Two weekends ago, my youngest daughter and I walked through a craft store, gathering wooden letters. I said the letters out loud while she looked for them "P...that's right...over there", "R...it's kind of like a P...", then A, Y, G, O, S, E, N, and D. When we got home, the older three kids joined us on a bedsheet spread out across the dining room floor to paint the large letters. Later, I sat next to my 10-year-old as she touched up the Chinese character 去 ("Go") on a separate sign. I teared up as I thought about what a privilege it was to do this, prepare for missions month with my kids, and how my mom used to do the same with me.
Years ago, I thought I'd be spending my life as a cross-cultural missionary outside the U.S., but God's calling for me thus far has looked different. I serve in a local church on Staten Island, I work at a bookstore, I write, I raise my kids. Still, I've been taught since childhood that even though I may not be called to "go," I am no less called to leverage my life for the glory of God among all peoples. I can send, I can pray—and I want my children to start learning this too.
Whether we are parenting at home or serving young people in church, we bear a responsibility to help the next generation receive the gospel not only as essential to their personal salvation, but as good news of great joy for all people (Luke 2:10). For those looking to help nurture a heart for missions in the next generation, here are some ways you can start.
Teach Them to See Spiritual Needs
Sometimes, church-goers in the West may not realize that our access to the Scriptures, other Christians, and the gospel is not a given in many places in the world. It's only when we begin to understand how many people have never had a chance to hear the name of Jesus that we will cry out with Paul, "How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?" (Romans 10:14-15a). One way to grow this heart is through exposing our kids to the spiritual needs of people all over the world.
Growing up, my family had a copy of Operation World, a prayer guide for countries and people groups, that we would pray through as a family. Since then, the same people who wrote Operation World have come out with an amazing kids' resource: Window on the World. I used Window to the World for years when I homeschooled my kids, teaching them also about the world's major non-Christian belief systems through the Pioneers WorldView curriculum. Not too long after going through this curriculum, our family traveled to Taiwan. One day, as we passed by monks and temples, I talked with one of the kids about what we'd learned and we prayed together that these monks would come to know the true God.
Our impetus for teaching children about the world goes beyond helping them develop a respect and appreciation for different cultures. It is also more than teaching them why Christianity is true as opposed to other religions. We want them to develop spiritual eyes to see the spiritual needs of those who have yet to know Christ.
Introduce Them to Stories of God's Global Work
This month, our church is spending time to intentionally consider global missions. We are taking time to learn about how the Kingdom of God is expanding in places outside our own homes and city, and the way he may be calling us to be a part of this work. It's both an encouragement and challenge to me, a reminder that God is bigger than I sometimes make him out to be and that his gospel truly has power to save.
In my youth, I was shaped by meeting missionaries that would stay at our house during their home assignment or come to speak for our church's missions months. I was also shaped by missionary biographies and stories, like that of Amy Carmichael and Hudson Taylor. In recent years, we've watched the Dispatches from the Front series in our home and at church, and the documentaries have stirred my heart with a renewed desire to be a part of bringing the gospel to those who haven't yet heard.
Whether through participating in a missions conference, short-term missions trip, or learning about missionaries, children and youth need to see how the gospel is spreading through normal people who have taken up their crosses to follow an extraordinary God. They also need the example of those who have been called to stay and are actively involved in praying and sending.
Teach Them the Scriptures
Christians need a broad view of God's work in the world geographically. They also need a broad view of God's work in history. Sometimes, Christians can forget that God's plan for missions did not begin at the "Great Commission." God's plan from the beginning was to make a people for himself from every nation. In Genesis, he promises to Abraham a descendent that would bless every family of the earth (Genesis 12:3). In Revelation, we get a picture of how this is fulfilled in Christ—the Lamb who is worshipped as a song rises in heaven: “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation."
God is gathering into his heavenly throne room worshippers from every tribe, language, and people group, and we get to be witnesses and active participants in his redemptive plan for the world. We can cast this vision of what Trillia Newbell calls "God's very good idea" to even the youngest children (reading God's Very Good Idea might be a good start!). But to do this, we need to teach the Scriptures with a big picture view of God's plan of salvation.
Pray Earnestly
This is perhaps where we need to start. "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few," Jesus once said to his disciples (Matthew 9:37). I experienced this firsthand many years ago when sharing the gospel in Asia. One young woman I spoke to seemed eager to believe. Unsure if she understood the cost of following Christ, I emphasized that receiving him as Lord wouldn't make her life easy. Yes, she told me, she still wanted to believe, because "I always knew there was a Lord, and that he could save us. I just didn't know his name."
Truly, the harvest is plentiful. So Jesus instructs, "Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest" (Matthew 9:38). As we raise the next generation to have a heart for God's world, let's pray earnestly that God would do a mighty work in their hearts and ours. That together with our children and youth, in worship to the Lamb and with compassion for the lost, we would give ourselves fully to the work of God and his global, Kingdom work.
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Browse our collection of books on missions here: Global Missions.
