[0:00]
g'day i'm scott sanders welcome to the reach australia mission season now you're probably thinking why am i here well dave jensen is taking a little break i'm going to finish the last two episodes off samantha his uh wife has had their fourth child recently so congratulations dave if you're listening in now you're tuning in probably because you're keen to see australia reached with the gospel you want to see family friends those who you work with who don't know jesus

[0:30]
come to a saving relationship with him and start following him and seeing seeing their lives transformed by the gospel and so this series is all about that reaching the lost and today i've got uh sandy golia sandy welcome to the podcast thank you very much thanks for having me uh sandy if you don't know her is married to ray has three older kids grown-up kids now and three grandchildren and a beautiful daughter-in-law and a beautiful dog yes i forgot about charlotte i should mention charlotte as well

[1:00]
she planted with her husband ray 30 years ago nba rudy hill and today it has three sites almost four sites with three kids churches uh so by the end of the year we'll have three by the end of the year by the end of the you'll have three so it's a busy it's a busy church and sandy has heaps of experience raising up training leaders and thinking into this kids space now i wanna i wanna sort of kick off i i love hearing about uh people people's testimonies how they started following jesus so

[1:31]
tell us your story my story well i grew up in a home um with parents who love jesus they um both had come from non-christian homes and as teenagers or my dad as a child and my mum um through youth group one through sunday school one through youth group had said yes to jesus so i grew up with parents who who love to um read the bible and pray with me from a very young young age i just remember that was our family custom particularly midweek we would do that

[2:02]
they were very active in church took me to sunday school they were also very active on mission we went to beach missions in fact by the time i was 20 i'd been to 19 beach missions so um and it was on one of these beach missions that um that everything sort of fell into place for me so even though i i had heard the old old story about jesus and the cross it was on a beach mission when i was 10 years of age the the keynote program had finished my small group leader

[2:33]
was packing up i was alone with her which you don't do nowadays but back then i was helping her pack up all the other kids are gone and she just turned to me and asked if i was a christian and nobody had ever asked me that before not my parents not my sunday school leaders and she asked me that and i looked at her and i remember saying yes and then she said why do you think you're a christian and and i remember speaking about jesus dying for me uh and then i listed all my good works um

[3:06]
and uh she was she listened and then she very gently said you know it's not about what you've done it's all about what jesus has done and then she just reminded me of what jesus had done when he died on the cross that he died for me and and that he was the one that opened the door to heaven and as she spoke for me it was like i saw jesus for the first time that's how i described it now it's interesting because you as you said you had parents who modeled following

[3:38]
jesus you went to loads of beach missions yeah uh but it but it still took someone who yeah you know to actually encourage you to actually respond to the gospel and make a decision and i remember praying with her um and then she didn't tell me but i just knew i had to tell my parents and uh and i ran and the first parent i found was my dad um and i remember my dad picking me up and swinging me around and sitting me on the bonnet of our holden commodore uh he had an apron on

[4:11]
because that year he was cook for the beach mission and i told him what i'd just done and i saw tears in my dad's eyes and i had never seen my dad cry before and as a ten-year-old i thought wow if my dad's crying this is a really big thing yeah and it was yeah now uh now dave's been asking the question about a second conversion um so uh and it's the conversion sorry i always cry when i talk about my dad i love him dearly sorry dave

[4:41]
dave talks about a second conversion yes that we need to have the conversion to sort of mission and evangelism what did you need to have that you know growing her family that was so focused on mission yeah look i think i did um because you know i i loved uh like when i was 15 i was given a sunday school manual and said you know would you like to teach kids and i think i the whole thing of yes i knew it was important to pass on this story

[5:11]
but i think as i began to teach kids over years i think i became absolutely convinced convicted of two things one is it's not just teaching the truths but calling on kids to respond to those truths so too often in sunday schools we're just sort of teaching kids and when they grow up that's when they will be called to respond and so having a growing understanding that every time i open the word of god with kids

[5:42]
uh i'm i'm calling them to respond to that word faith trust repentance obedience i it's constantly it's truth that matters and truth that changes lives the other thing i i think as as mbm began to grow and just as you open the bible with kids kids were saying yes to jesus and i i i mean i i knew that i as a child had said yes to jesus i knew many people who'd said yes to jesus under the age of

[6:12]
11. but it was just became more exciting and i think i became more optimistic that when you open the bible with kids they are the most likely to say yes to jesus so everyone involved in kids ministry be your own ministry to your children within your family or to the children within your church or your community everyone's on the front line because under the age of the of 11 that's the age that people are the most likely to say yes to jesus so the statistics as well as my

[6:44]
experience made me it wasn't so much that i knew that i had to do it but i became hugely optimistic that as i was preaching the gospel to kids and as i was equipping others to preach the gospel to kids they were going to see kids come to jesus so interesting there's still that perception though that you know kids have to be old enough you know they can't understand the gospel but again your experience is they powerful word of god spirit work in their lives and and them understanding enough for their developmental growth understanding

[7:14]
i think the youngest that i you know i went to a funeral of um one of the ladies at church um who's was long-term in kids ministry and her son did an apprenticeship with us years prior he's now full-time ministry um and uh and he actually spoke at uh this dear woman's um uh relatives funeral that i was at and he shared uh because it was sorry it was her mother his grandmother that was the

[7:45]
funeral and in the middle of the sermon he shared the impact of his grandmother in bringing bringing him to faith and so and the age he was was three years of age now he or three or four it was something like that and uh he as an adult can clearly remember what happened and uh his grandmother um for some reason he decided to take his grandmother's shoes and flush them down the toilet as a very young little child who was staying over at his grandmother's his grandmother was very upset with him and when she put

[8:17]
him into bed that night she said these words to him which he clearly remembers and he said you know jesus came to die on the cross for naughty little boys like you that's what she said as a grandmother and that night he remembers being absolutely convicted that he was a naughty little boy and he needed jesus to die for him and he remembers getting out of bed and kneeling down and asking jesus to die for him and to you know because he was naughty um and he clearly remembers that was the

[8:47]
point where he decided to put jesus first in his life so it's interesting here in your testimony hearing and hearing his testimony as well uh there's a power in actually you know challenging kids encouraging kids to respond to the gospel it's something that we'd encourage all churches to be doing regularly in their in their gatherings you know regularly having a time uh or a place uh in the service to say you know if this is if you've heard about jesus today you want to follow jesus make a response yeah there is there a reluctance in kids industry you know to do this because of the the power dynamic

[9:18]
because of kids understanding what what are sort of the other you know reasons why you want to be careful you do want to be careful um because because you are in a position of power so you so one of the things i i never do is you know a call to put up your hand or come up the front so on our july holiday club things or kids club afternoons kids club all of those sort of things just calling kids to you know to publicly do it but i i and i think that's

[9:50]
uh got to do with just feeling coerced in the midst of a situation but i do challenge kids to actually think about it and one of the one of the lines that i say is this this is one decision that that you make uh mum and dad don't make this for you this is one decision that you need to make um and it's what are you gonna do with jesus would you which is not to say to discount the importance of parents or grandparents or no or christian people likewise not a doubt the experience of

[10:20]
uh of church there is something about being part of a thriving kids club and you know going to a beach mission and you know just spending 10 days you know doing kids ministry and and hearing about jesus and then responding so but there's still a still a need for a kid to individually respond yeah look i think every sunday um ever look every time you open the word of god uh you've got to realize in front of you in say in a kid's club or a july holiday club or a you know holiday club or a um

[10:51]
or a kids church situation you've got people who've come in and they either have said yes to jesus and and you're encouraging them to continue to say yes to jesus in every aspect of their life um or they they are yet to say yes to jesus um and so you know as we open the word of god you've got to constantly be thinking how does this how do i take this truth and challenge the two different people that i've got sitting

[11:21]
in front of me no matter what their age because every person has a whole that only god can fill it doesn't matter if they're three or thirty or you know 60. now i want to talk about uh mission two kids specifically so how is it that you create opportunities uh to to reach kids well there's lots of different ways i think mission began starts in home it has to start in the home and so in encouraging parents to talk

[11:52]
about their faith with their kids i ran a seminar a couple of years ago and uh a dad came along he'd recently his wife had recently died he had a five-year-old son and uh him and his wife had um regularly read the bible with the with their son they'd prayed with him they'd obviously been through that huge journey of grief um him losing his little boy losing his mother this dad came to the seminar he was involved in kids ministry in his church and but he also came because the seminar

[12:23]
was about discipling kids whether you're a parent or whether you're a leader and during the day uh one of the things that i said it's i find it surprising that very few adults have shared how they came to faith with their kids or for me with my grandchildren like ray and i had the privilege of doing with her eldest grandchild the other day and it was just a beautiful thing to for ray to raise backgrounds very different to my background and for her to hear these stories about how you know

[12:55]
our lives changed when we said yes to jesus um anyway get me to this guy here i'm gonna get tears from you again sorry yeah so when uh so this guy he went home and uh that night he said to his son i have never told you why i decided to follow jesus and he did and then he asked his son would you like to follow jesus and his son looked at his dad and he said i thought you'd never ask so um yeah and that night he

[13:26]
prayed with his son his son said yes to jesus so he's it was just you know um all the work had been done in terms of you know uh he'd been reading the bible he told his son the old old story um you know again and again and again and his son knew all the pieces and he just needed to own it for himself and it was a beautiful thing for that dad to actually have that opportunity to so see his son say yes yeah so he encouraged parents to be sharing about how they follow jesus yeah and read them reading the bible just

[13:58]
opening up scriptures i think one of the things i encourage parents to do is kids you know when we read the bible with kids it can often turn into an inquisition you know like i want to ask these comprehension questions to make sure that you actually listened to what i've just read you from the bible and i think um reading the bible with kids needs to be we're all reading it together this word of god is for everyone within this family and the best thing that kids can in terms of uh the family experience is to actually

[14:29]
hear their parents reflect on how that passage impacted them so one of the things i encourage like we've got these bible reading plans and bookmarks and essentially it just encourages you to uh get a bible which is age-appropriate mind you they're not actually all bibles they're they're interpretations because yes they've got the word bible on it but they are an interpretation but you sort of you can either use the plan or the bookmark but you you find the story and then you ask

[15:02]
those two questions so very simple questions what do you like about the story what questions you have about the story yeah and then private stuff and then just pray and even if you just ask one question like you know what do you like about the story and dad says you know i like the fact that when jesus said to the man get up and walked he walked immediately you know i love seeing god's power mum might say you know i loved that jesus knew exactly what everyone in the room was thinking like how amazing is that and so kids get

[15:32]
to hear their parents reflect on the wonder or the conviction from that passage of scripture and as they hear their parents talk about their their own response to the word of god then that draws kids in and it doesn't become an inquisition in fact it's that beautiful thing of we need to share life and share faith and do it naturally um yeah and in some ways you're modeling you're modeling that to the kids and the conversations they could be having with their friends yeah so so thinking about um mission

[16:04]
mission you know locally you know kids kids need to be brought along you know to something so so in some ways you know i'd be my in my head i'm thinking are we trying to reach parents not not you know so that we can then reach kids yeah look equipping in our church the largest group of disciple makers are the parents you know we're 350 400 parents um and you know we we've got about 90 people who through our midweek and and sunday

[16:36]
um and holiday ministries uh ministered to kids um in general so parents are by far the largest group so by equipping them the other thing is what we can do as a church is create opportunities for families to be on mission together and and having mission-minded families is just a wonderful thing and shifting that culture rather than i bring my kids and i outsource them to kids church and then i outsource them to we have a july holiday club outsource them to you leaders to you

[17:07]
know share the gospel with them on july holiday club we try and create opportunities where parents can actually come along and be on mission together so um and uh so in our july holiday club uh we've got the kids who register for the club which is all kids and then we've got a group of kids that we call team kids and they're called team kids because their parents or grandparents are on team with their kids and so team kids come an hour before when all the team gathers and there's a

[17:38]
group of people who look after 10 kids so that their mum and dad can join the the prep meeting and then when all the kids go home from club team kids stay with the rest of their team and we provide lunch free for them so you you've got to create yeah it's going to create you've got to create structures to actually help parents to get involved because or else they can't be on team they can't be on team because they've got to take their kids home so team kids so we had we had something like 50 team kids two years ago and we had when i added it up we had 34

[18:10]
families now by that it means i was included i grandma was there with my granddaughter on on on club and she was part of the team kids um we have we had a dad who does our sound desk every year he's done it for the last couple of years he takes a week's holiday to be with his three kids who are uh coming on club his eldest daughter first club she came to uh she said yes to jesus he was so excited he said i don't know how to tell kids about jesus but i want to make sure

[18:42]
that that this club keeps going because i want more kids to hear about jesus and it was so beautiful because the next year this little girl was celebrating her one year birthday being a christian but she was also celebrating her 10th birthday um and she said to her parents they said what do you want for your birthday and she said i want you to pay for my best friend to come on club that was that was her birthday present yeah so michigan mission-minded parents coming you know mission that that culture shifting that culture within

[19:14]
your church is really critical yeah and uh that there's a big cost but also you can see they're seeing actually impact you know transform lives of their own kids but also their own families and then yeah and then you know reaching out as well what about the sort of regular week to week stuff that sounds like in terms of parents being more involved in that that's that's a harder yeah it's much harder oh yeah much harder because and particularly where we are people are traveling long distance for work so so that's that's been extremely hard i

[19:44]
mean it's it's yeah it's much easier the the the one one week a year it's much easier to get more families involved than it is on your midweek things we have in the past had um uh uh people who um uh because of their their work can actually be involved in scripture in schools um and uh so uh we had one guy who when he retired he immediately stepped into

[20:15]
scripture in schools and he did it up until the day he died and i did it for years and years and years and impacted so many people he was a great actor um and it was it was interesting um i remember about a year before he died one of the year six boys uh because he would come in and do acting and he would fix up all the bibles he'd he'd get the bible and he put the ribbon in so that when we went to small group we'd say open up where the ribbon is rather than spending ten minutes trying to find

[20:47]
where it is in the bible and this little boy opened up where the ribbon was and he said after this is after nine months of him opening up the bible where the ribbon was he said he does this every week who puts the ribbon in and i turned around i said you see alan he does that why does he does he get paid to do that i said no none of us get paid to do that he said really you don't get paid to come in i said no we do this because we love you and we want you to hear about jesus

[21:17]
and then he said you don't love us and i said well why else are we here and he goes wow like he was just blown away but yeah that was just beautiful seeing that guy just he was had a heart for kids on mission and he just gave his retirement to doing it so creating structures for people to be able to serve and to be able to uh you know engage the whole family is really helpful i want to think about overseas and global mission how is it that you get kids and families excited about global

[21:47]
mission yeah i i think every opportunity you can when missionaries come back your overseas mission partners when they come back make sure that you actually somehow get the kids hearing their stories um it was beautiful we sent off one guy who'd grown up at mbm to the mission field about two years ago and and so i knew he was being interviewed in the service so i said right we're going to keep the kids in to hear this interview so kids normally are in

[22:18]
there for the first little section go out after the kids talk to kids church but he was being interviewed straight after the kids talk so we kept the kids the school age kids in and and he was during the interview he was asked you know when did he first get excited about thinking about going to the mission field and he looked at all the kids at the front he said when i was your age when i was sitting where you are i heard how there were so many people who had never heard the name jesus and

[22:50]
and i just i just wanted to be a part of that and here i am now and and he was able to challenge the kids that maybe you will be up here one day and nbn will be sending you off to the mission field um so i think you know just having that um making sure that that like every year we have what we call photo sunday where we take photos of each of our sections of our kids church across our campuses and then that photo they then take home to pray for all the

[23:21]
kids in their age group each year but on the back has a photo of all of our mission partners the photos are getting smaller and smaller and smaller as the number of mission partners increases but it's been beautiful because the kids then use them in their small groups at kids church they take them home they they they're in their bedrooms up on their wall they can put them with their bibles they can put them on the fridge and so there's a visual reminder that you know we're not just here for people within our city uh sorry our you

[23:53]
know our suburb our city australia we're here we want to see the gospel go out across the world and uh yeah and we did the book of acts in fourth term last year and it was just a a wonderful thing we had this domino thing where you just the gospel going out and you know right to rudy hill yeah australia which is not quite the ends of the earth because i'm told that no no sydney keeps going he goes further out but i'm told from jerusalem that new zealand's the end of the earth so we're just before the ends of the earth from from jerusalem yeah it is

[24:24]
definitely a long way out yeah from the city you've come a long way today but it's good it's good to have you so it's interesting hearing the importance of the sunday gathering so for for stories um how do how important is the sunday gathering and kids kids church and creating a culture of serving loving kids in church um in in well how do we disciple let me let me ask this question how do we disciple any person

[24:55]
and uh so our philosophy is at mbm is basically you know for 30 years it's been the same thing introducing people to jesus through the scriptures in the context of meaningful relationships it doesn't get any is you know that's it so every week we're opening up the word of god uh with adults and kids our pattern for 30 years as we want to actually create as much opportunity for family discussion so kids have followed the adult sermon series and so the kids spot in church is hitting the same passage of scripture

[25:26]
that the adults are learning and then we're calling kids to respond to the particular truth that we're trying to make visible that particular sunday um and uh yeah and so it's it's just a diet of you know gospel old testament epistle um some biblical theology systematic theology and that takes it takes some thinking and a lot of work you know you go through a book like leviticus for example yeah and uh you know to be thinking about well how do we apply this yeah to kids

[25:57]
yeah and how do you actually unpack it you know i mean you sort of think leviticus that's quite a difficult book and to unpack for kids and look there's one chapter that you don't want to get your kids to read in the book of leviticus but the same in the book of judges you know or um we're doing genesis end of genesis this term and there's some horrific things that happen in that book so yes you trade carefully through the books of the bible making sure that it's appropriate what you're actually teaching but generally speaking but

[26:29]
i mean as as as i've looked over the years the year that we actually did leviticus uh we did that in third term um in first term we did the book of mark now we the same same group of kids or similar group of kids in our kids churches we had two kids churches back then um they were you know going through these books not one child said yes to jesus that we know of um uh either you know because they told their parents or they told their kids church leaders when we were doing mark but when we came

[27:01]
to leviticus now it's not the sort of book that you think that um you'll use that as an evangelistic appeal book but we had four kids say yes to jesus two boys on the one sunday when we did the sacrificial system they just they you know like me they'd grown up thinking that they were good enough for god and the sacrificial system absolutely smashed their confidence in their awkwardness and realized that they're in big trouble and both of them prayed with their leaders and then told their parents that they decided to

[27:33]
ask jesus to be the sacrificial lamb for them that particular sunday a couple of weeks later it's you know powerful that the escape goes why does it not get killed yeah and so all of the images so when you're looking at the book of leviticus you know everything is fulfilled in christ and so it's it just i think for some of these kids it made jesus death on the cross put into that context it just made it

[28:03]
real for them so there's a real challenge over the kids talk for it not to be you know love your parents uh do good do good uh like to not have that moralistic yeah understanding so as a kids worker training kids leaders to give good kids talk that share the gospel you know have a rich deep biblical theology you know all in all in three minutes it is it's very hard it's um i think when you you come to those imperatives uh uh you know like uh kids obey your

[28:34]
parents um you know or uh love one another it's jesus never uh instructs you to do something without first giving you the reason why and the reason why is always because what god has done for you first so it's always putting it into a gospel framework that you know our love for others springs from the fact that we've first been loved um we forgive others because we have been forgiven everything um and so it constantly taking it back in those short

[29:08]
phrases of grounding in what god has done for for us um then it springs out of a heart of thankfulness or joy or you know or um you know excitement of what god has done for us and so yeah so putting it into a gospel framework is really really important or else it does come as a list of do's and don'ts and it is one of the reasons why i've written material over the years because i've looked at some and it's just it's it's every week

[29:40]
it's kids do this kids do that you know it becomes a list of good works um so just be very careful about the material that you use so you've got to be relentless about you've got to be relentless yeah ensuring that you know it's a gospel not of good works but a gospel of christ yeah it's a gospel of grace because again that's that's the simpler concrete way for a kid to understand you know and that's really what they're getting encouraged to be doing at school pre-school yeah you know every child every like

[30:11]
every child that i ask a series of questions to when i'm trying to work out who they're putting their trust in if they haven't understood what jesus has done they will always talk about their good works they will always it's just inbuilt with them like you know how do i get to heaven well i'm trying really hard um you know i i'm coming to church every week i'll get to heaven i'm you know i pray i read my bible it's all about you know or i i'm trying to be good um rather than

[30:43]
it's actually all about jesus so one final thing it sounds like there's a clear culture of valuing kids ministry uh there's a clear culture of people you know serving and giving up a fair bit how have you gone about creating a culture where you know mission is at center of of kids ministry uh well one of the things we share celebration stories we you know we celebrate what god is doing the lives of people uh and it's it's not just about kids

[31:14]
saying yes to jesus uh it's it's about kids uh speaking out for jesus uh in the playgrounds it's it's about kids who've gone through hard times who are clinging on to jesus uh so we we celebrate things um and so uh when we did the leviticus series i we um there was a at our earlier service um i had two liters away and my casuals couldn't come in probably never happens at your church but it

[31:44]
happens at our church and so i had to step in and combine two groups and uh and in our small group times it was quite a large small group and i was mixture of boys and girls and uh we've been three or four weeks into leviticus and i said to the kids who've been learning about the holiness of god what does it mean for god to be holy and then they gave me the definition and and i said so you know is anyone in this room holy and and the kids all just

[32:14]
hung their heads and just went no no but there was one boy who was slightly sitting out of the group um and uh this boy had clearly said yes to jesus 12 months before i but this boy socially uh has some social issues so you know uh uh um yeah anyway so he he was sort of sitting out and he said i'm holy at which point all the kids in the group were shocked

[32:44]
because it was him that said it um anyway and i said to him so why are you holy and he said because jesus makes me holy and then i said so can you be friends with a holy god if you've not been made holy and he said no you can't at which point all the kids said i'm holy now i think god i you know i was just so blown away because for this little boy you know at the age of nine god had revealed to him something so profound that we need to be made

[33:18]
absolutely holy for us to have a relationship with a holy god and that's what jesus did on the cross and it wasn't about the fact that you know he could control his temple or he could you know um uh you know do all that he realized that he actually needed to be totally entrusting himself to jesus now i was so excited so what do i do with that well i want to celebrate that and so i you know immediately it's his parents so i his parents were coming towards me and uh they went so what's he done now and i

[33:48]
said no no this is so good it's all good and i said this is what god has revealed and it was so encouraging to me and it he he ministered to all the kids in the group they were just blown away and then i went and shared that with my next team about what had happened at the earliest service and uh and at that point there then we shared it um to the with the parents permission share that story about this profound insight that this boy had uh expressed to um the the many people on

[34:20]
the team and then uh two weeks later ray brought it into a sermon um uh about the fact that this is the the wonderful thing is our beautiful holy god who is totally separate from sin allows us into relationship with him because he has done all the hard work in removing sin and making us holy so telling those stories coming back to the powerful word of god yeah changing changing lives but also telling stories of the kids

[34:52]
you know gospeling and ministering with their with the word to their friends as well kids kids can understand huge truths that parents are still grappling with and i think once you you the more stories you tell and the more you hear the more you're thinking wow what's happening in kids church what's happening in july holiday club is really really exciting because the word of god is being preached and kids are you know either being challenged to continue to walk with jesus or they're being

[35:22]
challenged to come to jesus and it also gives parents the optimism of going actually my child can understand a lot more than what i take them give them credit for yeah and so it makes parents a little bit it's that optimism again god is god is at work um he likes to he likes to use us as part of his work but he'll he'll do his work in spite of us even if we don't do it kids will come to pay yeah awesome well it was really good hearing stories i could keep hearing stories what god's doing through you and the the

[35:53]
kids ministry at uh at nbn rudy hill um thanks for joining us on this podcast absolute pleasure well if you enjoyed this podcast there's a whole series on mission so don't just focus on on kids but look at a whole bunch of different aspects on mission if you want to find out more about reaching australia for christ we've got a great conference coming up in may may 18 and 19 the reach australia national conference at our first conference all the way back in 2019

[36:24]
sandy had some great workshops that she did there on kids ministries so you can access those resources and other resources but the best thing about conferences i reckon is actually catching up with fellow gospel workers and so this year there's an opportunity to do that in hubs all across australia so the registrar national conference check it out on the website reachaustralia.com.au thanks for joining us

[36:54]
you