JC:What’s your vision for children’s ministry?
HG: For us children’s ministry is letting kids see that they can be used by God. Children can do all things through God who strengthens them. Our heartbeat is that kids are discipled in the things of God. Children’s work isn’t just a case of popping children in the back room with a colouring picture, but actually introducing them to Jesus and letting them understand that they can be used by him and that the Holy Spirit can move through them.
JC:You and Olly have been doing this for some time now. Tell us about the journey you’ve been on.
HG: We started over 20 years ago. We were the children’s pastors at Kensington Temple. We started at the grass-roots, going out into estates and reaching out to children who didn’t know Jesus – and bussing them into a place on a Saturday and introducing Jesus to them.
We were starting to see many children coming into the church, and it wasn’t through the families, but was mainly through the children reaching out to their friends. We had helped them to understand what they could do, and how they were able to share their own faith with their friends and be real with their friends about who they are in Christ. Their friends were wanting a little bit of what they had and they were like ‘What’s going on?’ Our kids would say, ‘Come along to our church event.’ We were finding that the majority of the kids who were invited were giving their lives to Jesus and there were very few who didn’t.
We needed to help them understand how to walk their walk of faith. We started a discipleship programme and we did something called an encounter. The kids would learn about the foundations of Christ and relationship with God and understanding Christianity’s foundation from the beginning when God made the world, right up to Jesus dying on the cross and what happens after that. We would take them away for the weekend and encourage them to get to know God. It would be a weekend for 10-14s and a day for the 5-9s, where they could get to know God. We then had a training programme called School of Leaders and the kids would learn how to reach out to their friends.
One boy wanted to speak to his friends in a class and his teacher shut him down and said, ‘You’re not going to talk to your friends about Jesus in this classroom.’ And he just said, ‘Well, if you guys want to hear what I’ve got to say, meet me in the playground.’ And so word got round that a teacher had shut this kid down, and of course everyone wanted to hear what he had to say; 50 of the school kids showed up in the playground and around 20 of them gave their lives to Jesus right there and then!
JC:How does that relationship with parents work when you’re in contact with kids from non-Christian backgrounds or who have parents who say they haven’t got any kind of faith…especially when you’re doing the more ‘charismatic’ side of stuff?
HG: It’s amazing just how many parents are open to anyone being there to help them with their kids. It is relational and friendship based. When we were on the estates, the parents didn’t know Jesus, but they still let their children come with us on the weekly programme. They knew exactly what we were doing, and that the kids would have fun, but they also knew that we would talk about God and Jesus. The fact that you are a face to be seen, not some person on the end of the phone, means they start to warm to you and start asking questions. Even parents who don’t know Christ like to know that their kids are being given the right morals.
JC:What are some of the most exciting things that you’ve seen over the years?
HG: We had one of those moments in crèche where everyone was screaming. All the kids were screaming, all the leaders were just trying to cope, and trying to make it through the service, and there was one little girl who stood in the middle of the room and went ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus loves me every day.’ We thought, ‘Well, that’s great… she’s not making too much noise and it’s ok… let’s carry on looking after the rest.’ The next thing she said was, ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus loves me every week’. The leaders were looking at her and thinking what is going on here… And she said, ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus loves me every month.’ Something started to happen… Then she said ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus loves me every year.’ And silence descended. That child had done spiritual warfare, whether she realised it or not. A peace had descended on the crèche.
Another kid was reading the God’s general’s kids’ books that we’d written and decided they would go and pray for their grandmother who had a tumour on the spine. They got their friends around to go and pray with them as well and pray for God to heal the grandmother. The grandmother went back to hospital the next week for an MRI scan, and the tumour had completely disappeared. It took three doctors to verify it. They couldn’t get their heads around it.
JC:What would you say are the key things in a child’s discipleship?
HG: I think a kid needs to be soaked right from the very beginning, even from the womb. That again might sound charismatic and radical, but God knitted you and me together in our mother’s womb. So if we soak those kids in prayer right from the very beginning, God hears those prayers. He heard the prayers of many women in the Bible. John the Baptist leapt in the womb when he came into the presence of Jesus; God was doing something there.
Children’s work isn’t just a case of popping children in the back room with a colouring picture, but actually introducing them to Jesus
JC:What are the dangers of exposing children to outward works of the Holy Spirit at a young age? Should there be age limits?
HG: As far as them meeting with the Holy Spirit, can it be scary? It depends what God’s doing doesn’t it? Sometimes if God is doing an inner work in a child, and he does do inner work in kids, specifically those who have been really hurt, it just needs someone to be sensitive and discerning in that time, to know how to be alongside them. Kids are very sensitive and very much more in tune with the Holy Spirit than we as adults can be. We get very complicated as adults. But we can help by being there to just be with them and help them if they’re struggling to answer their questions. We’re not going to have all the answers.
JC:How do we ensure that kids are connecting in the right way? How do we ensure that it’s an experience of the Holy Spirit, rather than just an experience of nice music?
HG: I think that also applies to adults and I think kids need to find their own relationship with God. So, once they find that relationship with God in that private place, not just at church, not just at gatherings, then they’ll know when it’s God and when it’s a hypedup emotional feeling, so to speak. You know when God has touched you, when it lasts longer than just the moment. But we’ve literally had silence and God has turned up. You don’t need music. You don’t need something to hype it up. Every child as an individual will know when God has met with them.
JC:What do you think stops the majority of children’s ministries being willing to expose children to this from such a young age?
HG: I think sometimes it’s a lack of training. There’s a standard way of doing children’s ministry, and there’s nothing wrong with that; I think Sunday school workers do the most phenomenal job in the whole world. I’ve been Sunday schooled and I learned so much about Jesus through those times.
I think it’s daunting sometimes. It is scary to think: ‘What on earth is God going to do?’ ‘How do I even get my kids into that place?’ ‘My kids don’t listen to God.’ We’ve done training in churches and people say to us, ‘We don’t even know how to get our kids worshipping God.’ Sometimes it’s because the leaders aren’t worshipping God in front of the kids; the kids have got no role model. We do lots of training for leaders who need that and require it. We see God move where we go and do the training and we do a role modelling exercise with their children on the Sunday. They say, ‘I’ve never seen our kids do that before.’ We’re not doing anything special, we’re just allowing God to be and the kids are open to it.
JC:If children’s workers are reading this and want to move into this type of ministry, what are the first steps towards it?
HG: Have a look at your leaders. Encourage them and build them up. There are loads of churches who rely on people who are very dedicated to seeing the children move on with God – ensure that their heart is that the children will move on with God. The training will help them in that way. Get the whole group praying with each other, so they can get a vision of where they want the children to go. If you don’t have a vision, you’re a bit lost and you don’t know where you’re going - there’s no direction. Get your team together, pray together, have a direction together. Grab someone in, whoever it might be, who can get in and come and train you and help you to know how to bring these kids into the presence of God.