Mars, Worldview, and Teaching Kids Theology
In the late 1990s, NASA launched the Mars Climate Orbiter—a spacecraft designed to study the climate and atmosphere of Mars. The exciting mission ended in failure due to a small miscalculation: the engineers used one unit of measurement at launch while the software used another. This minor error (just a few inches) caused the orbiter to enter Mars’ atmosphere at the wrong angle, ultimately leading to its destruction. This unfortunate event reveals how inconsistencies, even minor ones, can be catastrophic in the long run. This is especially true when it comes to inconsistencies in the faith.
Inconsistent Worldview
According to the Cultural Research Center, only 12% of children’s pastors have a consistently biblical worldview. If that’s the case, many kids are growing up in churches where they are handed an inconsistent and distorted faith. Most pastors outside the 12% may not be teaching blatant heresy or renouncing Christian orthodoxy, but small inconsistencies in their worldview can still have massive ramifications on the faith of our families and children if left unchecked. Why? Because that’s the nature of discipleship and spiritual formation.
Discipleship is a relational process in which a person is formed in the ways, truth, and life of another. Put another way, we often adopt the truth of people we trust. If kids and parents are being influenced by the inconsistent beliefs and lifestyles of their pastors, then their discipleship will follow suit—and it already has! In a similar study, only 2% of parents were found to hold a consistently biblical worldview. This should give us great pause. Children can’t live beyond their perception of God. If ministry leaders are giving them a caricature of Christ instead of a faithful portrait of who He is, their worship will be misguided and their lives misdirected.
The Need for Good Theology
That’s why Sam and I wrote the book How to Teach Kids Theology. We not only wanted to present robust doctrine to leaders and parents, but we also wanted to teach them how to convey theology to kids in faithful, age-appropriate ways. Good theology is at the heart of a consistent worldview because how you see God determines how you see everything else. His truth is the light by which all things are clearly seen and understood.
People can only make the disciples being made in them. If we want to reverse the sobering trend of the statistics above, it starts with equipping our leaders and parents with the right principles and practices to combat the problems that prevent them from knowing and teaching good theology. Sam and I pray this book will be a resource to help in that cause. May the ideas, tips, and resources shared in its pages help leaders disciple kids in biblically consistent ways, measured by God’s goodness, beauty, and truth.
Hunter Williams is the children’s pastor of Ridgedale Baptist Church in Chattanooga, TN and co-host of the Cross Formed KidMin podcast. He has served in various ministry roles, including chaplain, youth pastor, and missionary with Awana. He has written articles for numerous ministries such as INCM, The Gospel Coalition and KidzMatter magazine and is the coauthor of How to Teach Kids Theology. Hunter and his wife, Sammie, have four children and love serving in their local church.
