Disciples and Dependents

You know those moments when you look back and think, “Dang, I did exactly the opposite of what I wanted to do in that situation.” That was what ran through my head about a year and a half ago after our “Kid’s Day” celebration at the church. 

What’s “Kid’s Day?” 

Glad you asked.  It is a great/horrible idea similar to Father’s or Mother’s Day that easily morphs into a month long “celebration” of kids.  Buying, consuming and stressing on the part of adults and demanding and expecting on behalf of those delightful children. 

Am I a crotchety old fart or what?

My dislike of silly Hallmarks holidays is not the purpose of this blog, just one of those tangents that I couldn’t pass up. 

Obviously prior to the day, my intention was to redirect how we celebrated “kids” with the kids and hopefully give a new perspective to these yougins. 

But guess who, guess who, oh yes this guy, muwaa, Tracey Keitt was that guy in line two hours before church kicked off with a buggy full of snickers, pringles, chocolate bars and basically a diversified plethara of junk.  I pulled out a bunch of “tricks of the trade” of youth ministry activities, competitions and games out of the bag that I’d developed over my 5 or so years of working with youth.

And how’d it turn out, you ask? Without a hitch.  An entertaining, fun, high octane, sugar buzz and sugar crash kid’s day that they won’t forget easily.  I, on the other hand, wish it had never happened. 

Now the “how” I got myself in this sitiuation is the crux of what I’m trying to explain to you and change about how I lead Sunday School, my ministries in general, and the overall way I go about life.  Details are not necessary, but I basically took the reins of a situation where everyone else had dropped the ball, planned none of their parts, organized none of their responsibilities and decided to “save the day”... in some regards. 

In other words, I decided that allowing for my fellow Sunday School teachers to grow as disciples was not important.

“I’m sorry guys but I can’t give you the opportunity to feel the full weight of your actions or non-actions.”  “Let me save you guys them from an awkward and possibly shameful situation.”  “The kids lack of a precious kids day will cause too much pain.”

I treated them as dependents, a dependent who can easily grow accustomed to someone else coming behind them and tidying things up so that everything looks shiny and nice on the outside.

Disciples or dependents.

The vision I see with Sunday school in let’s say 5 or 10 years has nothing to do with me.  I should not be in the picture.  No one should be waiting on me or any other single person to pull it all together.  I invision teachers who have learned and grown through trials, success and failures.  Disciples who have passed through frustrating moments, who have heard as well as shared necessary and yet difficult criticism.  I see a team who really takes ownership of Sunday School as a whole and who invests in each individual kid as a person.

Yeah, it is easier to just fix it up and pat these guys on the back.  “No worries, it’s ok, you don’t have to be responsible, because I’ll always be here to keep you as dependent as possible on me.”

It’s hard work on everyone’s part to do this disciplining thing.  It’s not always pretty, people fail, get hurt, hurt others, but it’s so necessary.  It’s what a long term healthy organization, team and church needs.  It’s what I hope we’re doing now.