A quick look at Deuteronomy 6:4–9 shows that Moses instructed the Israelites to talk about the Word of God in the context of everyday life.
Jesus clearly wanted people not only to understand the truth, but to live according to it. Likewise, the apostle Paul understood that the gospel of Jesus Christ marked a radical departure from first-century Judaism—that the gospel redefines how we think, what we do, and who we are.
Throughout Scripture, we see that God’s concern is not only that His truth be taught, but that it shape and guide daily life.
Unfortunately, this approach is far from universal in the church. In my experience, a more common children’s ministry model is to communicate a Bible truth, ask questions about that truth, reward the children who answer correctly, and assign a memory verse.
If most children respond with the right answers and successfully recite the verse, the process repeats the next Sunday.
The Pitfalls of the Common Three Step Model For Children's Ministry
Although nothing is inherently wrong with this method, this ministry model is not found in Scripture.
At its core, it simply places a biblical veneer over a secular educational structure. It leaves little room to connect biblical truth to the real lives of children.
Young people are rarely invited to share their questions, struggles, fears, or daily experiences.
As a result, many do not learn to interact with Scripture as something relevant to their life—and they may conclude that the Bible has little to say to them.
Connecting God's Word to Painful Real Life Experiences
This perceived irrelevance became painfully clear to me in Alexandria, Egypt, as I was casting the EGM vision before about 200 children’s workers.
I was hoping to find leaders God might call to begin an EGM ministry in Egypt. Using Jonah 4 as a case study of God’s call to ministry and our response to it, I taught that Jonah was so angry God extended mercy to the Ninevites that he wished to die (Jonah 4:1–3).
Jonah hated them. God loved them. Jonah was bitter and resentful. I suggested that we might teach children that God wants us to show love even to people we dislike.
I was preparing to dismiss the group for discussion when a woman stood and told me a story.
She said that during a Muslim riot, the father of a five-year-old boy in her city had been dragged into the street and beaten to death. She asked if we were supposed to teach that now-fatherless boy to be kind and loving to the men responsible.
I was stunned. In my world, the “hard to love” people for a five-year-old were the girl who calls him names, the classmate who takes his crayons, or the kid who won’t share the swing.
Then she continued.
The boy had been taken in by his uncle, but when he was nine years old another riot erupted. This time the uncle—a pharmacist and Presbyterian elder—was dragged out, shot, and killed.
The boy watched it happen. She looked at me and said, “Are we supposed to teach him to love those people?”
The room was silent. She began to weep and whispered, “The first man they murdered was my husband. The second was my brother.” She looked up through tears and asked again, “Are you telling me to teach my son to love the men who killed his father and his uncle?”
I could not speak. Tears ran down my face. I had never felt more outside a culture, more humbled by suffering.
Then a godly Egyptian man stood and spoke words I have never forgotten:
“Isn’t that exactly what we are talking about? If we just tell him the Jonah story, sing songs, memorize a verse, and send him home, he will live as a slave to bitterness his whole life.”
Closing Thoughts
We prayed for our grieving sister. Her story reminded us powerfully that boys and girls must learn to connect God’s Word to real life.
It is not enough to present a Bible story, ask right-or-wrong questions, memorize a verse, sing songs, and dismiss the children. Nor is it sufficient to fill the hour with games, videos, and activities that never touch the heart. A child living with grief, trauma, fear, confusion, or hatred needs more.
He needs to experience the love of Christ, the healing power of grace, and the redemptive work of God in his life.
Discussion—honest, compassionate, real-life engagement with Scripture—is essential in transformational children’s ministry. Only there, where truth meets experience, can God’s Word take root and transform the heart.