It is common to hear that children are “the future of the church.” The phrase sounds nice, but it contains a subtle error: it presents the child as a promise that will only be fulfilled someday, rather than recognizing her as a real participant in God's work in the present. God's mission has always included children, from the promise made to Abraham that through his offspring all the families of the earth would be blessed (Gen 12:3). The spiritual formation of children is, first of all, the responsibility of the family itself, supported and cared for by the church around it. God takes little ones seriously and expects his people to do the same.
Samuel, still a boy, already heard the voice of God in the temple. David, still young, faced Goliath while grown men stood hesitant. These examples show that a child can take an active part in God's work, not merely receive it passively, like a spectator waiting to grow up. The child is not merely the future of the mission. She already takes part in it today, fulfilling a real role that the church often underestimates.
Jesus went even further. He presented the child as a model of the kingdom of heaven itself, not merely as someone who needed to be instructed by adults deemed wiser. The Gospels show Jesus' indignation toward those who kept little ones away from him. He did not treat the child as an unavoidable nuisance. On the contrary, he drew near to her, welcomed her, blessed her, and defended her against those who tried to keep her away (Luke 18:16).
This high regard did not first arise in the New Testament. The Old Testament covenant already included children even before they were able to understand or decide for themselves. In Deuteronomy, the Psalms, Proverbs, and Exodus, God established an ongoing plan of instruction directed at children, generation after generation.
In this sense, the Old and New Testaments speak the same language: the child has always had a place in God's covenant with his people, and that place never depended on waiting until she was old enough to “understand properly.” For Jesus, causing one of these little ones who believes to stumble is grounds for one of the severest judgments possible (Matt 18:6). That warning should weigh on every institutional decision that treats children's ministry as a secondary area, handed off to whichever volunteers are left over.
Write down the name of a child from your family or your church and pray specifically for her this very week. Do not offer only a generic prayer for children in general. Pray for that child by name, remembering her needs and her walk. Ask your church's leadership whether children today have any real space to participate in the life of the community, beyond simply attending a Sunday school class. And tell a child, in your own words, the Bible story of someone small whom God used in a real way.
The way a church treats its children today clearly reveals what it actually believes about their place in the kingdom of God.
Want to know more about the work of Projeto Didasko in Portugal?