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Placing the Children in Jesus Lap: A Case for Leading Children in the Spiritual Disciplines

August 21, 2025
By Dr. Janet K. Ballard

Toddlers gather at His feet. Infants rest in His arms, while parents draw closer to the kind-eyed Savior. They are driven by a sense of urgency—a desperate need to place their little ones in the arms of the gentle Jesus. The parents described in Matthew 19 knew what we too easily forget: spiritual formation is a continuous process that begins at birth and continues throughout our lives. As C. S. Lewis admonishes, spiritual formation begins the moment a child enters this world; their daily formation shapes them into “a creature of splendid glory or one of unthinkable horror” (Mere Christianity).

Rebecca Nye, former Director of Godly Play UK, warns that in response to current ministry approaches, a lot of children seem to grow out of faith rather than into it. Statistically, between 66% and 70% of teens who attend church as children will leave the church for at least one year or forever, according to a new study from Nashville-based Lifeway Research.

The sense of urgency compelling parents to take their children to Jesus has been replaced by a sense of passive complacency. We have replaced an active, engaging experience with a passive, entertainment-focused experience. Video screens and bounce houses lure children into a relationship with Jesus—forgetting that if we lift Him up, they will be drawn to Him.

One way to reverse this trend is to acknowledge the power of introducing spiritual practices to children at the earliest age possible. The 4–14 window is often used to reference the important reality that the average Christian comes to faith in Christ between the ages of 4 and 14 (Child Evangelism Fellowship). Barna research indicates that 43% to 60% of people accept Christ by age 13, supporting Dallas Willard’s admonition that you cannot start too young with children. Spiritual health is essential to faith, childhood, and to being whole (Nye). Similarly, author and atheist Jonathan Haidt notes the insulating value of spiritual practices against the harmful impact of a technology-saturated childhood. Like Nye, Haidt notes the importance of awe and wonder in the life of a child.

Giants of the faith—Foster, Willard, and Comer—repeatedly emphasize the value of the spiritual disciplines to spiritual growth. And yet, according to Barna (2019), only 29% of churches teach them to children. Even more alarming, only 20% of churches instruct parents on how to have spiritual conversations with their children. If the disciplines are essential to spiritual growth and the average person comes to faith between the ages of 4 and 14, should not Christian schools feel compelled to teach them to children, naturally bent toward awe and wonder?

How do we place our children in the arms of a God who is no longer walking among us? By inviting them into an intentional, personal, habitual practice of the spiritual disciplines. Like the parents in Matthew 19, Christian parents and teachers can place the children gently into the lap of a loving God by integrating the spiritual practices into their homes and schools.

Janet K Ballard, Ph.D.
Christ Classical Academy of Charlotte 

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