SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – “I want to be baptized,” 10-year-old mostly-unchurched Jessica announced. When asked why, she responded with as much conviction as she could muster: “I want to be a better person!” Her Mormon step-brother had told her about baptism.
But before baptism comes conversion, and before conversion, conviction and repentance, Michael Lawrence told Baptist Press. Lawrence is pastor of Hinson Memorial Baptist Church in Portland, Ore., and author of “Conversion: How God creates a people” among other books. He was in Utah to lead a conference on conversion.
“Real repentance will result in a changed life,” Lawrence told his listeners. “Repentance is the result of being convicted of the sinfulness of our sin.”
Mark Jones talked with Baptist Press about youngsters being baptized. Until this spring, Jones was children’s pastor at Quail Springs Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, when the website he developed to help children’s workers improve their ministry – mrmarksclassroom.com – grew into a time-consuming national ministry.
“She may not be ready, but I wouldn’t tell her that; you want to keep the conversation open,” Jones said about Jessica.
Jones often uses questions when talking with youngsters – preschool through sixth grade – to gauge their understanding of the Gospel, their conviction of sin and their desire “to follow Jesus as their boss,” as Jones put it.
When they ask about baptism, he opens his Bible and asks, “Would you like me to show you what the Bible says about it?”
And as soon as the child’s attention drifts, he says, “We’ll talk more about this next time,” and leaves it to the child to bring up the subject again.
Children reared in church receive “spiritual formation” knowledge from the time they’re a toddler, from Sunday school teachers explaining – at child level – why the Bible is true: It’s because God wrote it. They’re taught God created all the animals, birds and everything, including them!
They learn to thank God for the snack they’re about to eat – to learn gratitude – for the friends who aren’t in class this week – which teaches them to pray for others – and for the sun, rain or snow, depending on the weather of the day, which reminds them that God created everything.
“We always give the why behind what we’re trying to get kids to do,” Jones said. “We tell them it’s time to pray because God likes to hear from us.”
Jones describes this as a bookshelf. Each bit of spiritual knowledge becomes a book on that shelf as the child accumulates more awareness.
“All this, it’s more books on the shelf. All this is spiritual formations,” Jones continued. “We are being faithful to share and one day the Holy Spirit says, ‘Look: you have sin in your life.’ He does the calling to the child. Our part is in being faithful in filling the bookshelf.”
Each Bible story is another “book” on the child’s spiritual formations shelf, and one day, the Gospel message – God loves me so much He sent His son to pay for my sins – begins to make some sense and they start asking questions.
As a child who has been in church just a few times in her life, Jessica doesn’t have much spiritual formation, but when the Gospel is explained to her, the Holy Spirit can cover any knowledge deficiencies, Jones said.
He has a short no-cost video – one of many videos – on MrMarksClassroom.com that describes leading a child to Christ.
Seeing someone being baptized often starts a child on a journey to salvation, Jones said. They may want to be baptized to please their parents or for attention.
The word “baptize” and related words such as “baptized” and “baptizing” is found in 100 places in the Bible. Baptism is a symbol of a Christian’s spiritual new life. It’s not the result of a decision intellectually made, Jones said.
Many children have never heard their parent’s salvation testimony and how it was that they were baptized, or their Sunday School teacher, or their grandparents, Jones said.
“When we tell our story, that makes a safe space for them to ask questions,” the founder of Mr. Mark’s Classroom said. “If a child doesn’t understand what sin is, they’re not ready. We need to wait on the Holy Spirit to open their heart.”
The video on Jones’ website pares the Plan of Salvation down to a child’s understanding. In it, he uses a trimmed version of the Navigator’s “Bridge” evangelism tool. It starts with Romans 6:23, asking the child what the words wages, sin and death mean, prodding them with additional information as needed.
Jones illustrates “wages” with his dog. He has to go away for a week and asks the child to feed, water and play with his dog, Raya. When he returns, he gives the child money. That’s a wage, he explains; it’s payment for what the child did.
“I tell them they were created to have a relationship with God,” Jones said. “The relationship got broken because of sin, but God made a way to fix that.”
If the Holy Spirit convicts the child of their sinfulness, tears usually follow.
“There needs to be an attitude of remorse and humility, a desire to be forgiven,” Jones said. Repentance is followed by a changed life. This might be evidenced by reading the Bible, more obedience, fewer sibling squabbles, but Jones cautioned that a new Christian is just starting on a life of following Jesus.
Jones suggests a young reader might be able to read five to 10 verses in the Bible each day. He suggested a Proverb a day to start, or the New Testament book of Luke, especially chapter 2. The support of the child’s parents can heighten the impact and draw the family closer as together they have that spiritual time together each day, the children’s worker said.
Bottom line, Jones said, “The Holy Spirit does the calling to the child. Our part is in being faithful in filling the bookshelf, providing the spiritual formation.”
No matter the age, genuine conversion is typically followed by an attack by the devil, Lawrence said.
“I never want to rush a child,” Lawrence told Baptist Press. “Am I certain I’m looking at a converted child? Time will tell, because if the child truly was converted, they’re going to get tested and you’ll know for sure.”
Related posts:
FROM THE SEMINARIES: Iorg, at convocation, underscores evangelism as priority 
Baptism Sunday testimonies celebrate life transformation 
More than a summer: GenSend leaves lasting impact on students, cities 
Gaines at rally: Evangelism should be priority 
Collegiate mentoring strategy highlights importance of accessibility 
FIRST-PERSON: What about your coworkers? 
FIRST-PERSON: The guy I failed to witness to 
FIRST PERSON: A boring testimony? No such thing
