How to Share the Gospel With Children
“I’ve been talking about the gospel with my kids,” my friend said, “but I’m struggling to close the deal. They tell me how Jesus died for their sins, but how can I be sure they truly believe?”
Sharing the gospel with kids can be tricky. We want to be careful because children are easy to manipulate. We want to encourage our children to commit to Christ. But some of us grew up in churches where we were encouraged to “pray and ask Jesus into our heart” before the gospel was fully explained. We now want our own kids to follow Christ because they love him and understand the cross—not merely to escape hell and enter heaven.
How can we confidently encourage kids to respond to the gospel’s call while avoiding manipulative techniques and remaining sensitive to their current spiritual state and level of development? Here are five suggestions.
1. Warn kids about their sin.
“A child’s soul is in danger if he expresses confidence in Christ but isn’t also learning to name his sins, confess them, and turn to Christ for forgiveness.”
I’ve written before about that children’s program where the woolly mammoth, vampire, monsters, aliens, and overgrown canary all invaded a side street in Manhattan. In his brilliance, Jim Henson took some of our greatest fears and made them cute and educational. The child-friendly terrors that live on Sesame Street remind us of the hidden reality of childhood. Children are glorious and beautiful gifts from God, yet within each child, there’s a fallen heart. Every child is a sinner and must learn of the need to repent.
We must shoot straight with our kids about sin’s deadly consequences. Charles Spurgeon said it well:
“Do not flatter the child with delusive rubbish about his nature being good and needing to be developed. Tell him he must be born again. Don’t bolster him up with the fancy of his own innocence, but show him his sin. Mention the childish sins to which he is prone, and pray the Holy Spirit to work conviction in his heart and conscience.”
A child’s soul is in danger if he expresses confidence in Christ but isn’t also learning to name his sins, confess them, and turn to Christ for forgiveness. Don’t hesitate to warn your children about sin for, as Spurgeon warned, “He will not else desire the remedy.”
2. Be clear about what Jesus has done to save.
When teaching the gospel to children, it can be helpful to use a gospel presentation like the wordless book or Tony Payne’s Who Will Be King? If you’ve served at a vacation Bible school, you may also know the ABCs of salvation: (A) Admit you’re a sinner; (B) Believe in Jesus; and (C) Confess faith in him. These three points describe a biblical response to the gospel (see Rom. 10:9–10).
But when using one of these resources to share the good news with your kids, don’t just tell them how to respond. Make sure you also explain how Jesus accomplished our salvation through his life, death, and resurrection. That’s the saving message.
A child who wants to please God can respond in many right ways—reading her Bible, keeping a journal, saying daily prayers—but she can still be discouraged in her faith. Aware of her sin, she may worry, Have I done enough? How can I be saved when I still get so angry? This child needs assurance that what Jesus did for us wins our salvation. He saves us. We don’t save ourselves. As the Puritan Octavius Winslow wrote, “One simple believing sight of Christ will produce more light and peace and joy than a lifetime of looking within ourselves for evidences and signs of grace.”
3. Invite your kids to respond to Christ again and again.
When we talk to our children about the gospel, response is the goal. At the same time, we must recognize that due to both their level of maturity in Christ and their maturity in general, they’ll have differing levels of responsiveness. Christian educators Lawrence Richards and Gary Bredfeldt outline five basic levels of learning in children.
Rote—a child’s ability to repeat back stories, verses, and biblical truth without thought of meaning.
Recognition—a child’s ability to recognize biblical concepts that have been taught before.
Restatement—a child’s ability to express new concepts in his own words and to relate them to a biblical worldview and system of thought.
Relation—a child’s ability to relate biblical truths to life and see an appropriate gospel response or application.
Realization—a child’s ability and desire to put gospel applications into action in his daily life.
This outline reminds us that children typically learn the language of faith before their faith is fully realized. Our job isn’t to get a 2-year-old to the realization level after one gospel conversation. Even believing teenagers are still learning to put into practice what they know about God’s ways. Our goal, instead, is to ever be encouraging our kids to take the next step in their faith.
4. Don’t pressure your children for a public profession.
“Give your children an opportunity to respond to Christ, but trust God to work in their hearts to bring them to himself in his time and ways.”
Sometimes parents can be tempted to pressure children because we think getting them to make a public profession or come to the waters of baptism is exclusively our responsibility. It’s not. You don’t need to bribe your kids with ice cream to get them to “pray the prayer.” You’re not responsible for “closing the deal” because salvation belongs to the Lord (Ps. 3:8).
Your responsibility is to faithfully teach the gospel to your children, to encourage them to regularly repent from sin and commit to Christ. When you’ve done that, you can entrust the results to the Lord. Give your children an opportunity to respond to Christ, but trust God to work in their hearts to bring them to himself in his time and ways.
5. Don’t be afraid to give gospel assurances.
We don’t want to give our kids false assurances. We don’t want them to think they’re saved simply because they know Bible facts, are excited about Sunday school, or obey Dad and Mom. We certainly don’t want our kids to use God’s love and promises as an excuse for sin (Rom. 6:1–2).
But avoiding false assurances doesn’t mean avoiding assurance altogether. Christ has objectively accomplished salvation (2 Cor. 5:18–19), so we can confidently proclaim his gospel promises to all people, including our kids.
This means we can teach our kids to memorize, recite, and sing Bible promises that give them personal assurance—passages like “I know that my Redeemer lives” (Job 19:25), “The LORD is my shepherd” (Ps. 23:1), “I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God” (Ps. 42:11, NIV), or “[He] loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).
These are Christ’s words, so we can assure our children that to trust these promises is to trust Christ himself. If you hear your child assuring herself with one of these passages, it’s not a time for introspection. Instead, we can simply say with confidence, “Keep on believing. Keep on believing!”
Editor’s Note: Want more practical teaching on children’s discipleship? Sign up for GCF’s Children’s Ministry Leadership Cohort. During the cohort retreat and coaching calls t, we cover a host of topics including team building, classroom management, choosing curriculum, crafting gospel-centered teaching, and event planning. Take advantage of early-bird pricing through December 15th. Space is limited so sign up today.
A version of this article first appeared at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.