Children and the Gospel

It has been said that the best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else. I would agree with that with one minor caveat. I think the best way to learn something is to teach it to children. Teaching something to a child forces you to take what you know and reformulate it in a way that is understandable to a person with much less knowledge and life experience than you have. You can't rely on cliche's or familiar metaphors because children do not have an understanding of those things. You must break down your material to its most basic form and in order to do that you must know your material intimately.

No where is that more true than the Gospel.

For something that at some levels is so simple, the Gospel of salvation contains some of the most hotly contested and deeply studied aspects of Christian theology.
Not much theologically is more simple than:

1)We are all sinners.
2)Christ died to pay for our sins.
3)Faith in Christ and His work on the cross is the only way to God.

On the other hand, nothing is more apt to divide two believers than their views on salvation.(That sentence is a very sad one, all the more so because it is true.)

Finding the best way to communicate the entire Gospel without completely going over the head of a young child can be challenging.

It also raises some interesting questions.

What are the most important aspects of the Gospel to communicate to children?

What is the best way to teach the Gospel so it is understandable to children without being a watered down version of itself?

Do we know the gospel so intimately that we can communicate it effectively to both mature Christians and to those young in years or young in faith?

Obviously as a children's pastor, these are pretty important questions to me.

Let me know what you think in the comments section below.