Already His

At the font, the church confesses that God has made this child his own. An hour later, a Sunday school lesson may ask another baptized child to make the decision that will finally bring him in. The volunteer means well. The material looks biblical. But the classroom has begun to contradict the font.

Already His asks what changes when parents and teachers begin where God began. The baptized child needs to be taught whose he is, what his Lord has given him, and how to return to that gift in daily repentance. Assurance rests in God’s word joined to water, rather than in the remembered sincerity of a childhood prayer.

Across twelve chapters, Larry Herzog Jr. moves from Baptism and the faith of little children to the revivalist methods that shape much of American children’s ministry, then to the ordinary work of Christian nurture: the catechism at the kitchen table, Sunday school under the pastor’s oversight, VBS, preparation for the Lord’s Supper, and the sorrow of a child who wanders. The book offers theological grounding and practical guidance for the people already doing this work.