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Kingdom Steps

At Shepherd Kids, we encourage kids to take “Kingdom Steps.” Faith is a journey and we want to give them an understanding of how to keep moving, no matter where they are in that journey. Below you will find the four categories we place the “Kingdom Steps” into. We encourage you to become familiar with and use this language in your time at Shepherd Kids.

Please note that we have several events through the year to help kids take these steps (including baptism). Talk to your staff lead if you would like more information for yourself or a family!

Celebrate

The “Celebrate” Kingdom Step is all about…you guessed it… celebrating! When we join God’s Kingdom by choosing Jesus, that’s something worth getting excited about.

Jesus and his followers have been celebrating for THOUSANDS of years! That’s right… thousands of years. Baptism was an ancient way of saying a couple of things..

1. I belong to this or that.

2. I want to be clean.

Sooooo, when Jesus came along, he decided to get baptized, not because he needed to be cleaned but to show his connection to the Spirit of God and dedication to God the Father. It kicked off his ministry! He got baptized in the Jordan River (which is where God’s special family had passed through many times but when they passed through, they always got back into trouble). But when Jesus came out of the waters, he didn’t get into trouble, he saved God’s special family and the whole world once and for all!

Have you heard that story before? Jesus actually showed the whole world just how much God loves them and that he is powerful enough to defeat death and sin (that’s all the brokenness, sadness, and bad things around us and in us). How did he do this? Well, he got on a cross (where he took all the bad stuff upon himself even though he didn’t participate in any of the bad stuff) and he died. That would be pretty crazy and show us God’s love even if that was the end of the story. But it’s not. Jesus proved his power and love for us by actually raising from the dead three days later, just like he said he would.

All throughout Jesus’ life, he talked about the Kingdom of God. He invited EVERYONE to it. In his Kingdom, everyone is loved and accepted. Even us! We can be a part of that Kingdom too!

And THAT’S what we celebrate. When we choose to follow Jesus, we celebrate his Kingdom and the fact that we can be in it because of him and what he did for us. We now, just like Jesus, get to be connected to and devoted to God. AND we get to get baptized, just like he did.

For further resources on “celebrate,” decisions, or baptism, talk to your staff lead!

Dive Deeper

In “Dive Deeper,” we will look take a closer look at things! How has God’s Kingdom worked in the world? How can you get to know God more? There are so many tools to help us explore! These tools are often called spiritual disciplines… we like to call them kingdom exercises.

Often times we only can think of a couple tools in our “spiritual toolbelt”… but there are so many. Just to name a few:

Listing things you are thankful for

Praying a simple prayer like, “Help me, God”

Sitting in silence

Reading the Bible and viewing it like a picture in your head

Resting from needing to do anything or “be” anyone

Getting rid of things you don’t need for a period of time

Memorizing the Bible

The list seriously goes on and on and on. And we can’t wait to help you know which tools might be good for you in your journey of faith!

For further resources on “dive deeper” or “kingdom exercises,” talk to your staff lead!

Discover

When we set out to discover God and his Kingdom, we are safe to explore and be curious. Sometimes you learn one thing but something else seems to be true at first glance. People might say the Bible is exciting, but you find it pretty confusing and boring. You might hear that God loves you, but you’ve never heard or felt him tell you that. You know prayer is a good idea but when you prayed for your favorite dog, he still died. If God created everything, does that mean he knows if aliens exist?

It’s really tempting to just ignore those thoughts or not give yourself the time and space to think about them. But exploring these thoughts and questions is one of the best ways to not only learn about God but actually discover him for yourself. In fact, people have been discovering God for a long time. Sometimes it helps to look at how they see God and sometimes it helps to sit in our questions or talk about them with a trusted adult. The most important thing is that you keep coming back to discover more!

For further resources on “discover,” talk to your staff lead!

Live It Out

It’s great to learn and think, but sometimes we need to just get out and live like Jesus. Through service and obedience, we can Live Out our faith so the whole world will know Jesus!

One day, there were some very religious people that were trying to get Jesus to tell them about what the Bible told them to do. They asked, “What command that he has given us is most important?”

Jesus answered something like this. First, love God… Second, it’s basically the same as the first, love people.

Did you know that we can love God by loving people? It’s one of the best ways to actually be all we were created to be… to be like Jesus.

But what does it mean to love people?

Does it mean we tell people we love them?

Does it mean we help people when we see they need help?

Does it mean we stand up for people when they can’t stand up for themselves?

Does it mean we see and value all people as loved and created by God?

The answer is YES to all of those. But that last one might be the most important.

And you want to know something even CRAZIER?? God says we shouldn’t just love our friends, but we should learn to love EVERYONE and think of them like God does.

People who wrong us? Yup

People who are mean? Yup

People who seem to not deserve love? Yup

Remember, love isn’t just about helping or saying you love someone, it’s about valuing people the way God does. It’s easy to see ourselves as the hero when we help someone, but God says that loving them means that we don’t see ourselves as the hero over them, but the friend next to them. And by doing that, we start to Live Out our faith!

For further resources on “Live It Out,” talk to your staff lead!