Mission by children and the Kingdom of God
Children are co-labourers in the Gospel. In the Kingdom, we all need each other. Children are not additional to, but essential to, global mission.
This was the resounding message from a recent webinar that Viva was privileged to hold. Our CEO, Phil, alongside Michelle Tolentino, are co-catalysts of the Lausanne Children at Risk Issue Network. This online webinar, held on 10 April, with 300 tickets sold, was entitled Towards a Biblical and Theological Framework for Child Participation. The session included:
An overview of the new Lausanne Occasional Paper (LOP) on Child Participation.
Engaging panel discussion with the LOP co-authors Bradley Thompson, Tim J. Davy, and Lucy Kajidori.
A powerful presentation on the Listening to Children exercise by World Vision and Viva, shared by Tiffany Tao-Joiner and Rosalind Tan.
A simple introductory activity asked participants to use just one word for the role of children in God’s mission, and the responses showed a keen interest in and understanding of this topic.
The message of the webinar was clear: children are an integral part of God’s Kingdom building. This article summarises some of the learning, but we very much encourage you to listen to the webinar in full, and read the papers directly. One participant, Dr Sarah, got in touch with us because she wanted to share the recording with some colleagues, and her message to them was this: “I managed to tune into this webinar a couple of weeks ago and found it really interesting for framing our concept of children and their role in the Kingdom of God. Not sure if any of you also joined it so just sharing here in case you have a bit of time and want to listen to it...from 20 mins onwards is where they really get into the topic and have an interesting discussion, also giving very practical examples and suggestions of how we meaningfully engage children in the church.”
Lausanne Paper
This new Occasional Paper builds on previous work by the Children-at-Risk network, especially the excellent Occasional Paper 66, by focusing more deeply on the agency of children in God’s mission. While past frameworks emphasised mission to, for, and with children, this paper introduces a fourth dimension: mission by children, highlighting that children are not just participants, but initiators and leaders in mission.
The term mission by challenges traditional adult-centric views, asserting that children can carry out God’s work—even without adult facilitation—and sometimes in spite of adult resistance. Children are seen not as merely needing adults, but as co-labourers in the Gospel. The paper examines child participation through various lenses—Biblical studies, theology, missiology, history, and child development—covering themes like justice, advocacy, resilience, child spirituality, and the role of adults in supporting children’s missional capacity.
Biblical examples illustrate this agency: Miriam protects Moses (Exodus 2:1-10); a slave girl points Naaman toward healing (2 Kings 5:2-5); Jesus affirms children’s place in the Kingdom in Mark 10 and Matthew 21; and Rhoda announces Peter’s miraculous escape in Acts 12. These stories show that children are often uniquely positioned to fulfil God’s purposes.
The paper ends with a challenge to the Church: to repent of past neglect, reimagine its mission approach, and fully embrace child participation as a biblical and missional imperative. By doing so, the Church ensures that the Kingdom of God flourishes through the voices and actions of the youngest among us.
Child Participation Exercise
In 2024, World Vision and The VIVA Network collaborated on a unique global initiative to listen to the voices of 193 children across six countries. The goal was to understand how children perceive the “Kingdom of God,” their sense of responsibility within it, and what they believe is needed to build a world rooted in justice, compassion, and care for the marginalised.
The listening exercise was grounded in the belief that children are not passive observers of faith, but active participants and change-makers in bringing about God’s Kingdom on earth. To be effective Kingdom builders, children highlighted the need for such things as safe and stable living conditions, food and clean water, education and knowledge, coping skills, and a deep understanding of God’s word and values. Adults can help by providing for their basic needs, instilling hope and faith in God, and actively including them as co-partners in God’s work on earth. As captured in this summary document, crucially, this exercise showed that “The children attest that when God is present as king or leader of their community, nature will be at its best, and humans will flourish.” This exercise was previously discussed in an article, which is accessible here.
One child’s depiction of the Kingdom of God
Child Participation in practice
One way that Viva has recently seen sincere and meaningful engagement with children is in the preparation for this year’s World Weekend of Prayer. Various networks were invited to get involved in preparing resources for this weekend, in which children and adults are encouraged to run prayer events for and with children over 7-8 June. CarNetNepal staff and children in learning spaces worked together to design a prayer guide, and the children’s input as they discussed what ‘abundant life’ meant was excellent to see. The final resource, alongside other materials such as a song, a participation guide, stories and prayer ideas, will be available here.
Webinar: What next?
As one contributor at the webinar said, Dr Bradley Thompson, said, it is important to “recognise the way they (children) are already participating - in worship, prayer and acts of kindness, in evangelism - and giving expression and space to grow these engagements under wise guidance, and supported by adults.” The webinar ended with a time of prayer and reflection, to give space and time for God to give new light on verses as Matthew 11:25: “At that time Jesus said, ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children.” As she led the reflection, Michelle Tolintono echoed Dr Bradley’s words that we must be intentional about seeing how God is already using children. She ended with an encouragement and a challenge: “Are we ready to discern how God may be engaging children? The spirit of God is mysteriously at work within each child. Our work as adults is to recognise and enable the work that God is already doing in and through them. We can be instruments that facilitate or block the ongoing work of God in and through a child’s life. Our challenge is to see and remove obstacles to receiving their gifts and contribution to our families, to our churches, ministries, and communities within global missions.”
We trust this webinar was a useful time for all who participated, or listened afterwards, to truly engage with this topic, and we would love to hear from anyone who carried out their own listening exercise. Viva will continue our part of the conversation through discussions with staff and partner networks, as one of three development principles we are currently exploring is child participation. A working group has been established and discussions are ongoing, with opportunities planned for the whole staff team to engage with this topic after initial thoughts have been documented. We trust that engaging with children will increasingly become part of all programmes and activities for children, and for Viva, one of our aims will be to encourage each of our partner networks to make child participation a norm.