If churches desire to reach families, they must be prepared to reach children. If the Boomer generation acted like helicopters and hovered over their kids, the Millennial generation is acting like sidecars, and want to go wherever the motorcycle/child goes. You can’t reach a family with kids unless you are really prepared to reach the kids.
It was not an unusual question at Church Answers. For those of you not familiar with Church Answers, it is a 24/7 resource where you can ask any church question and get a response within a few hours.
Here is the context. The pastor was the only paid staff member at the church, but now funds were available to bring on another full-time staff person. So he asked us in the 2,000-member Church Answers’ community to offer input on what his first hire should be.
I was blown away.
The responses, at least as I write these words, were 100 percent in urging him to get a children’s minister. There were no divergent opinions. One church leader after another exhorted him to go this route.
So why is the children’s minister position is such demand? The Church Answers community let us know, with most of the responses fitting in one of five categories.
- Millennials have a lot of kids. The Millennial generation is the largest generation in America’s history (though they may be surpassed by Gen Z). There are 78 million young adults ranging in ages from 18 to 38. And they have lots of kids. If they visit a church, one of their highest priorities is the quality of the children’s ministry.
- A healthy children’s ministry usually results in a healthy student ministry. It makes sense. If there is quality teaching and ministry for the children, these children are more likely to move to student ministry better prepared for life and better discipled for God’s work.
