by praying for little children. Perhaps they thought He should be spending His time pouring into adults who truly mattered.

But Jesus’ response showed His heart for children: “Do not hinder them. For the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”