Children

How our children come to faith

(A helpful article which illustrates some of the principles below is the interview with Margaret McPhail in the most recent issue of Good News, pp 5-7)

How our children come to faith
Stephen Smallman
P&R, 2006

P&R publishing have a helpful series of booklets entitled ‘Basics of the Reformed faith’. This booklet is particularly helpful for giving a covenantal understanding of how we should expect our children come to faith. It’s written by a grandfather who by God’s grace has seen all four of his children come to faith and marry Christian spouses.

Here are some highlights:

  • “In my pastoral experience, too many Christian parents are so focused on their responsibility for their children’s spiritual lives that their prayers are essentially, “Lord, help me do my job and fulfill my calling to raise my children in the faith.” They don’t stop and listen first to what God has told them about his commitment to our children” (p. 6)

  • “When we pray for our children and work with them in our homes and churches, God’s covenant-making and covenant-keeping should give us confidence that it is his purpose and plan to pass his salvation from generation to generation. In the Presbyterian tradition, we use the expression covenant children to describe their unique standing before God. That is a very helpful and biblical way to think of our children. Having this confidence in God’s faithfulness to his covenant promises is the most important single thing we can do for the salvation of our children. We should pray for them with earnestness, but pray with confidence because God has clearly revealed his will for our children and he keeps his promises” (p. 15)

  • “…Once we understand that regeneration is a hidden work of God, then we can pray and believe that the Spirit would begin that work very early in our children’s lives. It will probably be several years before our children express that faith in a public confession. But that doesn’t mean the Spirit hasn’t been at work from a very early point in their lives. I think many parents are particularly zealous to press their children to make some sort of “decision for Jesus” because they think that such a point marks the beginning of their spiritual lives. Actually, the beginning is the mysterious work that only the Spirit can do.” (p. 17)

  • “Do our children need to be converted? The answer to that is yes, as long as we don’t define conversion in terms of a particular kind of experience. In a companion booklet in this series, I have defined conversion in the words of the Westminster Shorter Catechism as “embracing Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.” Based on this definition, our children most certainly need to be converted—but that conversion could be so much a part of their lives that they grow up never knowing a time when they weren’t embracing Jesus Christ freely offered in the gospel.” (pp 20-21).

  • “The matter of how to make sure that our children are “saved” is a source of real anxiety for many conscientious Christian parents. Concerned parents begin to “evangelize” their children as soon as they are able to talk...Then they proudly announce that Mary, at age three or four, has “received Christ as her Lord” because she prayed some variation of the sinner’s prayer or answered the call at a vacation Bible school or Sunday school meeting. Loving teachers or youth leaders ask our children over and over whether they are “really sure” they have accepted Jesus. After a while they aren’t sure—because they don’t know which time they prayed the prayer was the “real” time. One of my children tells about making up a “testimony” to finally satisfy his youth leaders that he was a believer.

    That is all well-intentioned, but I wonder if it is the best approach. How much of this way of dealing with children is a consequence of feeling that their salvation hangs on how effective we are in evangelizing them? I want to encourage you instead to start with an awareness of God’s wonderful promises and to rest in those promises. Of course we have great responsibilities, but that can’t be our starting place.

    If we build on the foundation of God’s promises and Jesus’ statement about our children, then we can view the salvation of our children from the perspective of faith rather than anxiety. And by faith, we then set about the privilege of raising our children “in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). The word that better fits this admonition is discipleship rather than evangelism. The earliest disciples were following Jesus even while they were learning what it meant to believe in him. Can’t it be said that our children are part of a family of Jesus’ disciples and that in that sense, they themselves are also disciples? As the family serves the Lord, led by the head of the household, the members of the family learn together what it means to embrace Jesus personally.” (pp 21-22)

  • “The term used in earlier generations to describe this more discipleship-oriented way of passing along the faith was Christian nurture. The question of how children come to faith received a great deal of attention in the Presbyterian church with the rise of revivalism in the nineteenth century. So much attention was given to dramatic conversion stories that the “boring” examples of people growing up and receiving the faith passed along to them by their families were considered invalid. In some ways it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because such ordinary means as family prayers, catechizing children, and faithful church attendance were being set aside to wait for the next great season of revival, many children were leaving the faith of their fathers” (p. 23)

  • In previous generations: “Christian nurture was, then, the appointed, the natural, the normal, and ordinary means by which the children of believers were made truly the children of God. Consequently it was the method which these leaders believed should be principally relied upon and employed for the salvation of their children.” (p. 23)

Include the Children (Joel Beeke)

As churches return to worship following the coronavirus pandemic, many churches which once offered alternative activities for children during the service are no longer able to do so. But as a recent Gospel Coalition article by a mother of five boys argues, that may be no bad thing.

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The presence of small children in the worship service is one of the things which Robert Godfrey highlights in his book: An Unexpected Journey: Discovering Reformed Christianity.

Having previously posted a list of resources on children in church, below is a section of an article on Children in the Church by Joel Beeke (along with a couple of videos on related topics):

‘Children should attend public worship with their parents to experience the corporate life of the body of Christ. They should learn how to worship by watching others worship. Don’t discourage mothers from bringing young children into worship (Luke 18:15–16). The prophet Joel included “the children, and those that suck the breasts” in the call to sacred assembly (Joel 2:16). Encourage families to bring their children to worship. You might reserve a section in the back or in the balcony for families with very young children. If they need an early exit, this can be done without distracting or disturbing other worshippers.

The Scriptures teach us to view the assemblies of the church as gatherings of the household of faith. God’s children are called to be brothers to each other. When Moses commanded that the law be read publicly every seven years, he said, “Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law” (Deut. 31:12). When the Israelites celebrated the feasts of the Lord, the law required them to come to the sanctuary as “households,” including sons and daughters and even servants (Deut. 12:7, 12). (Cf. Josh. 8:35; 2 Chron. 20:13; Joel 2:16).

Children were also present in the synagogues where Christ taught (Matt. 18:2; 19:13–15). Paul assumed that children would be present when his letters were read in the churches, and he even addressed the children directly (Eph. 6:1–3; Col. 3:20). Jeremy Walker writes, “The constant presumption of Scripture is the children were present in the worship of the people of God.” Don’t separate children, teenagers, and adults into different worship compartments; bring them together as members of one family, and encourage them to sit together as families so that parents can make good use of the situation to train their children in godliness.

Including the children will influence how ministers of the Word prepare for public worship. When you offer public prayer in the worship service, include the children. Pray specifically for children and young people. Intercede for God to grant them Spirit-worked submission to their parents, regeneration, faith, repentance, and spiritual growth. If a child is sick, pray for him by name. Encourage them to sing by making frequent use of songs the children already know and love—and encourage parents, in teaching the children at home, to give priority to the songs used in the worship of the church.

In preaching, labor to speak with plainness and simplicity, but also with color and vitality, in the way of a good storyteller, to interest even your youngest hearers in the sermon. If it is necessary to speak “over their heads,” stop and address the children directly, giving them explanations or applications at the level of their own understanding. Nothing is more off-putting than to have a preacher tag a statement with “boys and girls,” and then, go on to say things that no boy or girl could understand or care about. Likewise, with regard to the length of the service, think of the children, and take care not to prolong sermons or prayers to the point that they cease to edify and only become a trial to be endured.’

The Promise-Driven Family: how our covenant theology shapes our daily lives

“Fear for the next generation is not profound or enlightened, it’s disbelieving and a lack of faith”

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Last month, two families from Stranraer attended the RPCI’s Family Day Conference, held in Cullybackey RPC. The talk, by Rev. Mark Loughridge, addressed the question of how our covenant theology should affect our parenting. It was a really helpful talk and you can listen to it below:

You can view the accompanying powerpoint here.