How Important Is Outreach and Missions?

Outreach has become an important area of focus for many of today’s kids’ ministry leaders. Whether it’s teaching kids about how they can help people in their local community or supporting evangelism and social justice efforts around the world, missions has become ingrained in the way many of us do ministry.

But have you ever stopped and wondered why missions and outreach is an important part of kids’ ministry? The obvious answer is that there is always more that can be done. But there’s more to it than that. In fact, when you help instill the value of outreach and missions in kids, they benefit as much as the people you are supporting or reaching.

Four Reasons Why Teaching about Missions Is Critical for Healthy Ministry

Here are four ways intentionally teaching kids about outreach and missions can help them grow to become healthier disciples and help you build a healthy ministry:  

• It instills principles of stewardship, generosity, and using our resources and gifts for Kingdom work. Missions education is a part of the process of growing as a healthy disciple. Why? Focusing on outreach enables you to teach children how to use their spiritual gifts. Just as elementary schools have career days to help children understand where their talents and abilities fit in, missions education is another way for children to discover they are part of God’s great plan for mankind.

• It provides an opportunity to teach that outreach is part of the DNA of being Spirit-filled disciples. If we want to instill a foundation that helps kids become lifelong disciples who know the impact they can have, we must use missions education as an exercise in servanthood here and now—and not just as something that happens somewhere else. Involving children at every age makes the transition to being a “missionary” wherever they go a natural one.

• It opens children’s hearts to others’ needs. Teaching kids about missions and the work that is being done for the Kingdom around the world helps kids see that there’s more going on in our world besides what they see on the news every day. It allows them to hear the exciting stories of how the Spirit is at work in our world.

• It helps kids learn that missions has many different faces. Focusing on outreach allows us to teach kids they can be missionaries, whether they’re teaching overseas or acting as missionaries within their own schools. By learning the exciting news of how God is at work in our world, children will know that positive things are happening and that there’s a need for their skills in many parts of the Church.

Missions education isn’t a one-time event. It’s about creating a culture where kids are constantly being taught how to use their gifts and resources to tell others about the God who loves them.

What are some other benefits you’ve noticed from taking the time to intentionally focus on outreach and missions in your kids’ ministry?