Leading Your Child to Christ

I wanted to post a helpful tool for parents to guide you in leading your child to Christ when you think your child might be ready to pray and accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Please post a comment if this is helpful for you and/or you just had the opportunity to pray with your child to accept Christ.


How do I know when?
Important things to look for:

• Children begin asking questions about spiritual things.
• Children may experience a change of behavior indicating the Holy Spirit’s work in their life. Conviction may be playing a new role in their moods, attitudes, etc. These times should be authentic and not based on the threat of consequences.
• Children begin to go through prolonged periods of spiritual interest.
• Children begin to put pieces of their understanding together as it relates their personal relationship to God.

How do I specifically lead them to receive Jesus Christ?

Walk them through the following and help them understand:

1. God loves you and has a plan for you (Jeremiah 29:11, John 3:16)
   
   
2. Everyone is a sinner (Romans 3:23, 6:23)
• What is sin? – Disobeying God; breaking God’s law; making a decision to do things which are wrong; knowing what is good to do but not doing it; not loving our neighbors.
• Ask your child to name sins he/she has made...
• Ask your child what the result of sin is? – death, separation from God
  
3. What do we deserve? - death and separation from God
   
4. What does God give? –
   “the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:23;
   “but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
• God gives a free gift of salvation because of what Jesus did on the cross. Jesus lived a perfect life and then sacrificed His life for us on the cross to give us the ability to have a relationship with God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
  
5. One Way:  “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” John 14:6
   
6. What do we need to do?
• Repent. “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out…” Acts 3:19
• Confess and Believe. “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” Romans 10:9-10
• Pray. By their own choosing, a child must turn from sin and commit to Christ. The next step is for your child to pray, confessing his sin and asking God’s forgiveness. A model of what a child could say is below:
“Jesus, thank you for loving me…I know I have sinned…I know you died on the cross to pay for my sin…I want you to come into my life…and take away all my sin…I want to live my life obeying you. I love you. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.”
7. Share with the church and friends – We want to celebrate with you!
   
8. Get Baptized
• Baptism Class
• Sunday Morning Baptism
• Family Baptism Service