OQ - Is My Kid Ready to Be Baptized?

0:00Speaker 1:You're listening to the Family Discipleship Podcast. Welcome to the Family Discipleship Podcast. This is Cassie Bryant. Our podcast exists to equip and encourage Christian parents to lead their families. We now post full length episodes every other week all year long, but every once in a while we'll post an episode answering one question from a listener. Today's question is how do I know if my kid is ready for baptism? I will say, in my twenty years of ministry, this question doesn't stop getting asked. And it's a beautiful question because it's a parent who's being intentional with their kid, discipling their kids, sharing the gospel. And usually the question kind of stems from now the kid is showing some readiness, some eagerness to follow Jesus, some profession and confession of faith, and maybe has witnessed baptism and is asking if they can be baptized, And so it's a beautiful thing. It speaks to your child having witness transformation, having witnessed a baptism or many baptisms, and having been taught doctrine and taught about Jesus. And so of course children are going to ask these questions, and I think many children their

1:23Speaker 1:hearts are ripe for salvation. They're eager in their sense of wondering and their development to learn more and to want to follow. And so it can be tricky to discern a regenerate heart and a child, and it can be tricky to know and have peace about when you feel like your kid is ready. And so all that to say, I love answering this question. I hope that this ten minute episode will be helpful to those parents out there asking these questions. If you want more from this, we do have an episode in one of our earlier seasons which if we have show notes for this episode, maybe we can put that in the show notes so that you can learn more. But while all say, in short is this. In the Gospels, we see Jesus say let the children come to Me, which I truly believe means that children can come to Jesus, they can profess genuine faith at an early age, and they can be ready for baptism and that public profession. I also think that it is right and good to have a period of waiting and of instruction and teaching and really calling out fruit and a child the fruit of salvation, that fruit of the spirit that you see and kind of

2:33Speaker 1:fan into flame that young faith and kind of see if it is indeed a genuine profession, or if it might have been a moment of emotionalism or excitement about a friend professing faith or being baptized. And so I do think that it is a good thing to be cautious about, because you do want them to be ready, and you want them to have been taught about baptism rightly. And so I think that as a parent, there are a couple things that you can do. First, I would ask your child to articulate for you who Jesus is, who Jesus is to them what they know about Jesus.

3:14Speaker 1:I would ask them what they understand about sin and their sin nature. And then I would ask them to think about what marks a difference in their life of before knowing about Jesus or having believed in Jesus and after and so kind of that what we would call maybe repentance, or that turning of an old life to a new life. And so ask and see if they can identify what might be different, and if they can't, you might be able to identify that as their parent and if you can't yet, if it's still early, then you can start kind of looking for those signs of repentance.

3:51Speaker 1:Knowing that any child, any baby believer, even an adult baby believer, is going to stumble through those early months, early years of safe as they learn what it means to be a disciple and as they mature in Christ. And so expect your child to keep sending, expect your child to keep having, you know, lapses in judgment or you know, whatever it is that might be concerning you. The concern and the discipleship and parenting doesn't stop once they profess faith. It really just kind of it changes in some ways, and you keep you really just kind of buckle down and you disciple even more, and you keep calling them up into what it means to become a mature believer in Christ. And so I would say those are some good places to start in those questions, asking, so who is Jesus to them? What is sin? And do they have a good understanding of kind of their sin nature? And then how would they articulate the difference in their life from before they believed in Jesus in our professing faith, to now after their believing in Jesus and professing faith we have at our church which we've made available before on the podcast and can happily send

4:56Speaker 1:it anybody's way. But there is a helpful curriculum we walk our families through called belong Finding your Place in God's Story, and it really just helps kids understand the big story of scripture, like the meta narrative all the way down to a personal story what it means to be invited into the Family of God. Talks about the wrath of sin, being absorbed on the cross by Christ and then his defeat of sin and death when he rose again. So kind of walks through an object lesson through the Gospel and is a really good launching pad for our kids. And that's something that we would say kids once they're writing and can kind of do some homework, so third grade probably through fifth grade, that's a really sweet age for kids to be kind of learning some of those things and start wondering and asking questions if they identify or are feeling called to become part of the Family of God, if they feel excited and eager to do that. Another thing I would say is that you want to really be cautious that we don't quench that excitement that they have. We don't want to quench their curiosity. We don't want to quinch their excitement to

6:01Speaker 1:follow Jesus. We want them to stay excited. And we don't want to tell them you're too young or you're not ready. We don't want to be quick to shut it down. We do want to be quick to ask questions and be curious with them and tell them, just like there's a right time to drive a car, or to get a phone or kind of whatever, those you know, maybe more worldly milestones are there's the right time for us to publicly profess our faith when we kind of understand the weight of what that means and what we're doing.

6:28Speaker 1:And so it's a good thing to have to wait for and to anticipate with excitement, and then it's a really good thing to mark as a milestone. And so that would be the other thing I would say, the flip sign of your child's readiness is your readiness is a parent to disciple your kid as a believer and to continue on that growth journey with them in a way that because I think what I often hear from parents is I'm just so worried that my kid will get baptized in their young twenties or mid twenties. I'm going to get invited to their quote unquote real baptism.

7:07Speaker 1:And I will often tell parents, if that is the worst case scenario, then that's okay. It's okay. If maybe they look back and think they were too young or you're invited lead to a different expression of that, but that's not a good enough reason to keep them from a good thing now, because that's kind of more fear driven and regret driven than wisdom driven. And so I would say, don't be afraid of that. And I do think something that can help prevent that for any parents who have gone through with baptism for their children who's professed faith is just an ongoing calling them up and reminding them of their baptism, reminding them of their identity in Christ, reminding them that the old is washed away, the old has been dealt with in Christ, and the new is here. So no, no, no, don't remember that's old you. That is flesh you, And now you're in Christ.

8:04Speaker 1:Do you have the Holy Spirit? So we're going to call you to walk in those fruit of the spirit. And so you're going to keep reminding them of that baptism so that it doesn't maybe feel so foreign to them when they get to college and maybe have an encounter a new, different type of encounter with Christ or with the church. And so if we're ongoingly reminding them of their baptism, pointing it back as a milestone, maybe celebrating it every year as like an anniversary, one way you could do it is like, these are the fruit of spirit we've seen you grow in this year. Here are the things we're hoping God doesn't this next year, just like you would maybe on a birthday. If you're talking about their baptism and they're belonging to the Family of God in an ongoing way, then I think you'll find that when maybe are less likely to see a decade or fifteen years pass and then them kind of get back in waters and say I didn't really understand, or I wasn't discipled, or I maybe didn't have a genuine and face, But now I do, And I think it's more so that maybe they just weren't discipled in between those two, you know, milestones, and so who I mean,

9:09Speaker 1:I know there are different stories in different situations, but that's just something I've observed in my twenty years of ministry, and I've been curious about as we kind of are raising this next generation of kids. If we do a good job of calling them up and reminding them of that baptism and their identity in Christ, then maybe they won't feel so insecure in that faith that they feel the need to have a second public profession. And so just a friendly reminder that salvation is only a gift God can give, and that the weight of baptism, while it is a beautiful step of obedience and a beautiful milestone, the weight of it it doesn't feel as heavy when we acknowledge and tell our kids that it's not salvafick.

9:54Speaker 1:And so our kids maybe don't feel that sense of urgency when they know, oh, I can follow Jesus and be saved and not get baptized right away. It's not one or the other. It doesn't mean that I'm not following Jesus. It just means I'm maybe not ready to tell a big room of people that I'm following Jesus. I maybe need to wait and work this out and work my testimony out before getting in those baptism waters. And so it really helps when we tell kids and remind them that baptism itself is symbolic, not solve efic.

10:25Speaker 1:And so something my daughter asked before she was baptized but had professed faith. We waited probably two years with her, and she was like, does this mean I'm not I don't belong to Jesus if I'm not baptized. And something that I did is I took off my wedding ring and I asked her, does this mean I'm not married to your dad? And she kind of laughed and was like, no, I'm like, exactly, I'm still married to your dad. But what tells everyone around me that I'm married to your dad is this ring. So when it's on and when I'm wearing it, it is a public statement. It is an outward showing of my belonging to our family through that marriage and that relationship with your dad. And so it was helpful for her to recognize it as a symbolic thing and an outward action, but not necessarily something that means that is like a seal on her heart or her salvation. And so I think that as a very helpful way to help kids take that sense of urgency and wait off if they're feeling excited or feeling like that sense of urgency to go with go through with baptism. So hopefully, for those of you out there asking this question, you have a church or a family

11:31Speaker 1:of believers that you can help process this. With the family Escapish a podcast, we're happy to answer questions that you have, any ongoing questions you might have about baptism and children's readiness for baptism, and hopefully this little Q and A it was helpful for you for the time that we've had together. Have a great week, and we'll see you next time.