“When you enter the land which the LORD will give you, as He has promised, you shall observe this rite. “And when your children say to you, ‘What does this rite mean to you?’ you shall say, ‘It is a Passover sacrifice to the LORD who passed over the houses of the sons of Israel in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians, but spared our homes.'” And the people bowed low and worshiped.…
Exodus 12:25-27
You know when you’e looking for one verse, and then you cross reference it and find another amazing verse? I love when that happens. The verse above is what I found and I passed it on to my parents and invited them to ask themselves deeper questions in response to their kids questions.
If you have kids, you know they ask us many questions, “Why is the sky blue?” “Why do Zebras, have stripes” “Are we there yet?” . It seems like a never ending stream of questions.
When they are older, the questions get a little harder “Why did so and so have to die?” What am I supposed to with my life?” and so on.
In-between the easy and the hard questions, they may ask you about your faith, “What does this rite mean to you?”
“Why do we go to church/Sunday school?”
“Why do we worship?”
“Why is the Bible important?”
Really, what they are asking is, “why is it important to you?”
Our student are out extended kids. They have questions too. But, they don’t necessarily want to know what the Bible says, they want to know what you say. That want a human answer not a Bible App answer. They want to know why ____________________ is important to YOU.
We can explain in very broad terms, such ‘That’s just what we do”
That’s cheating. Now’s a good time to examine why you do what you do. Why do YOU read your Bible? Why do YOU worship as you do? Why do YOU believe Jesus is God’s son? Why is communion important to YOU? Why is church important to YOU? and a dozen more. It’s a good idea to make a list of possible questions and write out your answers.
Youth Workers, you’re students may also have some questions about why you do what you do and why do you do it that way.
Why do you preach this way? Program this way? Lead this way?
Your kids deserve some deeper answers of why you’re doing what your doing and why you’re leading them the way you are.
Take some time, ask yourself some big WHY? questions so when kids ask you why is sharing Christ with others important to YOU? Why is camp important to YOU? They deserve a little more than, “I’ve always done it this way.”
Who knows, maybe you don’t have a good reasons and you find that you can change, try something different and change your youth ministry’s course in the process.