Child Evangelism is paramount in our Churches and society at large. In our society today, it is very difficult to differentiate between the Christian child and the non-Christian child as there is no clear cut difference in their conduct. Today the Christian child is disobedient, arrogant, and quarrelsome amongst others, just like the children who have not come to know Christ. This is not to say all Christian children are like that, a few however exist in our Churches.
CCEM is therefore being established on the following basis;
It is the family/parents of a child who can play a significant role in raising a God fearing child with good moral conduct. This is so because, the family is the first point of socialization for the child and learns pretty quickly from family.
Children also learn everything they are taught from that tender age and hardly let go of such teachings as they grow. An epitome of this is when a child refuses to take gifts from either strangers or family members because his mum has warned him not to take gifts from anyone.
It is for this reason God commanded the parents/family (Deuteronomy 11:18-19, 4:9) to teach the children the word of God so that when they grow, they will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)
Most families have failed in their duty and so we see the children and the youth of today conducting themselves in all manner of ungodliness in society especially promiscuousness which has virtually become a norm in the Church today.
The cause being that, parents have failed to present Christ to their children at home or reinforce the need for Christ to be in the lives of our children as they grow, they are left with no option than to wholesomely accept the corruptible things of society such as arrogance, indiscipline, drunkenness, sexual immorality amongst many others.
If every family will be ready to listen to this clarion call and harken to it, I believe we can save posterity.
Having worked about 8 years in the Children’s Ministry, I have come to the realization of the fact that, most churches have ineffective children services in their Churches. It is however important to note that others don’t have children services at all, those who have, either do not understand its purpose or do, but lack the necessary knowledge and skills to handle the children in that regard.
In some Churches, the children worship with adults and for that matter picks virtually nothing from Church. Most adults even lose concentration at times in Church because of long sermons talk less of the child. The child has a short concentration span of about 10-15 minutes and after which the child loses focus on whatever you are teaching. Because the children worship with the adults, the sermons are always centered more on adults than the children thereby denying them of the effective evangelism they need in the church. (Romance 10:9-15, Proverbs 22:6 and Matthew 28:18-20).
For the Churches that have children services, most of them have a combined class and most of their teachers have not undergone any training regarding how to effectively evangelize the children.
To have an effective children service, you need to divide the children into age categories of about 3 or 4. You also need to train your teachers or organize regular seminars to equip them with knowledge and skills for the herculean task they need to perform in the Church to avoid curse from God. (Matthew 18:6)
In addition, because children cannot give big offertory and pay tithes in our Churches, we often do not regard them.
All Churches should therefore rise to the task to help save posterity.
It is imperative to note that, virtually everyone in society today is fighting to achieve a lot in life; the mansions, the luxurious cars, the numerous businesses and more. We want to get all the money in the world for ourselves by every means possible and therefore the wellbeing and spiritual growth of our Children is of least importance to us. Have we thought as a society, what the future holds for our children considering our actions today?
Our children as we often call them today “Computer Children” are fast being destroyed by technology. We expose our children to some of these technological devices such as phones, iPads, tablets etc at a very young age because of its good effects, we probably want our children to be well informed. But surprisingly, they destroy the children very fast when the uses of such devices are not monitored by their parents.
The worst of the insensitivity of society is evident in our movies, music and fashion industries as well as the broadcasters (television and radio). There is so much nudity portrayed in our movies which is very bad for children to watch but you see our children glued to Television sets almost all the time when they are away from school. We never mind about the effects such movies might have on the innocent ever learning child, because we are concerned more about profit to make.
The hairstyles, style of dressing and conducts portrayed on our screens are mostly imbibed by these children and adversely affects them in the long run.
There is therefore a need for everyone to play a role in raising a God fearing generation for the near future.
This is what CCEM stands for and needs the support of all and sundry to help raise a God fearing generation, first across the country and beyond.
Additionally, CCEM is partly taking inspiration from the AGLOW Women Ministry to also bring children together to intercede for their families, communities and Nation as a whole. Children are effective prayer tools (Psalm 8:2) and if we are able to gather them to intercede, we will see God’s blessing on our Nation.