Today on the podcast, Sean shares an excerpt from Karl Bastian’s session at the 2018 Preteen Leaders’ Online Conference.
Karl explains how adults in churches are reluctant to serve, only about 20%. On the other hand, if you ask the preteens in your ministry to help, the numbers are much higher; Karl has even seen 100%.
Preteens want to help.
If we don’t train up kids and teens to serve, then why would we expect them to serve as adults. We train them to come to church and sit and watch versus training them know to serve, get it in their DNA when they are young, and we won’t be hunting down volunteers to help out.
Karl recalls a mentor who challenged him whether he was a performer or a trainer. The goal is that we get the willingness to serve in their DNA because many will go into ministry when they get older because they got a taste when they were younger and enjoyed it. Church becomes a place where they ask to serve because it was a part of who they are. We are discipling them and part of being a disciple is doing God’s work.
Kids can set an example for others in the church. The disciples were actually young but look at the differences they were able to make in our world.
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