Child evangelism movement

Last updated December 07, 2023

The child evangelism movement is an American Christian evangelism movement founded in 1937 by Jesse Irvin Overholtzer, who founded the Christian organization Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF). It focuses on the 4/14 window, which centers on evangelizing children between the ages of 4 and 14 years.^[1] The movement focuses on targeting children, as they are considered both the most receptive to evangelization and the most effective at evangelizing their peer group, with groups supportive of the initiative arguing for the need to refocus evangelization efforts on the 4-14 age group worldwide.^[2]

Strategy and history

Age at conversion (1996)^[3]
Before age 6	6%
Ages 6–9	24%
Ages 10–12	26%
Ages 13–14	15%
Ages 15–19	10%
Ages 20 and over	19%

In April 1994, a two-day conference held by Awana Clubs International in Streamwood, Illinois hosted children's ministry leaders from 54 organizations, focusing on ways to evangelize children between the ages of 4 and 14. The conference was sponsored by Christianity Today International, along with six other groups co-sponsoring the event.^[4]

A survey conducted in 1995–1996 by the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary found that 71% of Christians in the US converted before the age of 14.^[3]

In 2003, George Barna published the results of his research, showing that children were the most important population segment to minister to, as they were considered the most likely to absorb spiritual teaching due to developmental vulnerability. Barna argued that a child's moral development was "set" by the age of nine, in contrast to the tactics of many churches focusing on teaching older children.^[5] Barna wrote that "habits related to the practice of one's faith develop when one is young and change surprisingly little over time", and that "the older a child gets, the more distracted and vulnerable he or she becomes" to what he described as "nonfamily influences".^[6] Barna also found that children who converted to Christianity before their teenage years were more likely to remain "absolutely committed" to Christianity.^[7]

In 2004, at the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization in Thailand, a group of Christian evangelists examined the state of evangelism among children. The Lausanne committee published a paper^[8] arguing that evangelists should target children under 14 in the global South for conversion, and created the Aim Lower^[9] initiative.^[10]^[11]^[12]

In 2005, Christian relief organization World Vision declared the child evangelism movement "very important" in the 21st century.^[13] Dan Brewster, a director of World Vision, argued in a paper in 2005 that "The poor and exploited tend to be much more receptive to the Gospel", and that children and young people should be targeted in areas where disease, poverty and conflict have disrupted their lives. The paper included basic ethical considerations, such as not evangelising children without parental consent, or where their families are entirely dependent on Christian charities for financial or material support, or in a way that disparages their local culture.^[13]

4/14 window

The 4/14 window was originally conceived by Bryant Myers of World Vision and later popularized by Christian missionary strategist Luis Bush, who also coined the term 10/40 window. The 4/14 window is a subset of the child evangelism movement, focused on evangelizing children between the ages of 4 and 14 years old.^[2] Bush commented in the Christian Post in 2009 that "Mission strategies developed for the 4/14 Window would be implemented by parents, pastors and other role model figures who play key roles in shaping a child's worldview."^[14]

Criticism

Proponents of the 4/14 window encourage children from the age of four to be converted to Christianity. Evangelists often use techniques such as a Wordless Book to communicate religious concepts to children too young to read. Critics of this practice argue that children too young to read for themselves are too young to be able to make informed, independent decisions about religion; in the same vein, some Christian authors are critical of the use of altar calls,^[15] wherein those who wish to make a new spiritual commitment to Jesus and the Christian faith are invited to come forward publicly. Some theologians argue that altar calls may give converts a false understanding of religious salvation.^[16] Theologian Randal Rauser has criticized the practice of "conversionism," which emphasizes immediate change in religion, rather than a gradual transformation of life and belief. He has also criticized the targeting of young children, who can be "easily manipulated" into confessing belief in things they do not understand to please adults.^[17]

Protestant criticism has expressed concern that young converts grow up to have a false understanding of the religion, and that widespread secularisation of Europe and North America is the product of false conversions in childhood.^[18]^[19] John F. MacArthur has been critical of evangelists coercing a profession of faith from children, especially when the evangelist oversimplifies parts of the religion in order to get a large number of children to "convert", in response to a formulaic presentation light on details of the faith.^[20]

In the 19th century, the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer argued that teaching some ideas to children at a young age could foster resistance to doubting those ideas later on.^[21]

In her 2012 book The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children, journalist Katherine Stewart criticized various practices of the 'Good News Club' after-school Bible study program, including young participants being rewarded for recruiting friends of other faiths and denominations whose parents have not enrolled them in the program. She argued that children in schools were encouraged to bully children who did not share their faith.^[22] Stewart has also criticised the efforts of politically conservative biblical literalists to convert young children to forms of Christian belief that advocate a literal reading of Old Testament narratives; in 2013, Stewart argued that biblical literalists teach children to read from the Old Testament in order to understand the divinely-ordered extermination of the Amalekites as used to justify genocide.^[23]^[24]^[25] In response, the Childhood Evangelism Foundation stated that they encouraged a literal reading of the extermination of the Amalekites, but did not encourage children to view it as an endorsement of historical or current genocides.^[26]

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References

↑ Luis Bush (June 18, 2013). "4/14 Window - a Golden Age of Opportunity" (PDF). 4/14 Movement. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 14, 2013.
1 2 Luis Bush (18 June 2013). "Raising Up a New Generation from the 4-14 Window to Transform the World" (PDF). 4/14 Movement. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 October 2013.
1 2 Thom Rainer (December 19, 1997). "The Great Commission to Reach a New Generation" (PDF). Southern Baptist Journal of Theology . Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2011-12-24. Retrieved 2014-05-24.
↑ "The 4-14 Window New push on child evangelism targets the crucial early years. By John W. Kennedy". Archived from the original on 2013-10-28. Retrieved 2013-10-13.
↑ Noel B. Woodbridge (2003). "Review of George Barna, Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 May 2018. Retrieved 23 May 2014.
↑ David Mays. "Book notes - TRANSFORMING CHILDREN INTO SPIRITUAL CHAMPIONS". Archived from the original on 2014-05-23. Retrieved 2014-05-23.
↑ "Evangelism Is Most Effective Among Kids". Barna Research. October 11, 2004. Archived from the original on May 23, 2014. Retrieved May 23, 2014.
↑ "Lausanne-Themenheft Nr. 47 - den Kindern eine Chance!". 15 April 2009.
↑ "Compare prices from many stores on computers, electronics, and more". www.aimlower.com. Archived from the original on 2000-11-10.
↑ "lausanne LOP47 2004" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2013-10-21. Retrieved 2013-10-13.
↑ Evangelism among Children - Lousanne Forum
↑ "Aim Lower". Archived from the original on 2014-05-23. Retrieved 23 May 2014.
1 2 Dan Brewster (August 2005). "THE "4/14 WINDOW" - Child Ministries and Mission Strategies" (PDF). Compassion International.
↑ "Mission Strategist: New Focus Should be on 4/14 Window By Michelle A. Vu, Christian Post Reporter September 9, 2009". Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved May 23, 2014.
↑ "1 www.9marks.org". Archived from the original on 2008-10-30. Retrieved 2019-10-04.
↑ Laurence A. Justice. "Why We Don't Use The Altar Call". Victory Baptist Church. Archived from the original on 2014-03-28.
↑ Randal Rauser (28 March 2014). "Fundraising and the ethics of child evangelism". Archived from the original on 2014-05-20. Retrieved 2014-05-20.
↑ Kent Allan Philpott. "Are You Really Born Again? - How False Conversions Occur". Archived from the original on 2014-08-28. Retrieved 2014-05-20. As a child, I "accepted" Jesus many times. I remember Mrs. B, who conducted vacation Bible schools every summer in the Portland, Oregon, neighborhood where I grew up. She was a large person with a big voice and aggressive ways. She would gather up the children and take us to her house for Bible stories, songs, biscuits, and a fizzy drink. I recall the black, red, and white felt hearts displayed on the flannel boards she had set up in her living room—one felt heart laid on top of the next. First, there was the black heart, the sinful heart which we did not want, since we could not go to heaven with a black heart. Next, there was the red heart, which was formerly the black heart, but now it was coated with the blood of Jesus. Then there was the white heart, the one we wanted, since we could not go to heaven and be with Jesus unless we had a white heart. There was not one child who did not want a white heart, so we prayed to be washed in the blood of Jesus. Mrs. B made sure every one of us prayed; every summer my brothers and I would pray for a white heart so we could go to heaven. I believe what my brothers and I experienced were introjections rather than conversions. Introjections occur when someone, in the presence of a powerful person or group, feels very anxious and reduces his anxiety by conforming to the expectations of that person or group. He does not realize that his new beliefs are motivated by an unconscious desire to relieve the tension produced by anxiety. Mrs. B wanted to make sure we would go to heaven—so she scared the wits out of us! If we did not have a white heart we would go to hell. As children, we were scared not only that we would disappoint Mrs. B but that we would also burn in the devil's hell. As a result, she racked up a good number of "conversions."
↑ "'The leavers' - Kent Philpott". Evangelical Times. February 2011. Archived from the original on 2016-03-31. Retrieved 2014-05-20. As a pastor, I was very good at getting confessions of faith out of kids. At Bible camps, I could get every boy and girl up front praying the sinner's prayer. What about those kids later on, when they got to be 20- and 30-somethings? Might some of them have walked away from Christianity, to be counted among the de-converted? They had been told as children that they were now Christians and needed only to be baptised and join the church. Many did, and some may have been genuinely converted, but I suspect many were not. They must walk away at some point, for to be in a church in their state would be uncomfortable at best.
↑ "Common Pitfalls in Evangelizing Children". Grace community church. 2004. Archived from the original on 2016-11-20. Retrieved 2019-01-13.
↑ "And as the capacity for believing is strongest in childhood, special care is taken to make sure of this tender age. This has much more to do with the doctrines of belief taking root than threats and reports of miracles. If, in early childhood, certain fundamental views and doctrines are paraded with unusual solemnity, and an air of the greatest earnestness never before visible in anything else; if, at the same time, the possibility of a doubt about them be completely passed over, or touched upon only to indicate that doubt is the first step to eternal perdition, the resulting impression will be so deep that, as a rule, that is, in almost every case, doubt about them will be almost as impossible as doubt about one's own existence."- Arthur Schopenhauer -On Religion: A Dialogue
↑ Beth Hawkins (22 June 2012). "Katherine Stewart: How Christian clubs in schools turned into faith-based bullying". MinnPost. Archived from the original on 2014-05-20. Retrieved 2014-05-20.
↑ Katherine Stewart (Mar 12, 2013). "Do Evangelical Kids' Clubs Deserve Freedom of Speech in Public Schools?". The Atlantic.
↑ Pongracz, Linda (2011). David: A Man After God's Heart. CEF Press. Archived from the original on 2012-06-02. Retrieved 2012-05-15.
↑ Stewart, Katherine (2012-05-30). "How Christian fundamentalists plan to teach genocide to schoolchildren". London: The Guardian (UK). Archived from the original on 2013-10-12. Retrieved 2012-06-13.
↑ Kauffman, Reese (2012-06-11). "The proper teaching of the story of Saul and the Amalekites". London: The Guardian (UK). Archived from the original on 2014-05-21. Retrieved 2012-06-11.