Challenge 26
Share the good news together
It’s good to share 🙂
I hope you have enjoyed sharing many good things with your children over the last few weeks. What a wonderful privilege it is to be able to share! Perhaps one of the most vital things we can do as Christian parents is to share the good news of Jesus with our children.
As we have already mentioned, (and you know anyway!), we do this with our words and with our actions.
Today’s challenge is in two separate parts, which you will have to choose from. The first part is for you if your children haven’t yet decided to follow the Lord. The second part is for you if your children are already walking with God.
If some of your children are following the Lord and some aren’t, you might need to do both parts of the challenge.
Sharing the good news with your children
This part of today’s challenge is for you if your children have not yet made a commitment to Christ for themselves. Maybe they go to church with you and know many Bible stories, and maybe you pray together regularly. If so, today is a great day for explaining the gospel to them clearly, that Jesus died for them, and that if they ask the Lord into their lives, they can begin a life of walking with Him. If you’re not sure where to begin, get some advice – there’s plenty online, or ask your youth worker or your children’s Sunday School teacher.
If your child used to follow Christ, and has now dropped away from church, or perhaps never really followed the Lord, why not take the time today to share a bit of your own testimony of how the Lord has helped you in your life? Or perhaps you could offer to pray for them, perhaps for a challenge they are currently facing? If you get the opportunity to share more of the reasons why Jesus came, go for it!
If you would like to take a more subtle approach, why not buy your children a Christian book? You could choose a non-fiction book, or perhaps a story where one of the characters becomes a Christian? At Dernier we have several for older children – check out our website: http://www.dernierpublishing.com You can also search for suitable books at your local Christian bookshop.
As with any outreach, the outcome is with the Lord, but the responsibility to sow seeds is with us – let’s take up this amazing privilege and awesome responsibility today.
If your children are already following Jesus
If your children are already walking with the Lord, that’s absolutely brilliant! Today’s challenge for you, if this is the case, is to work together to share the good news with someone else!
Here are some ideas:
Lend a Christian book to a friend.
Buy some books/tracts to give away.
Get involved in an evangelism project at church.
Pop in to someone on the fringes of church and offer to pray with them.
Make a card with a verse on it to give away.
Take a home-made cake to a neighbour.
Pray for the person together before you begin – you just never know what the Lord will do, which is so exciting!
There are so many more ideas – you are sure to find something just perfect for you. And don’t forget to water the whole thing with prayer – we must do our bit, but it is the Lord who touches hearts and minds.
Feel too stage-managed?
How can you just share the good news to order, surely you have to wait for the right moment?
If you feel uncomfortable about doing this, by all means leave out today’s challenge. But maybe this is how it should be? The writer to the Hebrews said, “Consider how you can spur one another on to love and good deeds.” Perhaps today is one of those excellent opportunities!
And if not now, when? Time flies past so quickly . . . and as we don’t know what tomorrow will bring, I can’t help feeling that today is as good a day as any to share the good news.
Over to you!
Decide which of the steps you will follow today. If you’re not absolutely certain that your child is following the Lord, make that your first priority.
If you are following the first step:
Write in your notebook some ideas of how you will approach your children – time, place and what you will say/how you will say it.
Pray, then go, to each child separately if appropriate.
If you are following the second step:
Write in your notebook some ideas of people that you or your child could reach out to.
Find your children and talk and pray about your ideas. Choose a person together to reach out to.
Decide what you will do, and either do it or take the first step.
Whichever stop you follow, do let us know how it went: Come over to the Christian Parenting Challenge facebook page!
“’Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will send you out to fish for people.’” Matthew 4:19
For the future:
Make the most of every opportunity to share the good news.
Christian Parenting Challenge 