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Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids QUOTES

Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids QUOTES

1 " They look back and relixe that they learned much about Christian behavior an churchy experiences, but whatever they learned about Jesus didn't really change them. They never saw him so strikingly that he became their one, overriding hope and their greatest love. They were never convinced that Jesus is better - a zillion times better - than anything and everything else. Our goal must be for kids to catch this rock-their-world vision of Jesus. "

― , Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

2 " The good news means you relate to God based on what Jesus has done for you, not what you’ve done to prove yourself worthy. "

― , Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

3 " They look back and realize that they learned much about Christian behavior an churchy experiences, but whatever they learned about Jesus didn't really change them. They never saw him so strikingly that he became their one, overriding hope and their greatest love. They were never convinced that Jesus is better - a zillion times better - than anything and everything else. Our goal must be for kids to catch this rock-their-world vision of Jesus. "

― , Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

4 " Gradually, I saw that Joe's chief purpose was just to let us see Jesus a little bigger and better than we'd seen him before. "

― , Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

5 " the cross of Jesus—not principles for good living—is the engine of the Christian life. "

― , Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

6 " When we focus on good behavior, we end up with kids who worry about impressing God and for whom the good news is an afterthought. "

― , Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

7 " We’ve been dispensing good advice instead of the good news. Eventually, kids will tire of our advice, no matter how good it might be. Many will leave the church. Others will live decent, churchy lives but without any fire for Christ. We’ll wonder why they’ve rejected the good news, because we assumed they were well grounded in it. In fact, they never were. Although we told stories of Jesus and his free grace, we watered it down with self-effort—and that’s what they heard. "

― , Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

8 " Kids do need to respond to Jesus in faith, and the call to do so is part of the good news. But the good news is also more than just “Ask Jesus.” We too easily turn faith into little requirements—like saying a certain prayer—that end up being all about something external we must do. On Pentecost, Peter preached the good news of what Jesus has done (using the Old Testament like Joe did, I might add). He didn’t immediately ask for a behavioral response, but first let that good news lead to a heart response: “Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’” (Acts 2:37) Only then did Peter tell his listeners to repent and be baptized, as a necessary part of what God was already working in them. "

― , Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

9 " The next time you enter your classroom or meet with the youth group or sit down with your kid at the kitchen table, what will you do to be a true minister? How will you, like so many faithful teachers before you, show them Jesus? "

― , Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

10 " A sermon without Christ! As well talk of a loaf of bread without any flour in it. How can it feed the soul? —Charles Spurgeon1 "

― , Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

11 " The message of Jesus’ death and resurrection is a tool of the Spirit to change hearts. Nagging is not. Rather than coax the kids into temporarily acting better, Joe told about Jesus and trusted God to use that message to make the kids become better. "

― , Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

12 " When it comes to teaching the gospel, all of us are clumsy. "

― , Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

13 " Our custom of taking the Bible a verse at a time means that we often miss this pattern. We think there’s doctrine (stuff about what God does for us in Jesus) and instruction (what we must do for God). We fail to see how they’re connected. We ought to teach them together. We should teach the good news with an urgency and expectation that its payoff is good behavior, or else our doctrine will be served cold. And we must teach good behavior only when we show it flowing from the good news, or else kids will choke on moralism. "

― , Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

14 " A good-news teacher must not sugarcoat God’s demands. "

― , Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

15 " The good news does not let Christianity become a guidebook by which kids adjust their lives. "

― , Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

16 " The good news is the Bible’s drumbeat. To ignore it at any point is to misplay the theme song. "

― , Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

17 " Kids will always choose according to their nature, and the conversion from a sinful nature to a reborn-by-the-Spirit one seldom comes by pressing for an external decision. It comes from being convicted of sin, hearing of God’s saving love, and finding delight in the matchless person of Jesus. "

― , Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

18 " In lesson after lesson kids need to see a thousand wonder-filled details that make up the character of Jesus, until they realize, with a gasp, that they have seen the face of God. And God is so, so good. "

― , Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

19 " Jesus’s full saving work, not just his instructions, and that kids will be stuck in the pressure-filled mode of trying to measure up unless we bombard them with this good news. "

― , Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

20 " And we must teach good behavior only when we show it flowing from the good news, or else kids will choke on moralism "

― , Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids