Child Evangelism: The Do’s and Don’ts.

In this video/article I want to address the issue of child evangelism and children’s ministries. If you have not watched my video entitled ‘Are your Children Saved’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1WZnEr_whA and my second video regarding cognitive development entitled ‘Accountability or Independence: A Biblical Definition of Child’, https://youtu.be/779QokNH_xQ  then please view these before reading this article. 

In those videos I am addressing the fact that over 80% of children from evangelical churches, who were told they are born again and baptized before age 17, deny Christianity and Christ entirely by age 25-30. This is an incredibly important topic because, although parents and youth pastors may think they are saving children, in fact they are inoculating them against real saving faith.

In brief, Scripture never suggests that the obedient child who is under their parent’s authority is unsaved, indeed quite the opposite. Furthermore, that God has commanded children and teens to obey Him through the authority of parents until they are independent. Only the Lord can decide when a child is independent enough to have a life of their own and surrender to Him as Lord and Savior.

The question I want to answer in this video/article is this. What then is the role and responsibility of parents and those involved in children’s ministries? I use the term ‘children’s ministries’ for children up to 12 years old. Perhaps the best way of illustrating that role is to tell you a story.

Back in the 1980’s the New Zealand government had a one hour a week religious education program in public schools for children up to 12 years. Local churches provided teachers, volunteers, although some pastors also got involved. I was asked to participate as I had been doing a lot of public speaking due to my testimony and people thought I would be a good fit. Furthermore, many of the classes were very difficult and teachers were quitting who could not control the classes of 30 plus children. Initially I declined. I was a self-employed photographer, so although I could spare the time, I didn’t feel that children’s ministry was my calling.

However, the Lord had other plans and I had no peace about my decision. I agreed to try. I was given the compulsory government literature for 7-9 age group. This material was boring and spiritless with stuff about Abraham one week and Mother Teresa the next, then a story about Jesus and back to Moses or whoever. It was impossible to inspire the kids to go through this stuff and most of them hated it. After a few weeks I was convinced this was not for me. Spending an hour telling children to behave and promoting boring and often liberal material was, in my opinion, a total waste of time, and just making the majority of children think Christianity was just plain boring.

After a lot of prayer, and begging the Lord to let me quit, I felt the Lord telling me to take these kids through the Bible as a story, as a spiritual battle. So, I sat down and wrote the first 20-25 min lesson about why we exist, about where heaven is, why some of us can’t sing for nuts and the pre-creation fall of Lucifer. I used modern language and threw in a bit of humor where appropriate. That week I told the kids to quickly go through the govt material, and then I was going to tell them a real story, a true story which was also about each one of them.

There was absolute silence for 20 mins as I read to them, except for the times they were laughing. At the end I asked if anyone had any questions and 20 hands shot up. They wanted more and after answering their questions, I told them they would have to wait and see how the story would develop. 

The next week I wrote about creation and threw in a few words about evolution and great, great grandma eating bananas and swinging in the trees and showed them in a very simple way why that was not the truth. I painted a picture with words. Satan watching with his demon buddies from behind the wall around Eden, watching the Lord create Adam and Eve and devising a plan to deceive them. In the third week I told them about the Fall and the Lord’s prophecy that a child would be born who would destroy Satan’s authority. This became one of the main themes, Satan trying to discover who this child was who would destroy him and his desire to totally corrupt all humanity.

Each lesson ended with a summary and advice and the words ‘Just Because’, that this happened ‘just because’. These lessons became the forty one chapters of my first children’s book ‘Just Because: The Story of Salvation for Children’. I ended up taking on a second weekly class and learned some valuable lessons, the most important being how much Jesus Christ loves children. I came to realize that it was He who was teaching these kids through me, that He delighted in being in that classroom, telling His story. I was just the vessel.

Furthermore, l learned that the goal of children’s ministry must never be about instilling fear of hell, but a relationship of trusting God now, of obeying parents to honor Him, and an expectation of an intimate, loving relationship with Christ when He calls them to follow Him when they leave home.

About twenty years later, after I had come to Ukraine as a missionary, my wife and I returned to New Zealand for a few weeks to visit family. We were grocery shopping in a supermarket in the town I used to live in when a voice called out, ‘hey, Mr Copland’. I turned around to see this tall, well-built Maori guy staring at me with a big smile on his face. I didn’t recognize him until he told me his name. This was Eugene, a boy who was a troublemaker at school, came from a broken home and was in one of my classes for a year at age 10.

He told me how he had given his life to Christ, that what he heard in those classes stayed with him throughout his troubled teen years.  In his twenties the Lord reminded him of where he could find peace and forgiveness and he surrendered His life to the Lord. We were both rather emotional as he hugged me. It was a beautiful reunion.

I have been in many church services where children were present and the so-called evangelist is telling them that if they don’t repent and ‘ask Jesus into their heart’ they will be thrown into a lake of fire and tormented for all eternity. I have seen terrified children standing at the altar repeating a ‘sinner’s prayer’ and the next week, being baptized as born again believers. I consider this unbiblical behavior to be inoculating children against a real born again experience. It is like giving them a polio vaccine so that they are immune to the real thing later in life.

And these days, especially amongst charismatics, it gets even worse. Now we see self-appointed apostles and prophets hold ‘deliverance meetings’ and convincing gullible parents and confused children that every form of misbehavior is a demon which must be cast out. 

Why do western Churches, parents and evangelists continue these practices when statistic prove that over 80% of these children will absolutely rebel against God and declare themselves atheists or agnostics by age 25-30? I think there are several reasons.

1. Ignorance regarding the Word of God. Scripture is absolutely clear that children are NEVER commanded to be born again, but to obey parents and that the obedient child of just one believing parent is holy before God. Furthermore, Jesus underlined His attitude to children multiple times and used them as examples of what is required for salvation. These are the topics I discuss in my video ‘are your children saved?’

2. A lack of faith. This is not just ignorance of God’s word regarding children, but a refusal to believe it. When a Church, parent or evangelist tells a child they are going to hell if they don’t say a sinner’s prayer, they are defaming the character of Christ and calling Him a liar. Rather than trust the Lord and all He says in Scripture, they choose to believe that the child must act like an adult and take responsibility for their eternal destiny.

3. Shifting responsibility. God has put the responsibility of raising children onto parents and only parents. It is not the Lord’s responsibility to bring up your kids. I have heard parents tell their child, ‘you are a Christian now, so you better act like one’. ‘God is watching you’. The Lord is not a means of discipline that you can hold over your child. Furthermore, teaching your children about Jesus Christ is your responsibility, not the Sunday school teacher, or pastor, but primarily yours. If you are not a living example of Christ through the week, teaching your child to honor the Lord and you, teaching them Scripture in a practical way, praying with them every day, asking their forgiveness when you lose the plot or make a mistake, and teaching them to ask forgiveness when they make mistakes, then you are not being a Christian parent. Your children live with YOU, not the pastor or Sunday school teacher.

4. Children are easily manipulated. Between the ages of 5-12 children can be manipulated to believe whatever they are constantly told. Muslim extremists can turn a child into a Jew hating suicide bomber, Hitler turned his ‘hitler youth’ into killers devoid of conscience. In many ways, children are blank sheets that can become whatever we write on those pages. Furthermore, many paid professional pastors have to justify their existence and state how many conversions they had each year, and children are their easiest victims. 

Some years ago I was approached by an online seminary which was offering a diploma of ministry and thought my theology students may be interested. I looked through the curriculum and came to a course on children’s ministry. There they stated that we must get children to make a commitment as young as possible because once they reach the age of twenty, it is much more difficult to evangelize. I wrote back to the administrator with my thoughts and never heard from them again.  

What is your role as a parent?

1. To believe both the commands and promises regarding children in Scripture.

2. To recognize that your children are under your authority until they reach an age of independence and that this is God’s mandate.

3. To live as an example of being a Christian. That may mean asking their forgiveness when you lose your temper, or falsely accuse them or some other mistake. Do not expect your kids to ask forgiveness either to you or the Lord if they have never witnessed you doing the same.

4. To teach them that they can have a wonderful relationship with the Lord because He is ‘with them and will one day be in them’, just as He taught those under the old covenant. Give them a heart of expectation, not fear. The Lord does not expect anyone to trust Him without proving He is trustworthy. He brought the Jews out of slavery in Egypt. They saw the plagues, they crossed the Red Sea, He fed them with manna and quails, He gave them the law, He walked with them showing His presence in the pillar of cloud and fire. Only after all this did He command that they trust Him when they came to the banks of the Jordon. 

But they heard the report of the Nephilim and were terrified. Only two men, Joshua and Caleb were willing to trust. God swore that every person 20 years and older would never enter the Promised Land. Those 19 years and younger He did not consider old enough to make an independent decision about trusting Him. God designed us and if He says we are adults at 20 because our cognitive development is completed at this age, then He gets the final say. Does this mean no child can be born again before 20 years old? No, it doesn’t, but it does tell us that the Lord decides when he believes we are independent enough to make a life-long decision to surrender to Him as Lord and Savior.

5. Build character in your children. Life is difficult and only those who have had to learn responsibility, discipline and servanthood, will be ready to face life’s challenges. Scripture warns about spoiling children, and that word spoil basically means to ‘render useless to God’. Give your children chores, washing the dishes, making their beds, keeping their room tidy. They may not enjoy it, but you will be developing their character and teaching them that we must all contribute. 

6. Spend quality time with them and restrict their access to the internet and devises. Be involved with their activities, and teach them that it is okay to lose at sport or other competition and to lose graciously. 

In Summary

Being a parent is the most difficult yet most important roles that any person can take on. All of us will fail at it, but failure only remains failure if we are too proud to seek forgiveness and grace. Furthermore, I believe that children’s camps, programs and ministries are great and incredibly effective in helping kids develop a real relationship with the Lord, at whatever age. However, never let any person manipulate your child into saying some ‘sinner’s prayer’ through fear of hell or you will be inoculating them from a real born again experience, you will rejecting everything taught in Scripture regarding children, and defaming the character of Christ.

There are a huge amount of resources for Christian parents, but you should examine them carefully before using them. 

And finally, trust the Lord and don’t give in to fear. I have heard people raised in Christian families say, ‘I was saved at 4, or at 5’.  Technically, according to Scripture, the Lord already considered you ‘holy’ (1 Corinthians 7:14), you were ‘saved’ under the old covenant which you were commanded to obey.  The vast majority of these same people will tell you that they made a ‘re-commitment’ when they had a powerful experience after leaving home. In truth, they were actually born again, one of the 20% who did not rebel and become atheists.

Please take the time to watch ‘Are your Children Saved’ and ‘Accountability or Independence: A Biblical Definition of Child’ so that you can see exactly what Scripture has to say regarding children.

I pray this article/video has been enlightening and encouraging for you. Please share it with Christian parents who have young children.

Steve Copland