Christ's mandate to feed the lambs (John 21:5) and to let the children come to Him (Mark 10:13, 14) commissions the Church to evangelize children and nurture their spiritual growth. The Department of Children's Ministries is committed to equipping, facilitating, and coordinating a broadening and deepening of the Church's spiritual nurture of children to draw them into a close relationship with Christ and commitment to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. "Too much cannot be placed upon the early training of children. The lesson s learned, the habits formed, during the years of infancy and childhood, have more to do with the formation of the character and the direction of the life than have all the instructions and training of after year."-MH 380