Here’s my concern that gives rise to this post: most evangelism training programs I know are geared toward adults winning adults, and not many focus on equipping parents to reach their own children. That’s a serious oversight, in my opinion. Below are some reasons we need to correct this problem:
- All believers are to make disciples—and we have the responsibility to train them to do so. That’s beyond adult/child, parent/offspring responsibilities. It’s simply the obligation for all of us who call ourselves Christians.
- It’s wise to start our evangelism and discipling efforts in those relationships closest to us.Sometimes they’re the hardest relationships to navigate spiritually, but they’re also ones where we already have an open door. The parent/child relationship is a natural place for teaching and modeling faith.
- Parents are to be the primary gospel witnesses in their children’s lives. The God who gave birth to children through their parents expects their parents to be instrumental in leading them to their second birth.
- Parents are to be the primary disciplers in their children’s lives. They are to teach the Word of God at all times, regularly grounding their kids in the Scriptures (Deut 6:6-9, Eph 6:4). They likely do this in conjunction with their local church, but Christian parents must not neglect their responsibility.
- We surely want to help parents experience the great joy of leading their children to follow Christ. I’ve been in ministry long enough to see multiple generations of families following the Lord. I love it when parents are most proud of their children’s faithfulness to God—and when they can give testimony of leading them to the Lord.
- Parents who have been trained to evangelize and disciple their children will be more comfortable doing so. One of the reasons they expect pastors to evangelize their children and their church to disciple them is we haven’t trained them or held them accountable to the task. By our lack of training, we’ve let them off the hook.
- Learning to evangelize children will help adults evangelize everyone else, regardless of age.Learning to share the gospel—the same gospel we present to adults—in a way that children can understand prepares adults to evangelize anyone who has little knowledge of the gospel. That would include reaching people cross-culturally when we seek to share the gospel on a mission trip.
- Teaching adults to evangelize children in general can help us raise up better children’s workers and teachers for the future. Yes, we want parents to be the primary influencers, but we do want our church members to complement those efforts. Plus, we will likely have some kids in our church whose parents aren’t believers—and they need to hear the gospel from someone.
What would you add to this list?
As per usual, this is good critical thinking about how we are to carry out the Commission. What needs to be added, at least as far as my own local church perspective, is that we’re a generation late. Perhaps we need to emphasize evangelizing through the grandparents who, for manifold reasons, have allowed their children to marginalize the Church. We still have that older generation in worship and virtually all of them want the best for their grandchildren. We just have to remind them that the “Best” has little to do with worldly achievement.
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> Thanks for all your helpful ideas.
I would add that training the children to understand and share the gospel also allows the gospel to flow in both directions. Sometimes ‘a child shall lead them’ is an evangelistic reality too. Our ‘Hope for Kids’ ministry is making an impact – especially across Africa.