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The new academic year is well underway and so here's a lightly edited article by Ed Drew, the Director of Faith in Kids, about how to involve our children in evangelism:


I was in the first month of working for a church. I was young. I had no children. I was sat in the home of a couple from church (who I had only just met). That week their five year old had told them a story from school. She had got together with her best friend from church and had cornered a boy from their class. With their prey unable to leave, she told him, “You’re going to hell if you don’t become a Christian.”


There was a silence. My heart was in my mouth. My eyes bulged. I thought they were going to say, “That is the problem with our church. We’re raising closed-minded, bigoted children.”


Instead, they said, “She wants to be an evangelist! We told her a few other ways she could do it, but isn’t it great that she wants to tell others?”


I was stunned. This was the beginning of seeing how parents can do outreach with their children. Evangelism always takes courage. The awkwardness can be real. The goal is worth it: whole families turning to Christ. Those families are best reached by Christian families.



With a pre-schooler, you make friends

A new baby often shows us that we have no idea how to be a parent! We need help, support and advice. Ideally, that care would be local because it’s hard to travel with young children. This is why you talk to strangers as you push a swing or as you walk the streets with a screaming baby. Let your friends benefit from your amazingly supportive church family. Show them that having a baby does not need to be lonely, they can have a community. They need help!


With a 5-11 year old, you partner

At school, your children are making friends on their own. Partner with them as they learn how to show Jesus Christ to those friends. Get to know the parents of their friends. These are the families that your family can then pray for and hang out with.


Talk to your children about who to invite to church services, events or clubs. Talk to them about what this could mean for friends and their families. Pray with them. And when their friends can’t come, don’t want to come, or say they’ll come but don’t turn up, acknowledge your child’s disappointment, share their sadness and then pray some more.


With a teen, you support

Your children have grown up. You are less likely to know their school friends. You are much less likely to know their friends’ parents. The responsibility for their evangelism is now theirs and not yours.


Your children are now deciding if they want their friends to hear the gospel, and how they might make that happen. Support them. Don’t tell them what to do. Ask them good questions. Help them with their questions. You can make it a normal topic of conversation, and you can pray for them, and with them.


As with all parenting, practice what you preach. Get every kind of person around your table for meals. Exclude none. Love freely. Talk honestly. Listen well. Let’s reach out to other families with the gospel, together with the whole of our own family.

We've just got back from the Village Church Weekend Away, physically tired but spirutally energised and encouraged. We're really grateful to God for a great weekend, and to Simon and Sharon Price for spending it with us and teaching us (adults and children) from the book of Philippians. Simon's messages were recorded and are now available on SoundCloud through the 'Listen' page. Enjoy!



As we continue reading and preaching through Matthew 24 and 25, here's a lightly edited Puritan prayer from The Valley of Vision about the second coming...



O SON OF GOD AND SON OF MAN,

You were incarnate, did suffer, rise, ascend for my sake;

Your departure was not a token of separation but a pledge of return;

Your Word, promises, sacraments, show your death until you come again.

That day is no horror to me,

for your death has redeemed me,

your Spirit fills me,

your love animates me,

your Word governs me.

I have trusted you and you have not betrayed my trust;

waited for you, and not waited in vain.

You will come to raise my body from the dust, and re-unite it to my soul,

by a wonderful work of infinite power and love,

greater than that which bounds the oceans' waters,

ebbs and flows tides,

keeps the stars in their courses,

and gives life to all creatures.

This corruptible shall put on incorruption,

this mortal, immortality,

this natural body, a spiritual body,

this dishonoured body, a glorious body,

this weak body, a body of power.

I triumph now in your promises as I shall do in their performance,

for the head cannot live if the members are dead;

Beyond the grave is resurrection, judgment, acquittal, dominion.

Every event and circumstance of my life will be dealt with -

the sins of my youth, my secret sins,

the sins of abusing you, of disobeying your Word,

the sins of neglecting ministers' admonitions,

the sins of violating my conscience -

all will be judged;

And after judgment, peace and rest, life and service,

employment and enjoyment, for your elect.

O God, keep me in this faith, and ever looking for Christ's return.

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