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I started playing basketball when I was nine years old. We were taught the basics: dribbling, passing and shooting. The better I got the more I would progress. Yet the better I got the more we focused on the basics. Our high school coach would tell us that talent doesn’t win you games, basics do. We practiced plays until they were instinctual. We ended up third place in the whole state that year.
My time with that coach taught me that basics matter. That you never really move on from them. The better you execute them the better your results will be.
I have been a parent for 21 years and a pastor for 28 years. The pressure and the responsibility of each seem to grow with each successive year. Most of the responsibilities are good and necessary. Yet it often seems like I look back at the blur of the previous year and there so many hours spent on things that didn’t accomplish what I really wanted to spend our time on. So much in the life of a pastor and parent are details and logistics— Necessary but not primary.
As a pastor and parent our packed schedules and weighty responsibilities often produce a low-grade fever of discontentment and frustration. I would desire to change my focus but often out of need and necessity my calendar would be hijacked by events, sports, meetings, and responsibilities. These feelings often led to frustration and in many ways a sense of helplessness.
You start your family or begin your ministry close to the action of discipleship. You read books and have time to think through each holiday and every weekend. Your focus is on the immediate with eyes to the future. But as your family grows and your ministry responsibilities increase, you find yourself doing less of what you did at first, not because you no longer believe in the discipleship of the next generation, but because the cares of the world and the business of life crowd the paths of your family and ministry life. You lose sight of the basics, not on purpose, but because of the pace and speed of life and ministry.
Every addition over time begins to feel like subtraction. How do we close the gap between what we know to be most valuable and the work we need to do as pastors and parents?
1. Remind ourselves of Christ’s first command
What we are called to do as followers of Christ is proclaim the Gospel and make disciples, teaching them to observe God’s commands and laws. Everything in our lives as followers of Christ flows from these commands. When discipleship becomes the measure of our mission it allows us to take an honest look at where we are investing our time and spending our resources. Jesus’ final command to us is famously found in Matthew 28:16–20 (ESV).
The Great Commission
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Christ’s last command must be our first priority. The three things He commanded us to do were clear and directive: 1. Go and disciple them 2. Baptize them 3. Teach them the law of God. These are not suggestions but rather a spotlight on the priorities of Jesus that need to be the priorities of His church.
These are the basics that we never move on from. Instead, we work them into everything we do as pastors and parents: the sermons we preach, the way we communicate with our children, the lives we live in front of those we lead. In basketball, the basics were never flashy. At times, they were even frustrating because, what did running two miles and jumping rope 1500 times have anything to do with playing basketball? But if we didn’t have the basics, we would never develop the more difficult skills we needed to make us excellent basketball players. The same goes for discipling others.
Our authority comes from God’s authority that he has sent us in. Go make disciples. If you are reading along and overwhelmed by the weight of your responsibilities and expectations, you need to take a moment to re-read Matthew 28:16–20 and spend some time contemplating what you do and why you do it. We need to revisit The Great Commission regularly because there is always a temptation in all of us to move on from the basics to what we think is more advanced, more mature.
We are called to go. To go in the power and authority of Jesus and do the things that Jesus did. Then train, teach, love and correct others in such a way that they do the same. Our call as pastors and parents is basic and beautiful: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.
2. Effectiveness of our efforts
The second reason discipleship matters is because the effectiveness of our discipleship is disproportionately fruitful in the lives of kids between five and twelve years old.
Twenty years ago, I came across a statistic that would forever change the focus of my life and ministry. It was from a book by George Barna entitled Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions: Why Children Should Be Your Church’s #1 Priority. In that book he states the following finding from his research:
“The probability of someone embracing Jesus as his or her Savior was 32 percent for those between the ages of 5 and 12; 4 percent for those in the 13-18 range; and 6 percent for people 19 or older. In other words, if people do not embrace Jesus Christ as their Savior before they reach their teenage years, the chance of their doing so at all is slim.”[1]
That statistic is stunning. If this is true (and Barna’s research and my twenty-eight years pastoring in the same church says yes, it is), then we should stop what we are doing and ask ourselves not only, “are we making disciples of all nations?” but, “are we making disciples of the next generation?”
We must ask ourselves: “Where are we investing our time as parents, our budget as pastors, and our prayers as followers of Christ?” Because discipleship matters to Jesus, it must matter to us. Because the discipleship of children is commanded in Scripture (Deuteronomy 6:4–7) and has been proven to be the most effective means of discipleship, then we must focus our time, energy and resources on the next generation.
It is not an issue of strategy or tactics, but rather one of stewardship and obedience.
So go therefore preach the gospel to all nations, but especially to children. The children God has placed in your life are watching how you live and waiting for the truth. In a world full of sorrow and lies, they need the truth of the Gospel and the hope of Jesus.
Bring it to them without delay.
Sam Luce is the Director of ChildDiscipleship.com at Awana. He co-authored Forming Faith, writes at samluce.substack.com, and is a frequent speaker. A former pastor of 28 years, Sam holds an M.A.BTS and a M.A.CCS from Knox Seminary and is a current doctoral candidate at Western Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Sandra, have four children and live in Upstate New York.
[1] Barna, GeorgeGeorge Barna., Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions: Why Children Should Be Your Church’s #1 Priority. (Gospel Light Publications, 2003).
