Empowering Future Generations Through Faith

In May, I was ordained an elder in the Global Methodist Church. Each clergyperson ordained in a Methodist denomination has to answer 19 historical questions asked by bishops going back to the time of John Wesley (the founder of the Methodist movement). I thought I might share my responses to these questions in hopes of sharing a bit more about myself and about Methodism. This is the thirteenth and fifteenth of the 19 questions. I hope it blesses you!

To read my other responses to the questions, check them out here:

Have you faith in Christ?
Are you going on to perfection?
Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life?
Are you earnestly striving after perfection in love?
Are you resolved to devote yourself wholly to God and to God’s work?
Do you know the General Rules of our Church?
Will you keep the General Rules of our Church?
Have you studied the doctrines of the Global Methodist Church?
After full consideration do you believe that our doctrines are in harmony with the Holy Scriptures?
Have you studied our form of church discipline and polity?
Do you approve our church government and polity?
Will you support and maintain them?
Will you exercise the ministry of compassion?
Will you diligently instruct the children in every place?
Will you visit from house to house?
Will you recommend fasting or abstinence, both by precept and example? (Coming soon)
Are you determined to employ all your time in the work of God? (Coming soon)
Are you in debt so as to embarrass you in your work? (Coming soon)
Will you observe the following directions?
(a) Be diligent. Never be unemployed. Never be triflingly employed. Never trifle away time; neither spend any more time at any one place than is strictly necessary.
(b) Be punctual. Do everything exactly at the time. And do not mend our rules, but keep them; not for wrath, but for conscience’ sake. (Coming soon)

14. Will you diligently instruct the children in every place?

In my first year of pastoral ministry, I began asking God to give me a vision for my pastoral ministry. I felt like He told me to pastor the people in my care so that their grandchildren were faithful disciples of Jesus. I knew that God wasn’t just telling me to pastor people who were in their latter half of life, with children who have children. I knew that God was telling me to pastor people, no matter how old, in a way that their life is so radically transformed by the resurrected Christ that their home cannot help but be transformed in a way that their children pass an unwavering, contagious faith to their own children. As Bishop Carolyn Moore articulated, “If we diligently instruct the children ‘in every place,’ that must include especially the home. By answering yes to Wesley’s question, we are committing not just to developing a good children’s ministry at church, but to training parents to raise their kids spiritually.”[1]

This goes beyond simply those with biological children, though. I want God to use my ministry in a way that transforms people with and without biological children to have a burden for the next generation that leads them to adopt spiritual children that they disciple.

Therefore, I do not just conceive of diligently instructing children as directly ministering to and alongside children, though it certainly involves that ministry. To help instruct young people directly, I have led two different high school small groups, meet with youth over lunch, open car doors at the elementary school, and oversee and empower our volunteers for our School Ministries. In my ministry, I am intentional to try to speak to children and youth when they are at church so that they see that they are known at church and, more importantly, known by the Head of the Church.

However, I believe that my ministry as a pastor will only be effective if it leads to multiplicative discipleship. Because of this, I seek to preach, visit, pray, care, and write in ways that invite those at Mulder Church and in the Wetumpka community, regardless of age, into the transformative love of God. I seek to empower young people to share what God is doing in their life with their parents and guardians and empower adults to integrate their faith into everyday activities and tasks with their kids.

Additionally, I believe that my primary calling—even beyond serving a church as pastor—is to be a husband to Haley and a father to Edith. Therefore, I begin all of this by instructing the child in my own home. Though Edith is just barely over one year old, I’m using this season of our life to practice what it looks like to instruct Edith in the way of Jesus. I am seeking to live out the gospel in my home through spiritual disciplines, being slow to anger, and compassion. My hope for Edith, along with every child I talk with, is that she will be so influenced by mine and Haley’s love for God that she will instruct her children—spiritual and biological—in every place.

Endnote: As I go back and read my response to this question, I’m thankful for the book Children’s Ministry in the Way of Jesus for the ways it shaped my view of ministry to and with children. It’s a poorly titled book (it’s not all that much about children’s ministry so much as about raising children in the faith, whether that be as a parent, pastor, grandparent, children’s ministry volunteer, etc.)

1. Carolyn Moore, The 19: Questions to Kindle a Wesleyan Spirit (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2018), 81.

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Also, to read my book review of GMC Bishop Carolyn Moore’s book The 19: Questions to Kindle a Wesleyan Spirit, check it out here.

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