The school bus pulled up to the house and, following a knock on the door, the children ran down the front steps and eagerly climbed aboard. Another Sunday morning and a busload of children was making its way to the Salvation Army Sunday school.

Stepping onto that Sunday school bus, on a cold Sudbury, Ont., winter morning, was a little girl named Tracey. Tracey would grow up to become a follower of Jesus and a Salvation Army officer. I am grateful for the corps and the leaders who walked those childhood steps with the little girl who would later become my wife and partner in Salvation Army ministry.

This story has been played out across Canada and Bermuda in recent decades. Sunday school “bus ministry” is an expression of Salvation Army connection with children in our communities. Other time-honoured ministries have included camping ministries, guiding and scouting groups, kids' clubs and vacation Bible school programs.

In addition, Salvation Army corps and community churches across Canada and Bermuda now reach out to children and their families with sports ministries, school breakfast clubs, Red Cap anger management clubs, day camps, day-care centres, music programs, Pioneer clubs and after-school programs for school-aged children.

Why invest so much time, energy and money in ministry with children?

More than 135 years ago, William Booth instructed Salvationists: “Secure and train converts. Improve the training of officers. Pay a thousand, no ten thousand times more attention to children.” Today, Orders & Regulations for Work Among Young People states that the supreme aim of The Salvation Army's work with young people is to bring them to a living faith in Jesus Christ.

Sociologist George Barna has found that a person's lifelong behaviours and views are generally developed when they are young, particularly before they reach the teenage years. His research outlines four significant reasons why ministry to children matters:

1. A person's moral foundations are generally in place by the time they reach age nine.

2. A person's response to the meaning and personal value of Jesus Christ's life, death and Resurrection is usually determined before a person reaches 18.

3. In most cases, a person's spiritual beliefs are irrevocably formed in his or her pre-teen years.

4. Most adult church leaders have had serious training and involvement in church life since an early age.

Barna cites “overwhelming evidence” that the earlier faith is developed, the greater the impact and sustainability in a person's life. “Children are the single most important population group for the Church to focus on,” he concludes.

Effective children's ministry embraces the Army's mission to share the love of Jesus Christ, meet human needs and be a transforming influence in our communities. Do children in our corps and community know the love of Jesus? How are we sharing that message? Are children being saved? Do we know the needs of the children in our community? What better way to transform our community than to work with children and their families? When was the last time you prayed for the spiritual lives of children? These are great questions for the next meeting of your young people's pastoral care council.

There may be corps that don't have a regular children's ministry and wonder where to begin. In every community across this territory with a Salvation Army corps, there are children and families who connect with The Salvation Army. The connection may be as brief as a Christmas toy, a food-bank visit or an application for a week at summer camp. But every Salvation Army corps and centre—and its officers, soldiers and volunteers—can strengthen that connection, attracting young people with a relevant and varied program, building relationships with children and parents. Your divisional youth secretary and divisional children's ministries secretary are prepared to support your corps in strengthening its ministry to children.

Let's all be encouraged for a new day in ministry with children. As William Booth put it, “Have faith in God for the children. Teach the children. Have patience with the children. Convert the children. Let nothing less than their salvation satisfy you. When they fall, set them on their feet again. It is their salvation you want, and nothing less than that must satisfy you.”

Photo: Photo: © istockphoto.com/CE Futcher

Colonel Floyd Tidd is the chief secretary of the Canada and Bermuda Territory.