Last week I wrote about kids believing blindly.
Give me ten minutes with a kid and I can make a child believe just about anything. Kids trust. Kids believe. This is a beautiful part of their nature. But in this respect we have to understand that kids and adults are different. If I met an adult who didn’t know Christ, it would take me some time to lead them to faith. I’d have to show a lot of evidence before someone was ready to believe. I’d have to take them on a journey through scripture and share stories from how God worked in my life. After presenting all the stories, leading him through scriptures and showing him Christ’s love, he may decide to follow Christ. This is difficult. It’s hard. But the payoff is huge!
Kids are different. I can sit down with a child who doesn’t know Christ. I could literally lead them in a prayer in 10 to 15 minutes. Why? Because kids trust. Kids believe.
Here’s my problem though. Just becasue a child will believe doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take the time to walk them through the decision. What are the implications? How will my life be different? What does living for Christ really look like? If we don’t take the time to walk with kids through their decision, are we taking advantage of their trusting nature?
This places huge implications on children’s evangelism. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan of children’s evangelism. However, is the evangelism without a little bit of discipleship (explaining the theology of following Christ) dangerous? This is a totally subjective question, but if 79-80% of Christian teens are walking away from their faith after their freshman year of college, do you think that any part of this statistic is attributed to kids who came to faith as a child without a proper understanding of this decision who managed to stick with their faith through high school but once questioned about it in college they left it at the door?
Thoughts?
nice.
m2
I think one of our biggest failures with child evangelism has been on the back end of a child’s faith commitment.
I talk with leaders all the time who run children’s programs with the specific purpose of leading kids to Christ. This is great. However, many of these same leaders have little to no plan as to what to do with those children after they’ve made the commitment to follow Jesus.
If you’re going to have an alter call, or encourage kids to make a faith commitment, you have to have a follow up plan.
I think that follow-up, partnered with intentional discipleship on the front end of a child’s decision to follow Jesus, can change the trends that we’re observing with Christian teens walking away from their faith.
Anthony Princes last blog post..To Drill or not to Drill
Just as important as helping a child to understand a decision they are about to make is what happens in the years that follow. Are relationships built? Are children being guided in how to continually discover God and experience him? Are they given opportunities to live out and act on their faith through service to the church, community and world? Are finding their place in the faith community other than in the children’s ministry wing?
Following Christ is more than a one-time decision. It’s a continual surrender of our lives to Christ daily… and sometimes even more often than that 🙂
Henry Zonios last blog post..Mark Batterson’s Evangelism Experiment
With adults, we expect them to show a lot of evidence as well. We expect them to be living as Christ followers (putting off old habits and sins) as evidence of their faith before we accept them into membership… and (in some churches) even before baptism. Do you think we have the same responsibility to test kids and look for evidence of faith in their lives?