Special thanks to Desiree Rinza for translation assistance.

Earlier this month, Salem Spanish Seventh-day Adventist Church, also known as Fortaleza Salem, had something special to celebrate–their nearly 60 members who received Children’s Ministries Certification from the North American Division!

“When my wife and I were dating, an older pastoral couple told us, ‘If you want to have a healthy church, work with the children,’” shared Walter Ramos, who now pastors Fortaleza Salem. “Children bring parents and grandparents, uncles and aunts, siblings and friends. Everyone works to support children in a family, so when you take good care of kids you have the whole family working with you. And we want our church to be a big family. So if you want that big family to be healthy, you work to make individual families healthy, and children are the most important part of that!”

In order to rally the community behind this mission, Pastor Ramos says much of the turnout can be credited to the hard work of two women: his wife, Dina, and the church’s ministry director, Silvia Sanchez-Vazquez. “We presented the idea to everyone and they liked the plan, but often people will say, ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ to something like this and then not show up. But Silvia is tremendous when it comes to logistics. She called everyone and they were committed–thanks to her only about 25% of people dropped out. We started with around 80 people who were interested, and ended up with 58 people graduating from the program.” Dina’s education and training also played a major role in the experience. “I’ve always been a motivator and presented ideas in every church we’ve worked, but I married a children’s expert. She has a degree and is an expert in early childhood education, so she develops the plan. She’s fundamental to this, and she and Silvia together made a great team!”

“Something my husband always emphasizes when arriving at a church is that all adults there are going to interact with children,” says Dina. “Even if they don’t have kids, nieces and nephews, or grandkids of their own, if they’re a leader at the church they’re going to be involved with kids. So we have a responsibility and commitment to make sure those interactions are good and healthy. He encouraged all of our church board to do their training.”

But what does a church that prioritizes children look like? According to Pastor Walter, “A church that prioritizes children is a living church. Why is it a living church? Because in order to prioritize children, adults have to decide to die to themselves and renounce their own preferences. That allows God to work in the midst of a church. The problem churches have sometimes is that adults are thinking about ‘worship I like,’ and ‘programs I like.’ They think that kids have to learn to be reverent their way, everything has to be their way. They impose themselves on worship. But God doesn’t work like that. When a church works for the children, you give up prioritizing what you like in order to do what will actually help that child stay in church. That’s a living church, because it’s led by the Spirit.”

“A church that prioritizes children is a church that doesn’t prevent children from coming to Jesus,” said Dina. “It’s a church where children can participate just like adults. That’s the culture we want–a place where children can preach and lead worship and be leaders to carry out the mission, not just one where they’re taking in and taking in and taking in information. Instead, they can take in, give, and grow. That’s a church where children are the priority. Not only are the leaders being trained to accompany the child, but the child is being trained to be an active part of the church.”

For those in churches that do not currently have any children, Pastor Ramos shares, “Look, I’ve lived both experiences. I’ve been in churches where children came in and brought their families with them. But I’ve also been in places where it didn’t work because the adults weren’t intentional about this. So my encouragement is this: even if you don’t have children there now, prepare yourselves to care for children in your church. Train your adults to serve children, because sometimes the reason families with kids don’t stay is that the other adults don’t have the patience or understanding to relate to them. They never prepared. So my advice for churches that don’t have kids is to prepare for them! I really like Psalm 27:4, where David writes: ‘One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.’ I love that first part: ‘One thing I ask, that’s what I will seek.’ I understand that to mean that my actions must go in the same directions as my prayers. If I want to have youth and children in the church, I have to prepare to serve them even if they haven’t arrived yet. Like the farmer who plows the land in the summer to plant when the rains come, you have to prepare the land before the planting and rain. ‘One thing I ask, that thing I seek.’”