Gospel Conversations: Age 5

November 07, 2025

What Is the Gospel Conversations Step?

One of the greatest privileges as a parent is to help your child trust in Jesus as their personal Savior. Ages vary, but around the age of five is a great time to deliberately plant seeds of biblical truth to help a child understand the gospel. This is why we’ve created the Gospel Conversations step on the Faith Path. As the primary spiritual guide of your child, your goal should be to lead him/her to understand the gospel and make a faith decision when ready. The emphasis here is when your child is ready. God’s timing is perfect. Plant seeds and pray for your child to understand the gospel in God’s perfect timing.

Like many parents, you may not quite know how or when to approach this exciting yet intimidating moment of parenthood. Maybe you worry that you won’t explain the gospel properly, or you’re tempted to just “leave it to the professionals” by relying on church or ministry events. While that’s understandable, God has given you the most important and influential role when it comes to leading your child to Jesus.

Put It Into Practice

Here are five basic steps to help you feel more comfortable about the process when the time comes: 

Step One: Lay a Foundation

Your child grows in his/her understanding of God by developing a foundation—hearing stories from the Bible, learning Scripture, singing about Jesus, and so forth. Your child also learns by experiencing life in your home, watching your example, feeling your love, and learning right from wrong.

We see this in Deuteronomy 6:6-7 where it says, “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” 

Step Two: Discern Readiness

Do your best to discern when your child is mature enough to put the pieces together. Avoid the temptation to push for a decision before he/she is ready to truly grasp the gospel. Your child may intellectually understand before being socially or spiritually ready. Young children are usually bonded to their parents in such a way that they want to please them and do not have a full sense of a separate self. A child needs to understand that this is a personal decision and not just an opportunity to repeat rote answers. 

Step Three: Ask Questions

If you feel your child might be ready, ask a few questions to help gauge his/her level of understanding. For example, read Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.” Then ask questions like, “What is sin?” “How does your sin affect your relationship to God?”

Your child’s response can help you sense when he/she is ready to understand the key cornerstone of salvation: Jesus as Savior. The need for forgiveness and cleansing from sin, made possible through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, offers us the gift of eternal life.

Step Four: Guide Your Child in Prayer

Romans 10:9 says, “… if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” If you sense your child has a basic understanding of what sin is, as well as what it means to accept God’s gift of salvation, then you can guide him/her to pray along those lines. Instead of quoting specific words for your child to repeat, it’s best to prompt your child to use his/her own words. 

Step Five: Prepare for the Next Steps

Once your child has trusted Christ, you can begin the wonderful privilege of guiding his/her next steps of faith. Topics like Bible reading, prayer, baptism, worship, and even going to church now have new meaning and relevance. You have the joy of modeling, teaching, and walking alongside them as they learn to trust, obey, and follow Jesus.

After your child has made this decision, baptism is a step of obedience in their new life in Jesus. When you and your child are ready to take the next step, register for an upcoming Family Baptism Celebration. We offer a baptism class that you attend with your child to help him/her understand this decision and what water baptism is all about.

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