You Can Lead a Horse to Water...

“How to Lead a Child to Christ.” The title of the article stood out to me, if for no other reason than that I have been thinking very hard lately about the spiritual condition of my sons. But the more I thought about the title, the more agitated I became. I scanned the article skeptically, and to my dismay, I found that it was much as I had expected: a mini-manual instructing church workers how to effectively persuade children to ask Jesus into their hearts. At first I was angry, reliving afresh the damage and confusion that this approach had caused not only for me and my wife, but to a lesser degree, for our children. After all, any first-year seminarian knows that, in point of fact, (1) no one but the Spirit can effectively cause a person to embrace Christ and (2) anybody who thinks otherwise is almost sure to leave a tragic trail of false profession, angst, and spiritual carnage.

Then I cooled down a bit and considered with some sympathy the earnestness that marked those who had inflicted this damage. They were, for the most part, model church-members who had somehow become convinced that “leading children to Christ” was the very raison d’être for children’s ministry. And that’s when I decided to write up a blog post.

There’s a real sense that introducing children to Christ IS the very raison d’être for children’s ministry. Bible stories that introduce children to the Bible’s story line and catechesis that introduces them to the basics of the Christian faith do this quite admirably. I laud those who are adept at this skill. If that is what you mean by leading a child to Christ, and you have particular insight into how the adolescent mind receives this kind of data, then I’m all for you writing an article about it. I frankly need articles like that. But as you write, please recall the worn words of the old proverb—not a biblical proverb, mind you, but one that illustrates theological truth pretty well on this point—“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” And if your article on “how to lead a child to Christ” reads instead like an article on “how to make him drink,” please rethink your article. Because you can’t make him drink.

One little book that has proved exceptionally helpful to me in this regard is Dennis Gunderson’s Your Child’s Profession of Faith, now in its second edition (Grace and Truth Books, 2010). It won’t take more than an hour or so to read. But it will be an hour very well invested.