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?
Phwew! I’m glad we’re on the same page. I was dreading that in these three days you were going to unleash some tragically overlooked truth that I hadn’t seen, thus invalidating all of the ABC bits we’ve had in our video messages every week since December when we finaly decided to add it it. Glad to get the go ahead from childrensministryonline. 🙂
We are creating a special one for our September series about evangelism with two animated blobs that talk about the ABCs. (We didn’t make them people because we want them to be as culturally ambiguous as possible. We didn’t make them animals since we didn’t want to imply pets can participate in the ABCs. So they have eyes and no mouths so we can re-animate them in different languages.) I’d love to send you the script if you would look over it.
Kendra Goldens last blog post..2 Samuel 6
I’m a A-Admit, B-Believe, C-Choose person myself…
I work Confess into my Believe talk, because to Believe w/o confessing isn’t really believing…and I like the variable of reminding the kids that they need to choose to follow Jesus everyday.
But it’s all the same greatness, and at least you didn’t add a letter. That would have been too much for me.
jonathans last blog post..What I Don’t Like about Elevate Jr.
Yeah Jonathan, you’re a ABCC kinda guy. It works. It clearly explains. That’s what we’re getting at, right?