Teaching Kids and Teens the Basics of Sharing Their Faith With Others

Teaching Kids and Teens the Basics of Sharing Their Faith With Others - Teach One Reach OneIt’s always interesting to me to find out how terrified most Christians are of sharing their faith with others. It’s not so much they are afraid of rejection – although I’m sure that’s a factor.

If you talk to them long enough though, you realize the main problem is they have no idea what to say or do to share their faith. The best they can do is live their life and hope people will eventually visit their Church.

The sad thing is, I believe we have made it more difficult than it needs to be. Look through Acts. It appears that often just minutes of teaching convinced people of their need to be baptized and become Christians.

In fact, I believe you can teach older kids and teens how to share their faith fairly easily. Yes, they will need practice to become truly comfortable, but understanding what most people need to hear and that they can share that information easily will help.

So here are the basics your students need to feel comfortable saying to others in order to share their faith:

  • Examples of how they have seen God working in their lives and/or the lives of others. They might want to share how God gives them comfort or courage. Or perhaps they want to share about a time God answered “Yes’ to one of their prayers – or when He answered “No” and they realized later how that showed God’s love even more. They don’t need to be professional story tellers. They just need to tell others why they think being a Christian is so important.
  • The basic story of God’s Plan from Creation to the Church. By basic, we mean they should be able to talk about God’s perfect Creation and how Adam and Eve’s sin messed up that perfect plan. They can share how the rest of the Old Testament tells us about the world getting ready for Jesus and contains lots of prophecies so people would know the Messiah when they saw Him. Then they may want to go into more detail about the life of Jesus – especially about his death and resurrection. Finally, they need to tell them about the beginning of the Church after Jesus went back to Heaven.
  • The basics of why we need to become Christians and how to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Yes, some people will need more information. Encourage students to ask for help if they need it. Many however, will be just like the people in Acts. They will only want to know what God wants them to do right now.

If you want more details, feel free to use our free baptism study with leader guide. Giving your students this basic format will make it much more likely they will attempt to share their faith when someone asks them about God, Jesus or Church. Help them build strong foundations so they aren’t afraid to share their faith, merely because they don’t know what to say.

 

Categories Bible, Elementary, Teens
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