Increasingly, children in our church are choosing to remain in the main meeting for our sermon rather than head out to Sunday School. That is no reflection on the quality of the Sunday School – a good number still go out and benefit – nor does it seem to be anything particularly pushed by the parents themselves. The children seem to have decided they would prefer to remain in and take notes. In our case, one of ours stays in and the other goes out. We are happy either way so long as staying in they listen and get a clear sense of the passage being preached and the one going out gets the same, albeit coming in a different format. Whatever serves each of them best – whether in for the sermon or out for Sunday School – is fine by me.

It bears saying – before I get to the point I actually want to make here – that our Sunday School look at the same passage we are reading in the main meeting too. We write our own lessons – we don’t follow a book – and they are always based on the main sermon. So the children who go out to Sunday School and those who remain in for the sermon are all still hearing the same passage read and getting the same key points. The applications may diverge slightly, and there may be slightly different emphases, but the key points and main ideas are all the same.

Which brings me to the key issue I want to mention here. It is a simple, basic thing we can all do with our children to help them understand scripture and serve their discipleship. I do think if your Sunday School does an entirely different curriculum this particular thing becomes much harder. But it’s not impossible. Though I maintain much better if you have looked at the same thing and heard the same main idea.

So, here is my super-radical, but blatant and simple, thing we can do to help our kids grow up in Christ. Are you ready? Hold onto your hats! Ask them after church, back at home, what they got out of the sermon. That’s it. Incredible, right? Who’d have thunk!

But seriously, ask your kids what they got out of it. Ask them what they thought the main idea in the passage was. Ask them what the key points of the sermon were. Ask them what they think those key points mean for them. If they went out to Sunday School (assuming you also serve up the same passage) ask them what they heard in Sunday School and tell them what the sermon said. Think about the main points and then compare and contrast how and why the applications were a little different.

I don’t think it has to be done formally. I don’t think it needs to be a big thing. But I have certainly found it is helpful in gleaning whether the key points of the sermon were actually understood by my 10 year old son (and, to some degree, whether they were clearly communicated to the Sunday School teachers and how they were communicated to the other children). It has opened up all sorts of interesting and helpful lines of conversation. It has helped our children engage more meaningfully with the scriptures as something that applies as much to them as it does to us. Most amazingly, you might just find how encouraged you are as you hear your children (who, let’s be honest, we often wonder how much they’re actually taking in) turn round and tell you exactly what the scriptures say and how they ought to respond to it.

As ever, these are not must and should things. You may find other effective ways to teach and train your children and help them engage with scripture. And that’s great if those work for you. But I think this is an extremely simple and easy way to do that too, which we have found to be quite effective as we seek to disciple our kids. It’s clearly not an earth-shattering, paradigm changing suggestion – it is eminently simple – but you might just be surprised what the Lord does in both you and your children as you give it a go.