Tonight I was coming home and had the local Christian radio station playing. I just caught the end of yesterdays’s Adventures in Odyssey episode by Focus on the Family. I would normally just change the channel to another Christian station, but a couple of quotes from the episode roped me in. They were:
“The problem is what is exciting and trendy now probably won’t be tomorrow. What I saw…was timeless, going past the trends and the fads, to reach kids where they are.”

“We work hard, and we do our best, but we don’t feel like it’s enough. Then we begin to second guess what God wants us to do. We wonder if we should make changes, or do things the same way. The answers aren’t always easy, and can only be found through prayer and God’s Word.”

Many ministries have been dumped by many local churches as “irrelevant”, though they still hold amazing power with kids. There are many things in the church like this. While it is important to keep up with times and not simply ignore them, it is also important to not forget the timeless things that kids always enjoy. For kids it’s not always the latest and greatest, but relationships and things that may seem trivial to you that are most important.

I like to put major ministry initiatives that I see through my “timeless” filter: In 5 years, will this initiative be relevant barring unforseen circumstances? In 10 years, will the kids still be standing up for Christ? In 20 years, will anyone remember it?

So how do your initiatives stand up?