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7 Things You Must Do To Help Kids Receive the Holy Spirit
Pentecost Sunday is coming soon.
Are you going to give your kids an opportunity to receive the Holy Spirit?
Some people think getting kids filled with the Holy Spirit is complicated.
I’ve seen many vague altar calls for the Holy Spirit. Many times, the speaker does not even teach about the Holy Spirit, but they invite kids to come up front to be filled simply because they are at Camp.
Kids can leave the altar confused. If this happens several times, kids will develop a negative expectancy—like faith in reverse. They come forward, but they don’t believe anything will happen.
Here are seven things you must do to help children receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
- Teach on it.
Preaching about the baptism of the Holy Spirit brings faith, and you want children to come in faith. (I only give altar calls for infilling the Holy Spirit when I teach about it.) - Be positive.
Speak faith-filled, positive words.
“You will receive the Holy Spirit today.”
It’s not your responsibility to fill kids with the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “If we ask the Father for the Holy Spirit, he will give him to us.” You can trust Jesus to keep his promise. - Invite Children who want to receive the Holy Spirit to come forward.
By coming forward, they are putting their faith into action.
Invite children who are filled with the Holy Spirit but have not prayed in tongues for a long time to come forward. (Many times, these kids are the first to pray in tongues, and that helps the other kids have faith to receive.) - Tell the kids to “listen to your heart.”
“You will hear strange words in another language that your head doesn’t understand. This is normal.”
This is what the Apostle Paul said about praying in tongues:
“For if I pray in tongues, my spirit is praying, but I don’t understand what I am saying.” - Speak the words that you hear.
Some people think that the Holy Spirit is going to grab your tongue and make you talk in tongues, but that is not what happens.
In the book of Acts, the disciples were the ones who spoke in tongues. The Holy Spirit gives you the words, but you have to speak them out.
“All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” - Lead the kids in a group prayer, something like this:
“Father, I am born again. Jesus is my Lord. I am a new creature in Christ, and I’m grateful for that, but there is more. I desire to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. I believe I will receive the Holy Spirit today.” - Ask others who are filled with the Spirit to help you lay hands on the kids.
Make sure everybody has someone to pray with them.
At the conclusion of your group prayer, lay hands on the kids and begin to pray in tongues yourself.
Before releasing kids, I encourage them to take five or ten minutes to pray in tongues every day.
I let them know that they don’t need a special feeling to pray in tongues and that they can do it at home, too.
Then I say:
“Let me show you—when I say, ‘Praise the Lord,’ I want everyone to pray in tongues.”
I do this to show the kids that they can choose to pray in tongues, just like the Apostle Paul did.
Paul said:
“I will pray in the Spirit, and I will pray with my understanding” (1 Cor 14:15).
When I first started praying with kids to receive the Holy Spirit, I was afraid. I thought,
“What if it doesn’t work?”
“What if nobody speaks in tongues?”
You may have these same thoughts, but don’t let them stop you.
Your part is to teach the kids and ask the Father to fill them with the Holy Spirit. Then, trust the Holy Spirit to do His part.
We have written several curricula to teach kids about the Holy Spirit. I know this teaching works. Thousands of kids have been filled with the Spirit over the years.
Check it out for yourself:
