A few years back, I watched my buddy Kyle teach his oldest daughter, Eden, how to ride a bike. 

You know exactly how this goes, because you have either done it or lived it. Kyle was bent over at an angle that was absolutely going to wreck his back, jogging alongside her, one hand clamped on the back of the seat. Eden was wobbling, gripping the handlebars white-knuckle tight, yelling the same thing every kid yells: “Don’t let go! Do NOT let go!” 

And Kyle kept promising, “I’ve got you, I’ve got you.” 

But here is the thing every parent watching already knows. He was lying. Sort of. Because the entire time he was running alongside her, promising he would not let go, he was planning the exact moment he would. That was the whole point. Kyle did not spend all that time holding on so he could hold on forever. He held on so that one day he could let go and watch Eden fly down the sidewalk without him. 

And when he finally did? When his hand came off the seat and she pedaled away and realized halfway down the neighborhood block that nobody was holding on anymore? Eden did not feel abandoned. She felt free. That was the moment the whole thing was for. 

I have been thinking about that moment with Kyle and Eden a lot lately, because I think, in Kyle’s case, he understood something that is really easy for the rest of us to forget. 

For twelve weeks now, almost everything I have asked you to do has quietly pointed in one direction: toward you. Show up predictably so they trust you. Build a safe circle so they open up to you. Be real so your authentic faith rubs off on them. And every bit of that has been exactly right. That is how influence works. That is you, with your hand on the back of the seat. 

But here is the tension we have to name today. It is really easy to fall in love with being the hand on the seat. It feels good to be needed. It feels good to be the one a kid runs to. And if we are not careful, we will keep holding on long after the moment we were supposed to let go, and we will call it love when really it is us needing to be needed. 

Because a kid who only ever needs you is not a success story. That is a kid we kept wobbling on purpose instead of teaching to ride. 

Today we step into our fourth Lead Small principle: Move Them Out. 

Here is the paradox sitting right at the center of it. We invest deeply in a few, not so we can hold onto them, but so we can eventually give them away. The best leaders are not building dependence. They are building runways. Everything you pour in is meant to send a kid somewhere. 

And I am not sure any generation has needed this more than the one sitting in our circles. 

We are leading Generation Alpha. And more than any generation before them, these kids have been trained almost from birth to consume. Think about the world they actually live in. Every screen is built to serve them. The algorithm studies what they like and hands them more of it. The video plays automatically. The next episode starts before they have even decided whether they want it. Their entire digital world is engineered around one quiet message: sit back, and let it all come to you. 

So without a single person ever saying it out loud, a five, eight, or ten-year-old is being trained into a posture. And that posture is: I am here to receive. 

Here is why that should get our attention. If we are not intentional, we will accidentally hand these kids a version of faith that fits perfectly into that posture. A faith they show up to and consume. A faith that entertains them for an hour and sends them home full. And a consumer faith is exactly the kind of borrowed faith that falls apart the moment they walk out of here for the last time. 

The kids in our rooms do not just need to receive something on a weekend. They need to slowly become someone who gives it away. 

That is what Move Them Out is all about, and over the next few weeks we are going to get very practical with three ways we do it: 

Move them to Someone Else: making sure a kid’s faith is not propped up by you alone, but surrounded by a whole team of people pointing them to Jesus. 

Move them to Be the Church: showing even our youngest kids that faith is not something you sit and soak in, it is something you actually do, for somebody else. 

Move them to What’s Next: preparing your few to take their next step, so that when they leave your circle, your grade, or even our ministry someday, they are ready for it. 

Please do not miss the heart of this. Moving them out is not about pushing kids away. It is the most loving thing a leader can do. It is the whole difference between a leader who needs to be needed and a leader who genuinely wants a kid to thrive long after they are gone. 

We are not trying to raise kids who need us forever. We are trying to raise kids who, one day, become the leader sitting in someone else’s circle. We are all just holding the seat for a little while. 

So here is what I want you to chew on before Sunday. Not a question about the kids this time. A question about you: 

Whose hand was on your seat? Who held on just long enough to prepare you, and then loved you enough to let go? And did you ever thank them for it? 

Think about that. Because this weekend, you get to be that hand for someone else.