How to Explain Baptism to a Child

Nobody warned you there would be a baptism in the service. So your six year old watches a grown woman get lowered backward into a tank of water in front of four hundred people, and she takes hold of your sleeve, and she is not whispering. “Is she okay? Why did they do that to her?”

Most of us end up learning how to explain baptism to a child on about four seconds’ notice, in a pew, with the band already starting the next song. Here is the plain version, along with the two follow-up questions that are considerably harder than the first one.

The sentence for right now

“That’s baptism. The water is a picture of Jesus washing her clean and giving her a brand new life. I’ll tell you the rest at lunch.”

It is true, it is short, and it will hold until you are out of the building.

What the picture is showing

Baptism is a symbol, and children handle symbols better than we expect if we give them a familiar one first. Lifeway Women’s guide for parents suggests starting with something ordinary: the red mark on the faucet stands for hot water and the blue mark stands for cold. The mark is not the water. It tells you what is there.

Then you can explain what this particular picture shows, which is a burial and a resurrection. Paul put it this way: “We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).

Going down under the water is the burial part. Coming back up is the rising part. Lifeway’s article calls it something like an Easter play, replaying what happened to Jesus in his death, burial, and resurrection. Kids who have been in a Christmas pageant understand that instantly.

“Why didn’t we do it like that?”

Christians have practiced baptism differently for a very long time. Some churches immerse, some pour or sprinkle. Some baptize babies, trusting God’s promise over a child raised in the church, and some wait until a person can say for themselves what they believe. These are real differences held by serious people who love Jesus.

What a child needs from you is not a verdict on the other churches. It is honesty and a little confidence: “Christians all agree baptism matters and that it belongs to Jesus. They’ve disagreed for hundreds of years about how much water and when. Our church does it this way, and here’s why we think so.”

“Can I get baptized?”

This is the one that catches parents flat, usually in the car, usually about eleven minutes after the first question.

Do not say yes on the spot, and do not brush it off. Say, “Tell me more about why you want to.” Then listen properly. Ask what they think it means, and whether they could say in their own words who Jesus is and what he did. If the answer is mostly about a friend who did it last month, that is worth knowing, and it is still a door to walk through together rather than close.

Then take it to your pastor or children’s minister. That is not passing the buck. It is showing your child you took the question more seriously than they expected you to, which is its own kind of answer.

A child asking about baptism is good news. Treat it that way, even while you slow it down.

Jesus went first

The detail worth saving for last is that Jesus was baptized before he had done any of it. Before the teaching, before the miracles, before anyone followed him anywhere.

He came up out of the water, the Spirit came down like a dove, “and a voice from heaven said, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!’” (Matthew 3:17).

The approval came first. Children who are already quietly keeping score of their own performance need to hear that one out loud.

The same answer at four different ages

• 2 to 3: “The water is a picture. It means Jesus loves her and made her clean.”
• 4 to 6: Add the motion. She went down like Jesus going into the grave, and came up like Jesus coming back alive.
• 7 to 8: Add that Jesus was baptized too, in a river, and that God’s voice said he was loved before he had done anything at all.
• 8 and up: Add Romans 6 and the honest fact that churches differ on when and how. Older kids find that reassuring rather than unsettling.

Before next Sunday

Say your one sentence out loud once this week, so you are not inventing it in a pew. Then, if your child was baptized as a baby, find the photo tonight and tell them the date, who held them, and what you promised in front of everyone. A story with their name in it beats a definition.

A Man Called John the Baptist is one of the 82 stories in Bedtime Bible Stories, told four separate times so a three year old and a ten year old each get a version built for them, with three discussion questions to carry it further.