Child evangelism movement

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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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". Barna also found that children who converted to Christianity before their teenage years were more likely to remain "absolutely committed" to Christianity. In 2004, at the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization in Thailand, a group of Christian evangelists examined the state of evangelism among children.