My favorite toy to play with as a child was GI Joe. I also loved the cartoon. As a boy, I would take a beanbag and figuratively speaking turn the bag into a mountain. Using all of the bag’s natural crevices, I would station Joe’s on one side of the mountain and Cobra’s on the other. From that point on, it was all-out warfare between the forces of good and the forces of evil.
Over time, God has blessed me with many good friends who have served in our nation’s military. I have always had a profound respect for the service men I personally knew (not all are still alive) and would glean as many insights and lessons as I could to implement in my own life. The Bible speaks of a soldier’s discipline (2 Tim 2:4). The apostle Paul was well-acquainted with spiritual warfare (2 Cor 4:8-12).
I think the terms “spiritual warfare” and “war” are apt descriptions of the Christian life. As Christ-followers, we are always on call. The war never ends this side of earth, though the victory has already been won. We never get a break. 24-7 for 365 and do it all over again the next year. For the Christian, life is war. I have always appreciated John Piper’s call for the Christian to “make war.” The status quo, games as usual, go with the flow, ho-hum Christianity just isn’t good enough in a time of war.
But there are so many battles to fight. Where do we start? And why? A great general or commander knows whom, when, and how to fight. A great general also knows where the battlefront is. The battlefront must be defined because the army who controls the battlefront often wins the war. We could just as well ask the question, “which hill are we willing to die on?”
Do we die fighting against gay rights, abortion, gambling, porn, immoral media, or a host of other cultural and political travesties? No, we don’t (Barna would say). We know Satan is the enemy and we know the gospel is of upmost importance. But still, where do we begin and what hill are we willing to die on? I think George Barna was right when he wrote, “the battlefront is found in the minds, hearts and souls of our children.”[1] Barna continues, “Ever the strategic mastermind, Satan knows well that if you destroy the character and hope of children, you rule the world!”[2]
We must do everything we can to help the next generation obtain a biblical worldview. If we can train children to love God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength, Barna says we won’t have to invest time battling over moral and spiritual issues (see above) because the culture will have been shaped from within. Barna reiterates, “The cumulative effect of their character and beliefs will redefine the contours of our culture” and we will not need to then “worry about how to motivate people to read the Bible, how to encourage people to attend worship services, how to raise enough money to maintain the ministry and how to get believers to pursue the Great Commission.”[3]
If we could produce a world where we won the entire next generation to Christ, I know Barna would be right. In that kind of world, we would experience spiritual utopia. But realistically, this isn’t going to happen either (read the Bible). There is always another battle on the landscape and we are told to put on our spiritual armor (Eph 6:10-20). All moral and spiritual issues are worth fighting over because they all encapsulate what we would call the biblical worldview. Suffice to say, however, I think Barna is onto something the church has all too often missed: Battling over the next generation should take priority.
Yet actions prove where priorities are when church leaders are unaware of the spiritual content children in the church are learning, the only thing that matters is babysitters (oops, I mean leaders) are in place, leader training and recruitment is minimal if not non-existent, and “less than 15 percent of the average church’s ministry budget is allocated to the needs of children’s ministry.”
Next generation ministry is about prioritizing students in both word and deed. Let’s not just say children are a priority. We know that they should be. Let’s show them they are!
[1] Barna, Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions, 50.
[2] Ibid, 51.
[3] Ibid.