I am curious about the current status of children’s mission education in our Southern Baptist churches. Over the past few years some of the traditional programs produced by WMU and Baptist Men have been replaced in some churches by AWANA or other similar options. Other SBC churches have opted to drop the children’s mission education programs all together and go with more popular evangelistic activities such as UPWARD.
Before you form a posse to come and whip up on me, PLEASE NOTE that my intent is not to criticise or question the use of GA;s, RA’s, AWANA , UPWARD, BACKWARD, SIDEWAYS or any other program your church may use. Rather, I want to open up a dialogue to find out:
- What type of children’s mission education is being done in our SBC churches
- Why that particular program is being used instead of another
- AND (most importantly) if there is no Mission Education in your SBC church, what is the reason?
I look forward to receiving your comments using the box below. Feel free to make constructive negative comments that might help explain why your church does not use a particular program, however, any comment that disparages a certain program or church will not be approved for posting.
5 Comments
Hey Scott Pittman! Yes, it’s that Stephen Benzel. It was an odd series of clicks that brought me to your blog, but I’m glad I found it. To answer your question, Parkland still does GAs and RAs, and even a class for little ones (4 & 5) called Mission Friends. We also do TeamKID, which is more recreation-focused, so I guess we’re trying to have it all. We’re probably the last church in the city that doesn’t do AWANA. I’ll shoot you an email.
Scott, Thank you for allowing conversation about teaching missions in our churches. My church, Hurstbourne Baptist, Louisville, continues with a strong program for children: Mission Friends, GA’s and RA’s. We do this because this is the future generation being trained to understand the needs of the world to know Jesus…the only Way; helping them to learn to pray for our missionaries; to learn what they do and then to begin to do missions at home. This is the only church organization that I know of which teaches Great Commission to children.
Thanks, Mary Lou Crutcher
At Second Baptist Church, Russellville. we have returned to missions education for children and preschoolers. Mission Friends is provided for preschoolers, boys in grades 1-3 had been using TeamKID material but are now using RA material. Boys in grades 4-6 are in RA, girls in grades 1-6 are in GA. During the summer, we are using Children in Action for the children.
We have Mission Friends, GA’s, RA’s, Youth on Mission (one Wed. a month), and Children in Action during the summer months. First Baptist Junction City strongly feels that mission education for all is a must. Our girls will be attending GA camp soon. Our youth will be on mission trip this summer. Many of our adults have been on partnership missions overseas.. We believe mission service lifestyle begins with learning about praying, supporting, and going at an early age.
I am a little late on commenting on this post, but I wanted to share our info. We at Bethel Baptist Church in Berea have had a Children in Action mission class for the past 2 years. We use the curriculum that is sold through Lifeway/WMU, but sometimes venture out to do what we feel like God is leading us to do. We are very strong supporters of mission education and feel like it is something that definitely needs to be taught from toddler age on up! After praying for a teacher to begin teaching a Mission Friends class we had a young mother to volunteer in May! We are very excited to see what God’s plan is for mission education at Bethel! We are definitely an Acts 1:8 church!!!