Evangelizing my kids

I mean, my children are not adults yet so who knows what the actual outcome will be but this is what we do:

We baptized them to formally announce that they are part of the household of faith, both to ourselves and to others. I don’t know where to start except baptism. You have heard Roy say over and over we don’t believe it saves them. But it does give a shape to their lives. Because they are baptized, because they are part of our family, our church, we tell them “this is who you are, this is who we are, let’s do it, let’s be it.” And since we are not perfect, we are all working at it together as a family.

I guess I kinda think of it like baptism is a cup which we then fill up with the love of Jesus, both taught and hopefully shown, the goodness of God, both taught, and shown in our appreciation of the good things of the world. “Do you love this? It’s from God, ultimately. Are you a mess? Jesus and us still love you.” And their cup fills up until it spills over into “saving knowledge” — and that’s when they are able to take communion.

So we baptized them, we tell them all the time that Jesus loves them, that they and our family belong to God. We point out God everywhere, in natural beauty, in the kindness of their teachers, if their behavior honors God. I pray every time I do bedtime that God will watch over them, keep them safe, make them his, forgive their sins, and when we leave their bedroom, we tell them that “mama loves you, daddy love you, y’all love each other, but Jesus loves you the most and the best.”

Also ideally keeping them in the whole church service would be evangelism but I’m trying not to start too much of a ruckus. Sunday School is evangelistic too I just think the kids lose a lot by not hearing the sermon and seeing communion every week.

We also read the bible to them and try to do catechism sometimes. Since I grew up Presbyterian and Roy didn’t, we each kinda do our own things that feel the most important to us. Catechism is high on my list but lower on his.

But I guess the way I feel is that until a child chooses to opt-out, we see our whole family as justified and working together towards sanctification. That man in Mark cried out “I believe, help my unbelief” on behalf of his kid and so too do we.

But in terms of actual evangelism, I guess what I think is most important is asking forgiveness when you are wrong and telling the kids how much you need Jesus, because you are a sinner who makes mistakes.

That’s all.