WINNING CHILDREN TO CHRIST

TRETS 02 MARCH 2017

WINNING CHILDREN FOR CHRIST

TEXT: Matthew 28. 19-20, Proverbs 22.6, Deut. 31. 13

“Children are the heritage of the Lord” and they occupy a very special place in the plan and in the programme of God. They are gifts from God and therefore are an integral part of the “all the world” that Christ commissioned the church to reach. God loves children and He highly esteems the soul of children. In fact Christ demonstrated a great concern for children when He declared in Matt. 19.14 saying “suffer the little children and forbid them not to come to me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven”. In this vein, God is not willing that they perish but that they have eternal life. This means that salvation plan of God through Jesus Christ covers children as well. Every member of the church must therefore wake up to the challenge of reaching out to the children in all capacity and develop the traits that will attract the souls of these children to the knowledge of the Saviour.

The following facts by researchers must touch your heart and drive you into an eternal passion for the souls of our little children. (i) Forty-five per-cent of Africans are below the age of 15 years of age. These are the future of our nations tomorrow. The morality and spirituality of our children today determines the strength and godliness of our future generations (ii) Children are full humans and they possess eternal souls as adults, therefore neglecting them brings their blood on us as caretakers. (iii) We must provide an atmosphere where children feel loved, accepted, affirmed, needed, cherished and appreciated otherwise we make God unhappy with us and incur His wrath (Matt. 18. 6, 10). (iv) If children are not won to Christ through our method, we must change our method to their ways to win them for Christ because their hearts are fertile grounds that must be ultimately cultivated. Unfortunately, neglect of the children salvation had brought great perils and devastation to our world today and we discovered that most perilous activities carried out today are perpetrated amongst young adults and teenagers who would have been won to the Lord. Negligent brings grave regret to the world and to the church while the sinners and their negligent leaders, parents and supervisors are liable for God’s judgement.

Children’s  peculiarities and their classifications Prov. 20.11, Luke 15. 12-13, Prov. 29.15

Every child has his own peculiar characteristics. Though there are general traits of children, yet every child is unique of his/her own. Knowing their various characteristics as they grow up gives good insight of what to expect from the child. To win the children to Christ, the preacher must firstly be genuinely born again. He must also have been crucified with Christ with a sincere experience of sanctification experience. Furthermore, he also need to be familiar with the behavioural distinction of the age brackets of such children so as not to be easily provoked or offended. In our Church, we had divided the children into Age groups namely Age 3-5, Age 6-8 and Ages 9-12. These age group differences make reaching children a bit challenging but very interesting as well.  (i) Probing (Gen 22. 7). Children always ask questions. Sometimes, their questions are provoking and disturbing. We must be wise, patient and temperate to accommodate them and reach to pass the message of Salvation across to them. (ii) Irritation and offensive: (2 King 2.23) Children can be  naughty and restless attimes which may cause weariness to some adults and even make some to loose their temperance.  (iii) Ignorance: Children are ignorant and they will need to be taught. (Ps. 34. 11), (iv) Unresponsive to the gospel. Some of the children do not respond to the message on time, yet we must be patient with them.  (Luke 15.13). (v)   Too slow. Some of the children with some physical or mental challenges may be too slow for the teacher. Soul-winners must gently get closer to him/her to discover the disabilities and help the child in his peculiar way (1 Cor. 9.22), (vi) Pranks and stubbornness. Children sometimes play pranks and proving stubborn on their soul-winners by showing outright disagreement in order to make their views known or to have their ways at all cost (1 Sam. 8.3). (vii) Extremes. Children always get to the extremes in their actions and attitude. If they are aggressive, they go too far, and if they will withdraw, they also go too far.

Christ-like Passions and pattern of reaching the Children. Mark 10.13-16, Prov. 22.6,

Believers have the charge to reach out to all children irrespective of their ages and peculiarities. Our Lord demonstrated an instructive pattern to us in His attitude towards them showing a great example as to how they could be reached. We must also adopt this pattern if we must have a successful children ministry. (i) Telling them scriptural Stories that will lead them to Christ  e.g about God, Christ, Holy Spirit. Children are very attentive to stories particularly at the lower ages (Deut. 11.19), (ii) Show tenderness, kindness and gentleness in preaching too them as it is highly demanding of every children soul winner. If you are too tough, children will avoid you and you will lose them (1 Thess 2.7), (iii) Teach them the Word as it is written. Don’t remove any part of the scriptures but break it down so they would easily comprehend it (Deut. 4.9, 6.7), (iv) Train them practically e.g about God’s love to him, and others. Train them using teaching aids as well as practical demonstration (Prov. 22.6), (v) Test and tame them regularly, Test is part of training. Good teachers develop short tests at various level of teaching and correct them when necessary. We must be sure they understand a lesson. (vi) Touch their lives by your exemplary life of holiness, humility, faithfulness, faith in God and worship. (vii) Travail over them ceaselessly. Praying for these children is very important, and must cover every areas of their life such as Spiritual, family, academics, and even their special peculiarities (Gal. 4.19).

Commensurate Possibilities and Profits of Preaching to Children Ps. 144. 11-15, Isa. 8.18,

There are great possibilities in the children world particularly knowing that a good spiritual foundation brings a much more successful teenagers and adulthood, we must pay the sacrifice to achieve a greater and brighter future through our converted children. Children love exercises and activities, therefore we must bring our message of salvation and conversion to surround their hobbies so as to motivate them to love the Lord and remain a Christian. Crusades and rallies (indoors) could be held for children in our community, We could also organise Hymns and musical concerts for them, as children love music. We also need to show them colourful Illustrations that inform and instruct them of the messages of the Bible to pull their interest in the topic. Literatures such as wordless books such as cartoons, magazines and tracts are also very good materials for children education. Demonstration is key in passing our message across. Without this, the class becomes dull and the children plays off or sleep on the teacher. Reading habits of children must be developed and cultivated through Bible stories. Furthermore, we can engage them in Excursions, picnics and exercises that makes them active and agile as well as adding knowledge with fun. Novelty games should be introduced to make them compete against one another and develop their time keeping and time management skills.

There is no single method that works all the time, but we must utilise and combine various methods to win them. The ultimate goal is to have them truly converted. When we faithfully reach out to individual children whether in the church or at home or in school and these children are genuinely converted, they bring great joy and fulfillment to the parents, to the church and to the world at large. The scripture says “happy is that people that is in such a case”.  We become a very good friend of God like Abraham when He sees our faithfulness in teaching and commanding our children in His ways and His precepts. Lois led he daughter Eunice to the Lord and this gave us Timothy a faithful evangelist and preacher of the word. We contribute greatly to the spread and the sustenance of God’s kingdom when we faithfully and painstakingly do our part in winning children to the Lord. We shall be happy here and in eternity. ref.(DLSC2017)