Colin Buchanan: Five Foundations for Ministry to Children

I want to share something of my story to encourage you to consider that God is in the midst of your story, working it out and equipping you. I want to encourage you that your ministry techniques can rise out of your story, but more importantly, can rise out of the scriptures and your understanding of the Bible.

Here are a few things I’ve learnt from my time in ministry to children. They are principles that have arisen out of my personal experiences and the scriptures. These are just a few foundations, five ministry “stones” I have learnt over the years.

Let me pick the first one up for you.

Stone 1: God is Delighted to Work in Children

I know that not simply as a fact, but from experience. Because God was at work in me as a child.

The Sunday School teachers from my childhood did not know the impact they were going to have, but many of their lessons have stuck with me for life and made their way into my song lyrics. And many of them were teenagers at the time.

If you are a teenager, this is an important time. You can really set the compass for a child you are ministering to here. What might you do? Something small and perhaps unseen, and perhaps for you, even unremembered, that will become a landmark in the life of a child – in what they believe and how they understand God. It may be a very ordinary moment in a song, in a lesson, after a lesson, just in an incidental moment. But God delights to work in children.

I love Luke 10:21. It says Jesus was delighted when he said, “I praise you, Father, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.”

God delights in revealing Jesus to children, and he is working through you.

Oh look! Oh Stone 2!

Stone 2: The Gospel is Chocolate

I remember when I was in year seven, I had a Sunday school leader teach me the gospel. When I saw it clearly, I remember thinking: the gospel is chocolate. It’s all win! I am a sinner and Christ wins forgiveness for me. It’s really God that does all that, and all you need to do is respond in faith. You receive it as a gift. My teacher could have told me the gospel is good news, but instead his biblical faithfulness allowed me to see for myself that the gospel is good news.

It doesn’t matter who you’re teaching. If you’re teaching the Word of God, there is weight in the Word. And you ought to remember the gravity of teaching the word of God, whether you’re teaching it to old or young.

“If you’re teaching the Word of God, there is weight in the Word. And you ought to remember the gravity of teaching the word of God, whether you’re teaching it to old or young.”

My analogy is medicine. We don’t have real doctors for grown ups and then pretend doctors for children. You don’t say, “Just do a certificate one in doctoring.” It’s all medicine. Children need real doctors, and children need real Bible teachers. And if you’re reading this, you might just be one of those real Bible teachers.

It wasn’t because my teachers hyped it up, but because I saw it. The gospel was faithfully shared and showed itself for what it is, the good news, and the notion of God’s holiness was not hidden from me. The consequence of sin was not hidden from me. The substance of my own sinful nature was not hidden from me. And therefore I saw the wonder of Jesus as the bridge to life.

I’m all for the fun and the gimmicks. I mean, I love fun and gimmicks and attention grabbers, but when the novelty all burns off, the question is, what will remain. I encourage you to treasure the truths that you share and be faithful with them. And let God do his work.

Oh, look, it’s Stone 3. It’s a heavy one!

Stone 3: Grapple with Bible Truth

Be hungry for the truth, and don’t settle for easy answers.

Let me introduce you to Peter. Now, Peter found himself teaching myself and a bunch of teenagers how to be a Sunday school teacher. He was a trained teacher, which was a great advantage, but what really stood out was that Peter was a Bible grappler. He was always relentlessly honest and relentlessly on the quest to understand what the Bible actually means.

I remember in the class we would teach trial lessons for feedback. I had to teach the story of Jesus and the fisherman, and I built this elaborate cardboard Sea of Galilee. It had the cellophane waves, beautifully painted cardboard fish, and milk carton boat with moving mechanisms. And at the end, Peter told me, “Your model was so distracting. I got pulled out of the story.”  Two things were happening there. One was the lesson failed, but the other was that Peter wanted to be in the story. Peter wanted to be in the scriptures, at the centre of what is happening. And that was a great lesson. I give thanks for Peter.

Be hungry for the truth of the story, don’t let your creativity and storytelling remove from the teaching of it. The Bible must be the hero of what we teach. Props and creativity are great. But they serve something and Someone greater. If they are distracting me, it’s going to be hard for kids to stay with it.

If you want to simplify complex truths, which I think is the brief for teaching kids, you’re going to have to do hard work. It takes hard work.

Attempting to simplify Bible truths has been one of the most enjoyable, rewarding, challenging, engaging delights of my ministry to kids. I just love that process. And I think this is it: You don’t dilute the truth, you distil the truth, and it’s very different. Anyone can water truth down, and it’s quite another thing to distil it, to preserve its integrity and perhaps even intensify the truth in the process of seeking to simplify.

“You don’t dilute the truth, you distil the truth, and it’s very different. Anyone can water truth down, and it’s quite another thing to distil it, to preserve its integrity and perhaps even intensify the truth in the process of seeking to simplify.”

Step back into the truths, seek to share and rediscover what they really are, and find those fresh words to say them in a compelling way.

Spend time grappling with God’s Word. Read the Bible. Read the Bible every day. Read the whole Bible. See the bigness of God.

Oh, look, another stone. Oh, I must be getting stronger, I’ve warmed up.

Stone 4: Kids Grow Up

Spoiler alert, kids grow up. It is the worst kept secret in the world. It’s like everyone knows it’s going to happen and everyone is still surprised by it.

So, that child you’re teaching now is going to grow up. Respect kids now because they grow up, but also, respect kids by knowing that they are real people now with real fears and real worries and real cares.

I met a young woman who was helping with a kids’ concert at a Christian school. She said, “See over there in that corner there?” She showed me this little nook, hidden from the playground. “I used to go there when I was in year 5 or 6. I was going through a lot of difficult stuff. I’d stand in there and I’d cry and I’d sing your songs, and they really helped.” And that meant a lot to me, that those truths got her through, and stuck with her as an adult.

In my mind, I like to jump in a time tunnel and go back to when a song was written, or when I was putting together a Sunday school lesson, and thought, “Well, I really want this to count for people.” What a blessing to see that desire come to fruition. Or I like to think forward, because the future is coming. “Will this lesson, will this moment give something for the grown-up inside that seven year old, or will it just flake off?”

Oh, wait. Oh, whoa. This is a heavy one. Clunk. Stone 5, a final stone.

Stone 5: Christian Character

Before we think about what we do, we think about who we are. Well, in fact, let’s put it better. Before we think about what we do for Christ, we consider who we are in Christ.

What is the well that you draw from? Christian character flows from us trusting and following Jesus for ourselves. So when it comes to kids, or anyone who teaches the Bible, you lead as a follower, and you teach as a learner, and you serve as one served by Jesus.

“When it comes to kids, or anyone who teaches the Bible, you lead as a follower, and you teach as a learner, and you serve as one served by Jesus.”

I wrote this little poem:

“Trusting, I call them to trust him.
Praying, I urge them to prayer.
Failing, I join them, confessing.
Needy, I call them to care.

Weary, we seek him as refuge.
Sinning, yet washed in his blood.
Thankful, we run to our father.
Children, held safe in his love.

Joyful, we sing of his wonders,
Praising the lamb who was slain.
Jesus, our Shepherd and Saviour,
Together, we worship his name.”

So they are five of my foundations for ministry.

Plus! Here are four bonus practical tips.

Tip 1: Find Joy

Find the joy in what you do. Because genuine joy is infectious. For some of you find joy in organisation. I personally can’t comprehend such a thing—but we need you! We especially need you to be joyful when you organise. A joy-driven roster! What could be more wonderful?

Tip 2: Know When to Hit Your Mark

Play School was a great place to learn this because there are structural marks in an episode or in a story, that by hitting those, you propel the meaning and the flow of it. In an episode, there’d be a stand up moment, then movement, then a quiet little tiny moment, then songs, then we’d be through the window, and then we’d be back. The stories ebbed and flowed.

Those marks are really important. And it’s worth thinking, where are the marks in what I’m teaching that I can hit? You’ll know when you don’t hit them because the kids aren’t listening. So maybe you’ve tried to go too far, and you needed to create some marks between. Preparation will give you a template to go on, and experience will make you prepared to be unprepared because kids do that to you, don’t they?

Tip 3: Listen to Kids with Your Eyes and Ears and Heart and Voice

Miss Karina taught three of my kids at preschool, and she listened with her eyes. She always got down when they arrived. She got down on her knees and look them in the eye. And not those sort of scary eyes that some adults do. She’d have warm, embracing eyes. She’d look at kids and she’d listen with her heart, which she, of course, listened with her ears, but she also listened with her heart. You could tell she was open to the children, which is really quite beautiful. And she listened with her voice. She’d respond to them and, she’d say back to them what they said, so that, it showed she really was listening. Just quite a beautiful demonstration of love and respect.

Jesus did it. He said, let the children come to me. And they did. And he took them in his arms and he blessed them. That’s our Saviour.

Tip 4: Embrace the Unseen

There is an unseen dimension to teaching, and kids pick it up. Kids know when you love them. They know when you believe what you’re teaching them and you’re genuinely uplifted and inspired by it. They know when you’re simply performing, or when you’re genuinely responding to God and to them.

I don’t want to be a fake. I want to lean into the reality of what I’m doing. I don’t want to just sing “Remember, the Lord”. I want to remember the Lord.

This article was originally delivered by Colin Buchanan at the SMBC 2026 Children’s Ministry Conference.