Parents: Love God by Loving Your Children
I love parents. My job at Smithton is youth worker, but working alongside the parents is part of that. And I’ve had the privilege of visiting with families and seeing them in their own homes – their own context. I was even able to participate in family worship with one family. I can’t say enough about the importance of family worship. Dads, we should not be relying on the minister of our church to teach our children; we are called to be pastors to our children. Whether we like it or not, we are the pastor in our home. It is our responsibility to teach, to guide, to direct, to rebuke. Our children are part of our flock. We must shepherd them.
I was speaking with someone not too long ago, and I said, “You know it seems like children don’t know their Bible anymore.” And this person said, “Well, it’s because it has been taken out of our schools.” My response was, “No, I really think it’s because it has been taken out of our homes.” It is wrong to think that our children should receive their primary instruction on the Bible from our public schools. Numerous studies have been done. Parents, you are the main influence on your child’s life. Not the youth worker. Not a teacher or a coach. You.
Another thing I’ve seen is the unreasonable expectations we place on our children regarding success in school. Our children’s education has become like a god to us. Instead of worrying about our children studying the Scriptures and being active in fellowship with other Christians, we are more worried about how much our son or daughter is studying their maths or their P.E. or their Gaelic. When your children graduate from school and leave your home, which is going to be more important – their knowledge of geometry or their knowledge of God? Deuteronomy 6:5-9 says we must impress the Lord’s instructions on our children. The word “impress” here literally means to whet or to sharpen – as in sharpening a sword or arrow. We wouldn’t go out to battle with a dull weapon, so why would we send our children out into the world without impressing these truths upon them?
“We wouldn’t go out to battle with a dull weapon, so why would we send our children out into the world without impressing these truths upon them?”
Do we worry about our children loving God and doing what he commands? We may even say we do, but where is the accountability in our households? Parents, we must preach the gospel to our children – with our words and with our lives. As parents, our teaching should reflect the character of the God we are teaching about. A God who requires love and obedience, but a God who gives us grace and forgiveness. Do we parent by grace or by shame?
Let me give you some encouragement, parents. There will be times when your children don’t want to listen to the Scriptures. There will be times when they don’t want to come to worship services. There may be times when they express complete boredom and lack of interest in the things of God. I know, because that was me. My father took the time to teach my brother and I every morning. And we couldn’t have cared less on most days. Parents, if you get frustrated with your children, because they aren’t listening or express boredom in family worship, please don’t stop! Please know that you are doing exactly what the Lord requires of you. It is not your job to change their hearts, it is your job to teach them. “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
“It is not your job to change their hearts, it is your job to teach them.”
And children, youth, students … if your parents aren’t teaching you, demand it of them. They are responsible to God for you. If they won’t teach you, then find someone who will. But if they are teaching you, obey them! God himself gives them authority over you. Love them and love God by being obedient.
So parents should impress these things on their children. But this is also a command for the entire community of believers. We baptize our children into a community of faith. Yes, it is the parents’ primary responsibility to raise their children and teach them to love God. But we are a covenant family, and we should be helping parents and keeping them accountable to what God commands. You may not be a parent, but you must still care about the spiritual condition of those baptized in the covenant community. We can do this by simply asking parents, “How is parenting? What are your struggles? How can I help you? How can I pray for you?”
We must impress these things on our children. And our children’s children.
Ethan, this is a great post. There is lots of good stuff here. I grew up in Christian schools and in a church that still practiced catechesis (what’s that, right?), and in a context like that there were a lot of parents who essentially handed over the responsibilities of raising their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord over to the school and the church. The results are exactly what you’d expect–a great deal of apathy among students, and sadly, many would leave the church in their later years. I’m taking a class right now on the educational ministry of the church, and there is a few people in there who have said that as youth leaders, they’ve had parents do the same thing–hoping the youth leaders would do the job of the parents.
I think it is so great that you’re working to get parents fully invested in the lives of their children. Like you quoted above, it’s all about Deuteronomy 6.
And that leads to the last thing I wanted to say, which you’ve implied without directly saying it–education is about formation, not just downloading a bunch of information. Yes, there is an element of our faith that requires knowledge, but it is learning to understand how that knowledge transforms our hearts and our lives. And that’s the point where it becomes really difficult.
I posted a quote today on my blog from Eugene Peterson’s latest book, where he basically says that too many Christians are hung up on converting people, but once they come to faith, they are left out on their own to figure out what it looks like to be a Christian in all of life. Parents should embrace the opportunity to walk hand in hand with their children on their pilgrimage as they learn how to be disciples.
Again, great post. So glad you raised this issue!
Oops…forgot to close the italics tag after “formation.”
Fixed it for ya.
Yeah, I remember the days of catechism myself. I went through the Christian school system (thanks largely to my dad being a teacher, giving us a free ride), but my parents would teach me the Bible at home. I knew what I knew from what I learned at home – that’s the stuff that stayed in my mind. So while we have obviously seen some very positive things from the professionalization of youth workers, we’ve also seen some very detrimental things as well.
But, ya know, it starts with us. We can blog about it all we want, but if we aren’t demonstrating the same principles in our homes, we aren’t going to change anything.
what would you say to a woman who said you choose to leave home at 14 it wasnt my idea for you to leave and now your 23 and you come home and do nothing but sit on my couch and eat my food you have a drug promblem your a grown man im not responsible for you anymore ! these are the words of my mother speaking to my brother i dont want her to feel gulit but i want her to know that my brothers life was is and will always need her love and guidience theres no age limit on being a mother im relly sadden by her actions it has me in aw because she claims love the lord so much and keep her values but thank you for sharing this its made me feel so good …it will always start at home ! Godbless!