Jackie Hill Perry Needs Some Kids Church Training

6 reasons not to say it (even if it were true)

Jul 14, 2025

If you haven’t seen it, Jackie Hill Perry posted a clip, seemingly with some humorous intent, of herself talking to a group of children on Easter. In it, she tells the kids “You deserve to die. Because you are sinners.” and tells them this has nothing to do with candy, bunnies or treats, making them repeat “This has everything to do with Jesus.”

I don’t know who the kids are or what relationship she has to them. But I do know that she is not good at talking with kids about Easter. And while I rarely enter the fray of quick-response commentary on social media happenings, this felt important.

Whew Jackie. You need some Kids Church training.

So, here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m actually not going to spend my time telling you why that statement—”You deserve to die”—is, in my opinion, theologically poor.

I’m actually gonna go ahead and do this *as if* your theology was right. *As if* that statement is the truth.

And now you are standing in front of a group of kids on Easter.

And this was still the wrong approach, theology aside. You still shouldn’t have said it. And some of the other things you said, for that matter. And I’d love to briefly explain why not.

You shouldn’t have said it because it’s a conclusion.

And when it comes to kids and faith, we want to give them conversations, not conclusions. Why is that the truth? Show your work and show your work in a way that those kids are invited in, to give their opinions and ask their questions.

You started off that way—who rose from the dead? What does that mean? But then, you made the mistake so many adults make. You stopped asking questions, and changed it from a conversation to conclusion—you deserve to die.

And you can tell how it hit because everyone online is noticing the kid who said, “That was a lot”. It was a lot, in part because you stopped letting the kids talk with you and you talked at them.

You shouldn’t have said it because you’ve made it all too big.

You have too many stories and concepts happening all at once. You have the story of Jesus’s resurrection, but Jesus‘ death is actually a different story for a kid.

You make the statement “Jesus defeated death.” That would’ve been a great place to stop! Yes! Jesus defeated death. Ask them: What does that mean? What are we celebrating if Jesus defeated death?

But now, you have too many things happening at once. You have Jesus defeating death, you have kids deserve to die, you may have substitution. That’s too big. If you wanna make these points, you gotta make it smaller, spread them out, make each one their own conversation. Pair each of those statements with one Bible story.

Three, you missed an opportunity to connect the joy of celebration to the joy of Jesus’ resurrection.

You negated the celebratory elements of Easter. So the candy and the bunnies and all the fun things, you implied that kid should feel bad if they like those too much. That it means they missed the point.

But the opportunity is actually to link those things to Jesus. To say, “Because we are full of joy and celebration, we add all these extras in, like sprinkles on ice cream.”

Nobody’s all that excited by a spoonful of sprinkles. But throw some sprinkles on some ice cream, that’s pretty great stuff. You don’t need to negate the bunnies in the chocolate. You need to help kids see that those little things are just glimpses of the greater thing.

You shouldn’t have said that because it’s loaded.

You just left 100 questions hanging in the air and bailed out instead of staying with these kids to answer them. If you have something loaded to say to kids, warn them it’s big, tell them, then ask them what they are thinking or feeling.

I can’t tell from the context of this clip how you came to be with this particular group of kids. But I guarantee there is no way you know the details of each of their stories. You don’t know what they carry into that space. You don’t know what their experiences are, to know when you say something like that, what will happen in them.

Which brings me to…

You shouldn’t have said it because it’s scary.

Again, I’m gonna leave whether or not it’s true aside. Even if it’s true, it’s scary.

Faith for children does not grow in the soil of fear. When we use fear with children, we communicate that there is no reason to run to Jesus on his own unless we are running away from something awful. And there are so many good reasons to run to Jesus.

Using fear when talking with children about faith sends the message that Jesus is not worth running to on his own.

See, you never want to be someone who says something that causes a parent to have to say, “I know Jackie said that, but…” Because even if it were true, it’s loaded, scary, and controversial. That’s not your place when it’s not your kid.

Instead, anytime an adult has the privilege (and it is, absolutely, a gift that you get to be with them) of being with kids who are not their own, they need to say something true, at their level, that a family can build on later.

And finally, you shouldn’t have posted that as a joke, because it’s not funny.

As it is, kids are already pushed aside, overlooked, and given scraps by churches. You were winging it in this clip. You haven’t done this much, and it shows. These lovely young image bearers who Jesus only ever spoke of with honor do not deserve to be given flippant remarks and then dismissed. Kids are nobody’s punchline in the kingdom.

Kids are nobody’s punchline in God’s kingdom.

So even if it were true, you were wrong to say and wrong to make light of it.

But if you ever want some kids and faith help, I know this book about nurturing a faith your kid doesn’t have to heal from.