Tag Archives: Christ Follower
Leading a child to faith: C is for Confess
Posted on 19. Jun, 2009 by Kenny.
C is my favorite part. Actually, C is kinda the linchpin of them all. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to admin that we’ve sinned, that we’ve broking a moral code. It’s also not too much to believe in Jesus and to believe what he did for us. A person could admit that they sin and believe in Christ, yet still not be a Christ-Follower. That is where C comes in. C is for confess. Confess that Jesus is Lord.
What does confess mean? What does Lord mean? Come on, we’re talking to kids here. We gotta break it down.
Confess means to say out loud or to say with your mouth.
Lord mean someone who is in charge. A king. A ruler. A boss.
I always follow up defining the words by asking this question. “So, if confess mean to say with your mouth and Lord means a king or ruler, what does it mean to say that Jesus is Lord?” I usually have to repeat definitions again. What does it mean.
Eventually someone says it. “It means to say out loud that Jesus is king.”
Exactly. But what is Jesus king over?
Everything!
What else?
Hmmmmmm…. Me?
Precisely!
This is the part where being a Christ-Follower begins and continues for the rest of our lives (and into eternity). To confess that Jesus is Lord is to make a conscious decision that Jesus is in charge of my life. That means I willingly let him lead my life. Whatever he say to do, I’ll do. He’s in charge of my words, my actions, my thoughts, my dream and my desires. I’m a slave to Christ. I’m no longer my own, I’m his.
I usually take a little bit of time talking about this specifically. We love to be in charge and do our own things. We’re going to mess up with this all the time. We’re going to try to do things our way and live our way. However, being a Christ-Follower means surrendering our will and our desires to him.
Becoming a Christ-Follower isn’t saying a prayer (although we do pray). Becoming a Christ follower is about owning our wrongs, believing that Christ made a way for us to have a relationship with God and most importantly, letting Christ lead our lives, becoming a slave to Christ.
That’s the ABCs. That’s how I lead children to the Lord. There are several different variations of the ABCs and other devices used to make this decision easy for children to understand but this is the one I like the most.What about you? What do you use?
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Leading a child to faith: B is for Believe
Posted on 18. Jun, 2009 by Kenny.
B stand for Believe. Believe what? Believe that Jesus is God’s son and that he died on the cross for our sins.
This is where faith becomes a part of the equation. When reading about the new converts throughout the early part of Acts we see how people believed and were baptized. Many of them had heard for Jesus, but didn’t witness what he had done. They took steps of faith to believe the words of those who witnessed what Jesus had done. Our kids have to take the same steps of faith. Do you believe that the Bible is true? Do you believe that Jesus is God’s son? Do you believe that he lived a perfect life? Do you believe that he died on the cross for your sins? Do you believe that he rose again?
When I ask a child these things, (and I’ve asked hundreds) I’ve never once had one say no. Never. If I were to drill down as to why they believe it, they would say “becasue it is in the bible” or “because that is what I’ve learned.” This is good. They have faith. They have no reason to doubt. This is child-like faith. Do they need to know the twenty arguments for the existence of God? Do they need to see the statistical probability of the scriptures being true as a result of fulfilled prophesy? Do they need to see extra-biblical evidence that support the people, places and events of the Bible? No. Not yet. For now they believe at face value and that’s okay. As they get older they may want to explore the depths of their faith. They may want to test what it is made of and challenge what they believe.
To believe is the foundation for C. Stay tuned for my favoite part of the ABCs.
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Leading a child to faith: A is for Admit
Posted on 17. Jun, 2009 by Kenny.
I use the ABCs of becoming a Christ Follower when leading kids to Christ. It’s easy and it clearly explains the important aspects of becoming a Christ Follower.
So, the first part is to Admit. Admit that we are a sinner.
I usually have to define admit and sometimes even clearly explain what a sinner or sin is. We usually decide that admit means to say that you did something. Close enough. So to admit that I’m a sinner means that I say that I’ve done wrong. I’m coming clean, letting everyone know that I’m not perfect. It’s an essential first step. If wrong has been committed yet no one has admitted to it, there is a breakdown in the relationship. If a wrong has been done, forgiveness cannot be received until someone first admits they are in need of forgiveness. Christ has already given us the free gift of forgiveness, but we can’t receive it until we admit that we have sinned and we need the forgiveness.
This usually a pretty easy step. Just about every kid recognizes that they’ve sinned. It’s fun to go around the room and point out all the people who have sinned (we end up pointing at everyone).
Here’s why this is so important. Being a Christ Follower is about having a relationship with Jesus. As in any relationship, things can get in the way. For instance, if I wrong a friend or disobey a parent I’ve put something in the way of our relationship. In order to clear the relationship and make things right, I have to addres the issue. I need to admit to what I did, or apologize for what happened. Once I’ve done that, the other party can choose to forgive me and at this point the relationship is restored. It is clean and open. This is how it is with our relationship with Jesus. Until we admit that we’ve done something wrong (i.e. Sin), we can’t truly receive the forgiveness that he’s offered us. This is a barrier keeping us from having a relationship with God. So, the first step into coming into a relationship with God is to admit that we’ve sinned so that we can receive forgiveness.
That’s A of the ABCs. Tomorrow I’ll hit B.
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Leading a child to faith
Posted on 16. Jun, 2009 by Kenny.
I love leading kids to faith. It’s the best thing in the world. Actually I really love baptizing kids too or at least helping parents baptize their kids as well. It’s just one of the perks of being a children’s pastor. If evangelism is your thing, then children’s ministry is the place to be. The largest number of decisions for Christ happen with kids, so it’s where they fish are biting.
So, I’m starting a little series on leading a child to faith. I know this sounds a little remedial, but perhaps something I write will give someone some ideas. What I enjoy the most is hearing how you’re doing it differently, which often gives me new ideas to improve what I’m doing. So, I don’t make assumptions about what I write about here. It’s all about getting better at what we’re doing.
So, in the 11+ years of being in Children’s Ministry, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to lead kids to faith. I’ll be really honest (and please don’t take this as arrogance). It’s not hard to lead a child to faith. Put any child in front of me and within thirty minutes I’ll lead them in a prayer. You’re probaby as good or better at it than me. In thirty minutes just about any of us could lead a child in a prayer. Kids are trusting. We can be convincing. Right?
It’s not about leading a child in a prayer! It’s about understanding what it means to be a Christ Follower, a slave to Christ. I asked Jesus into my heart when I was four. Why? My teacher told me that I would go to hell if I didn’t. Brilliant! Any dope can do that. Being clear and concise and helping a child to make the decision on their own is harder. Allowing the child to make a thoughtful decision on their own isn’t just a good idea, it’s what is right.
So, how do I do it? I use the ABCs. I stole it from Lifeway. I’ve heard a bunch of other tricks to teaching this, but I just really love the ABCs that Lifeway uses for their curriculum materials. Check in tomorrow for the ABCs and how I teach them.
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Kid’s baptisms: Parent assisted baptism class
Posted on 12. Jun, 2009 by Kenny.
Lately I’ve been blogging about how we do baptisms for kids here at Gateway. My last post yesterday pointed to how I’ve changed things to where parents have a more active role in the class. Click here to read that post if you haven’t already.
So, here’s what it looks like. I set up the room with round tables with 6-8 chairs per table. Families or multiple families sit around the table. Once everyone has arrived and we’re about to begin, I pass out the Baptism Class – Parent Guide. I explain to my parents that everything I talk about is in this parent guide, including all the scripture fully typed out. I express my hope that parents will pull this out again to review with the kids later.
Essentially I talk about order. Kids are at the baptism class because they want to be baptized, but I explain that baptism isn’t first, it’s something we do after we’ve become a Christ Follower. I also take a minute to explain terminology. Depending on where they’ve been before Gateway or what they’ve heard other people say, becoming a Christ Follower can be confusing. Is being a Christ Follower the same thing as “getting saved” or asking Jesus into their heart? After we’ve explained terminology and getting to the heart of what this really is, I spend the next 15-20 minutes talking about the ABC’s of becoming a Christ Follower. I’ve been using this from the days of doing Lifeway VBS and of all the tools, it’s my favorite. I feel it’s easy to understand and hits the most important parts of becoming a Christ Follower.
After we’ve covered the ABC, I hand it over to parents. You’ll see there is a section for parents to lead. Basically there are some scripted questions that parents can ask to create discussion and inspire individual conversations. I encourage the parents to really probe their kids, find out if this is information is new. Have they done this before? Has this been new information? Does your child comprehend? Are they ready to make this decision? If so, pray with them now. I’ve even placed a scripted prayer based on the ABC’s that the parent can lead their child in right there. So far, I’ve had parents lead their children to faith every time I’ve done this class. That gets me very excited!
After paretns have 10-15 minutes with their kids, I come back and wrap up the class. I talk about baptism. What it is (a symbol) and what it isn’t (Salvation, washing away our sins). This last bit only takes another 10 minutes. Again, the focus is on making sure kids understand becoming a Christ Follower. We close up with questions.
Once we’re done I had out the Baptism Class – Response Form. This gives me a little feedback, but more importantly it tells me if and when the child has made a decision. The first time I did this class, I had these forms sitting on the table and I found that parents filled this out before the class was over which didn’t tell me if any kids made a decision on that day. So, now I hand this out at the end. This is very helpful!
Last of all, here are my Baptism Class – Teaching Notes. It’s actually most of the class completely scripted out. I’ve been doing this for so many years, I don’t need these. I’ll usually give this to someone else who’s going to teach in my place. I don’t expect them to do this exactly, but it’s a thorough example of my class. They can take it and personalize it. However, I do want them to do the ABC’s and the parent breakout. Everything else is up to them.
Well, that’s my class. I’ll wrap up my thoughts on Monday (I’ve got a few more things to say) What I’m doing now isn’t the end product, I know that . I’ll also start another series on why I swear by the ABC’s next week, leading a child (or adult for that matter) to Christ.
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