Dear pastors, missionaries, chaplains and
friends,
Steve here… anyone who claims that their
local church is an assembly committed to evangelism, but is
not committed to kids or youth ministry just doesn’t get it.
Billy Graham’s
Evangelistic Ministry has been telling us for decades that
most North Americans come to Christ before their 18th
birthday.
Child Evangelism Fellowship’s (CEF)
ministry is currently working in 188 nations. In a recent CEF
International Conference it was reported that CEF plans to
reach kids for Christ in the remaining 19 countries of the
world in the next five years. That’s amazing! Even more
amazing is that CEF reported that five million children made
professions of faith in their “Back-yard Bible Clubs” in 2013.
I found some interesting information and
statistics in a back issue of a CEF newsletter. CEF states the
importance of evangelism to kids and youth. The reality is
that 19 of 20 Christians come to Christ before the age of 25;
after 25, the odds against someone coming to Christ increase
dramatically.
The evangelist D. L. Moody (left) was once
asked how the night’s meeting had gone. “We had two and a half
conversions”, he replied.
“You mean two adults and one child?“No”, Moody said. “Two children and one adult. The adult only has half his life left”.
Shortly before his martyrdom at age 95,
Polycarp said, “Eighty-six years have I served the Lord.”
Likely, he converted at his mother’s knee.
Billy Graham was converted as a teen.
Matthew Henry was six, Isaac Watts was nine, W. A. Criswell
was eight and Stephen Olford was seven.
They were not only saved from their sin,
but the results of a sinful lifestyle in their teenage years.
As former YFC President Jay Kesler once said, “any evangelism
after High School isn’t evangelism; it’s really salvage.”
Some say children who make early
professions of faith often struggle with assurance, thinking,
“I wasn’t really sure of what I was doing when I was seven.”
However, could it be that the individual explaining the Gospel
may have not been sure of what they were doing?
None of us know or understand the full
salvation story upon conversion—children or adults. The
criterion for salvation is not a seminary degree, but a
willingness to believe and receive God’s gift of salvation.
The great British Baptist pastor Charles Spurgeon (left) once said, “out of a church of 2,700 members, I have never had to exclude a single one who has received while yet a child. Teachers and superintendents should not merely believe in the possibility of early conversion, but in the frequency of it.”
Why would church leaders believe that we should wait or be cautions to influence young minds? Advertisers don’t wait. Advocates of cultural wars in our schools don’t wait. Predators online don’t wait, nor does Hollywood.
So what are we doing to win children and youth to Christ?
Steve Jones
President
Fellowship of Evangelical Baptists
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