We’ve all likely had an experience where a promise or our preparation didn’t quite match the delivery. Imagine you’re planning a deep-wilderness hike through a rugged mountain range. You spend weeks preparing, and you find a map that looks incredibly detailed and exact; it has clear markings, beautiful colors, and is printed on high-quality, waterproof paper.
You set out on your journey with total confidence in your tool. However, as the trail disappears and the terrain gets steeper, you realize something is wrong. While the map is technically perfect, it is actually a detailed street map of a city. It is a great tool, but it was designed for a completely different environment. In the wilderness, even the best city map becomes useless because it doesn’t speak the language of the landscape you are currently standing in.
In ministry, we often feel that same tension. We are surrounded by great ideas and “proven” formulas, but sometimes we realize we’re holding a tool that is too small (or just plain wrong) for the giant dreams God has placed in our hearts.
The Moses Trap
To understand where we are going, let’s look at the story of Moses. In Exodus 17, God tells Moses to strike a rock with his staff to bring forth water. Moses does it, water flows, and it is a miracle.
But years later, in Numbers 20, when the people are thirsty again, God gives Moses a new instruction: Speak to the rock. Instead, Moses does what is familiar because it worked in the past. He strikes the rock…not once, but twice.
The water still flowed, but because Moses relied on a previous method instead of a current instruction, he missed out on the Promised Land. The lesson we can learn from this is that using the wrong tool, or even the right tool at the wrong time, can be detrimental.
At Amazing Life, we believe we are in a “Numbers 20 moment.” We cannot simply keep “striking the rock” because it’s what we’ve always done. We believe the World’s Greatest Mission deserves the World’s Greatest Tools.
Re-humanization: A New Era in Kids Ministry
Over the last century, children’s ministry has evolved through some incredible eras, from the Sunday School models of the 1920s to the high-production digital media models of the 2010s. Every era brought great tools that served their season well.
However, as we look at the world today, it is clear that something is not working: we’ve never been more “connected” via technology, yet we’re finding that children have never been more lonely, parents have never been this frustrated and stressed, and leaders are feeling disconnected from those they lead.
This is why Amazing Life is moving into what we call The Re-humanization Era.
What is Re-humanization?
It isn’t a move backward, and we aren’t saying technology is bad. It is the realization that in a shifting world, we must focus on the things that remain the same: consistent relationships and person-to-person discipleship.
Re-humanization means:
- Moving from ‘screens as the teacher’ to screens as a tool for the shepherd.
- Building systems that don’t just count the 99 who show up, but empower a leader to go find the one who didn’t.
At Amazing Life, our mission isn’t to build the world’s greatest ministry model. It is to build Christlikeness in the hearts of the next generation. To do that, we must be willing to lay down the tools of yesterday to pick up the ones God is providing us with for tomorrow.
Despite technology ‘shrinking the world’, people are feeling more disconnected than ever. There’s never been a greater need for God; for pastors to pastor, and for leaders to bring His people together.
That is the Rock that never changes. And helping the local church anchor their communities to it is the mission we’ve dedicated ourselves to.
If you’re wondering what this next era of Kids Ministry actually looks like in practice, don’t miss Church Conference. We’ll be unveiling three of the biggest announcements in Kids Ministry history — giving you a clear picture of where re-humanized ministry is headed and the tools that will help you lead it. Learn more and join us at: AChurchConference.com
