Originally posted 2005.
 
Our church recently started a 16-week plan to read through the New Testament together. I was shocked when a college student said, “I’ve been going to church for almost my whole life and I’ve never read through the New Testament.” That’s heart breaking! The New Testament is not very big. It’s roughly two thirds the size of most novels. Even though our faith is founded upon it, many people have never read the whole thing. Some people have been following Christ for twenty or thirty years and have yet to read through the New Testament. If you haven’t done so yet, please do so. It’s such a small thing to do.
 
How much effort would it take to get your child to read through the New Testament? There are 260 chapters in the New Testament. If he read one chapter a day it would take 8 ½ months. Two chapters a day would take four months and a week. Three chapters a day would take 12 ½ weeks.
 
You’d have to have your kid sit down and read for a little while each day. That would take some time on your part, but not much. The reading would have both spiritual and educational benefits. Since it is good for us all, maybe you could even do it with him. It would provide some great parent time, as well as setting a good example.
 
Little things like this over a lifetime will profoundly impact your children. They don’t take much time, but they make a real difference in their lives. Sometimes we view stuff like this as being so difficult that we don’t even try a little.
 
I read a book called Ten P’s in a Pod by Arnold Pent III. It’s about a couple and their eight children who drove all over the country preaching the benefits of Bible-reading. One of the philosophies of their father was that you should feed your soul more than you feed your body. As a result, he had family devotions for 30 minutes after each meal. This was in addition to their private devotions which were 30 minutes for the younger kids and 60 minutes for the older ones. The book claims that the kids were of normal intelligence and had normal memories. Yet the amazing thing is that without really focusing intensively on memorization, the kids could quote massive amounts of Scripture from memory. They just read the Bible that much! One of the older children could quote the entire New Testament almost entirely from memory. I was impressed!
 
I’m not saying all of you should do that with your kids. What I’m saying is that we can get fooled into thinking that doing stuff like having our kids read through the New Testament is really excellent parenting—almost extreme. Having your kids memorize the New Testament is extreme parenting. Having them read through the New Testament is far closer to mediocre parenting.
 
Perhaps the thought of achieving excellence can be so overwhelming that we can lose heart and even give up trying for mediocrity. It would do us well to raise the bar a little in our expectations. Of course, the hardest part of this is that such parenting can conflict with other things we are trying to accomplish. Let me ask you a question. How much are you willing to do to win with your kids? Are you willing to read the Bible yourself? Will you pray for fifteen minutes a day? Are you willing to get more involved at church? We need to be strong and be willing to do whatever it takes.
 
1 Corinthians 16:13 Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. 
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Originally posted February 2005.
 
In our group of churches there is a saying that your children will either be missionaries or mission fields. I don’t know who said it first, but it’s a powerful concept. Your children will be actively trying to reach someone else, or someone else will be trying to reach your children. They will be proclaiming the word of Christ, or they will be having some other teaching proclaimed to them. They will be visionary or will be open to someone else’s vision.
 
That’s a scary thought! I actually talked to a young missionary once who belonged to a group that I would consider a cult. He had been involved in a Christian church in his youth, so I asked him how he got involved in his new church. He said that when he was a teenager some missionaries came by the house and preached to him and convinced him of the teachings of his new religion. What a graphic picture of this concept! How his parents must have regretted not equipping him to face such false teachings!
 
So how can you equip your kids to be “missionaries?” Here are a few practical ideas:

1. Have them memorize some basic gospel verses. (We start with the following ten passages: 1 John 5:13; John 3:16; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:23; James 2:10; Ephesians 2:8,9; Romans 5:8; John 3:36; John 14:6; John 5:24)
2. Have your kids pray daily for their friends and neighbors who have not yet believed in Christ. This will help them develop a heart for those who are lost.
3. Teach your kids an outreach program like the Romans Road, How to Share Your Faith Without an Argument, the Four Spiritual Laws, or the bridge diagram.
4. Get Christian biographies for your kids to read. The Trailblazers series is great at telling the stories in a readable fashion. (Not all books in this series are appropriate for all ages.) This will help your kids see Christianity lived out at its fullest as it looks from several different vantage points.
5. Be actively involved in a church where a faith-filled Christian life is lived out and demonstrated by a majority of the members. You and your spouse are only two parts of the body of Christ. Your child needs to see people expressing a whole variety of gifts that the two of you may not demonstrate strongly.
6. Model it! Devote your own life to wholeheartedly living for Christ and to spreading His message of forgiveness to all who believe.
7. Have your kids develop a habit of reading their Bibles daily. (Of course you’ll need to model this for them. J)
8. As your kids get older, have them read faith building books like More than a Carpenter (Josh McDowell), Evidence that Demands a Verdict (Josh McDowell), and Five Crucial Questions about Christianity (Tom Short).
9. Talk often with your kids about their purpose in life. If they do not have a strong, clear purpose to live for, they could give their life to anything and anyone.
10. Kids are followers or leaders. While we would like all of our kids to be leaders, some are not naturally bent that way. We would be reluctant to let a “follower” be overly influenced by peers until we are confident that our child could lead out with a gospel mindset. Don’t release your kids too soon! In other words, do not give them more responsibility and independence than they are equipped to handle.

 
Of course, it is hard to give a definitive ten-point all-inclusive program. Those are just a few starter ideas. The reality is that we all need to seek God’s guidance and wisdom with each of our kids. I would not assume that passing on our faith or heart for God is going to be an automatic slam dunk. Being evangelistic (or even just different) is not easy for most of us. This will be a fierce battle for our kids, especially when they hit the teen years, which is when kids are so easily obsessed with what others think of them. Pray for wisdom. This is no easy task.

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Originally posted January 2005.
 
Sometimes when we see teens that are going through tough times it can be discouraging and we wonder if all our parenting efforts in the early years are really worth it. We’ve already looked at some reasons to believe that you can have a great deal of confidence in the fruit of your parenting. However, let’s take a look at it from a little bit of a different angle now. Suppose you could see into the future and you knew that when your child hit 15 he would rebel. This could take many different forms, but suppose you knew that your teen would do poorly in school, cheat on tests, participate in vandalism, swear profusely, not come home until four in the morning, if at all, and would refuse to go to church altogether. My guess is that we all know a teen or two that has gone through something like that—maybe a little better or maybe a little worse. I don’t expect our kids to rebel at that level, but I’ve seen it enough that it troubles me, and in my times of doubt I wonder if that could happen in my family. The question I have is this: If I knew that my kids would rebel at 15, what would I do differently now?

Another way to look at it is this: at that level of rebelliousness you’ve lost most of your input into your kid’s life. So I might ask myself: what would I want to pass on to my child to prepare him for life before I lose that place of influence?

I would want to make sure my child was educated enough to have a good paying job. I’d want him to be used to hard work so that he could handle the stress of the daily grind. If you can’t provide for yourself in life, it can be hard to dig yourself out of a hole. I’d also want him to know some other basic life skills, like financial management.

I’d want him to know the dangers of premarital sex, drugs, and the abuse of alcohol.

If he knew at least 100 verses by heart, it would encourage me to know that God’s Word was continually available to guide and direct my child, and to chip away at his conscience. (Actually, I’d say 500 verses, but I don’t want to overwhelm you.) I’d also hope he would have a wealth of past sermons, Sunday school lessons, and teachings from his parents that the Holy Spirit could bring to his mind at the appropriate time.

I’d want him to know the principles that a man reaps what he sows,[1] and if you sow the wind you reap the whirlwind.[2] I’d want him to know that a good life is found when we pursue God’s will. If you sow good choices, you reap a good life.

It would be extremely important to me that he knew he was loved by his God, his parents, and his family. Although he could run from many things, I’d want that to always haunt him (in a sense) and to continually be a pull on his heart. I’d want him to know that, like they were for the prodigal son,[3] forgiveness and restoration are always close at hand.

These are a few of the things that come to my mind. I’d want to do everything within my power to equip my child for his time of rebelliousness in hopes that it would be short-lived and not too destructive. That would take a large amount of energy and time, but in the end, hopefully, it would all be worthwhile to save my child.

Interestingly enough, when you think about it, that level of parenting is the same level I’d recommend to someone who wants to raise a champion for Christ. Even if I knew I was going to ‘lose’ my teenager, I’d still parent the same in the younger years. So maybe all this fear related to losing our children is just a distraction from the task at hand. I don’t know the future. I don’t know how my kids or your kids will turn out. I have certain hopes and expectations for the future, but those may be somewhat irrelevant. I do know for certain what God has called me to today, and I need to be faithful with that instead of frozen in the fear of the unknown.

Stay the course, Parent!


[1] Galatians 6:7
[2] Hosea 8:7
[3] Luke 15:11-32

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What would you think if God didn’t allow someone to be a pastor because he was ugly or disfigured or because he had a brother who didn’t follow the Lord? It would seem wrong to disallow someone from pastoring because of something that he had no control over, had nothing to do with his job, and had nothing to do with the set roles that God had given him.

So, you may be asking yourself, what does this have to do with parenting? My response is, “Everything!” Carefully look at the following verses:
 
1 Timothy 3:4,5 [An elder] must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?)
 
1 Timothy 3:12 A deacon must be the husband of but one wife and must manage his children and his household well.
 
Titus 1:6 An elder must be blameless, the husband of but one wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.
 
I personally think these are the strongest verses in the Bible that definitively show that you can win with your kids. I can’t see any possible way to explain them away.

1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 lay out the requirements for church leaders, and one of the requirements is that they have good kids—kids who are believers, who are not wild and disobedient, who are manageable, and who respect their fathers. Now if a father has a fair amount of control of these things in his kids’ lives, then this requirement is fair. However, if fathers really have little or no control over how their kids turn out, then this requirement for church leadership is as random as if God required His leaders to be Caucasian, or if God judged them based on the behavior of their extended family. Do you see the connection now? God would not require that leaders have good kids if having good kids was merely a product of dumb luck!

It’s important to understand that there is no special parenting gift that God has given his leaders. They are just ordinary people. If they can have good kids, anyone can have good kids by applying the same principles. Having good kids is a result of following God’s principles in your life, and in your parenting practices!

God believes that parents are equipped for, responsible for, and capable of producing godly kids—kids who are believers, who are not wild and disobedient, who are manageable, and who respect their parents. Parent, you must be convinced of this. You must take ownership for how your children turn out, and you must have faith that with God, all things are possible.[1]
     
Everyone else may think that your job as a parent is just to educate, provide for, and protect your kids until they are on their own. Everyone else may think that you just have to cross your fingers and hope they turn out okay, but you are not everyone else. You must lock into the responsibility that God has given you. He clearly states that you can change the outcome of your kids’ lives. Do you believe this? How you answer this question will profoundly impact your parenting.


[1] Philippians 4:13


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Originally posted January 2005.
 
Let’s look a little more into the question that we looked at earlier. Why in the world would any parent pour his or her heart, soul, energy, and life into parenting? Of course, the answer (or maybe one answer) is that we can greatly influence them, and that through them we can greatly influence the world. However, the question still remains. Can we be guaranteed of success?
The verse commonly used to encourage parents and to give them hope is the following:
 
Proverbs 22:6 Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.
 
This verse quite clearly states that if you set children down a certain course, they will continue down that course. Yet most of us have seen families that appear to be exceptions to this verse, and, as a result, our faith in its reliability can be challenged.

If this verse does not at first seem to ring true to us, what do we do with it?
 
We can:
1) Redefine it. Maybe we need to redefine some of the terms. Perhaps “He will not turn from it” doesn’t mean that he will follow it, but just that he will not reject it. Or maybe “train” incorporates the idea that they have not just been taught, but have accepted and followed the teaching—in which case following the teaching and being trained go hand-in-hand. I’m sure there are other words or phrases we could redefine as well.
 
The problem with this approach is that, if you play with the words too much, the verse gets so watered down that it loses its meaning. If there is no real hope offered by the verse, or no instruction, why was it put in the Bible?
 
2) Restrict it. Perhaps few parents succeed in training a child in the way he should go. Maybe we need to restrict our application of the verse to only applying to the parents who have really excelled with their children. It is possible that what we perceive as successful parenting is not really enough and that the parents who have “failed” never really fulfilled their obligation to train their children properly.
 
The problem with this approach is that even if we raise the bar on what it means to train a child in the way he should go, it still seems like there are exceptions. If we raise the bar even higher than that, the hope offered in the Bible seems unattainable. It would be like saying, “If you do a perfect job raising your child, and never falter, your child will follow all that you taught him.” Do you see how that waters down the verse, just like redefining all the terms does? If you raise the standard to something that is unattainable, then what hope is there? Why try to meet the standard? And why even put the verse in the Bible?
 
3) Rethink it. Perhaps it’s not a promise at all, but a principle. Perhaps it’s a guiding truth of life but not an outright guarantee. For example, the verse following Proverbs 22:6 says, “The rich rule over the poor.”  It seems that this is a general truth. Not every rich person rules over poor people. Some rich people live as recluses, holed up in their homes, ruling over no one. However, generally speaking, the rich do rule over the poor, and the poor end up serving the rich.
 
The problem with this approach is that the success rate of parents doesn’t seem to even support the idea of it being a guiding truth. In other words, it not only doesn’t seem like an “absolute promise” but it doesn’t even seem like a truth that generally reflects life well.

So which is it? I think it is number 2 mixed in with a little number 3. I don’t think it is an absolute guarantee that your child will follow you in every single area in which they’ve been taught. That would seem to go against the teaching of free will. However, Proverbs 22:6 was put in the Bible to give you hope—to inspire you to a certain course in your parenting. Even if it is only a guiding principle, then it is one that is worth following. Good parenting produces good results. That should be true in every case, or at least in the vast majority of the cases. That is the spirit of Proverbs 22:6, and if the hope we take from that verse gets any more watered down than that, we should seriously question whether we truly believe God’s Word or not.

I also believe that most parents do not adequately raise their children. Many take a whack at it, but few hit the nail on the head—and if you don’t hit a nail squarely on the head, the nail doesn’t usually fare well, does it? It is not enough to go to church, set a curfew, keep your kids out of R-rated movies, and keep them off drugs. Training a child in the way he should go involves a much deeper level of involvement than most parents pursue, and perhaps for which they are willing to sacrifice.

As parents, we can hold a high level of confidence in the outcome of our kids. Even if we don’t have an absolute 100%-money-back-guarantee, we still have a principle given to us by God for the very purpose of giving us such a hope and expectation. Parent in a way that teaches your kids how to follow God wholeheartedly, and expect that to bear good and lasting fruit in the lives of your kids.

Remember that everything that does not come from faith is sin (Romans 14:23). God wants us to trust Him with this. Too many parents live in fear instead of faith. They fear that God’s Word won’t prove true, or that they will be the exception. Instead, we need to live in faith that if we trust in and follow His Word it will lead us down a good path. Have faith that God’s way will win!

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Originally posted January 2005.
 
A argument for the case that you can’t greatly impact the outcome of your children’s lives is the issue of free will. The concept of free will is simply this: God has created each of us with the ability to choose. I am not forced to make any choice based upon anyone else’s will—not God’s, not the government’s, and not my parents’. The choice is mine. Of course, God, the government, and my parents may dictate consequences for certain actions to help me make wise choices, but that is another topic. The point is that your children have choices. They will have to choose to become Christians, resist peer pressure, refrain from premarital sex, and correctly make countless other choices. You cannot make those choices for your kids.

Some people put it this way, “Adam messed up, didn’t he? And who was his parent? You don’t think you can parent better than God, do you?” (By the way, it’s a flawed analogy. Adam was neither raised by God, nor was he necessarily all that bad of a person by the standards we are talking about.)

The issue of free will is truly difficult. How can I have any confidence in how my kids turn out when I know that they have free will? This is a point worth consideration and it may explain why there seem to be exceptions to the rule that biblical parenting principles will produce godly kids.

Even though your kids will always have free will, you have an incredible amount of influence on their will. We expect teachers to impact students, officers to train soldiers, and coaches to influence athletes. Why wouldn’t we expect parents to impact their kids? Students, soldiers, and athletes all have free will, and yet they are greatly influenced by those over them. Jesus said, “A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.” (Luke 6:40) Why wouldn’t we expect the same thing from a parent who spends 18 years training his or her children?

One might ask, “What about Judas? Wasn’t he trained by Jesus? Didn’t his free will win out?” That’s a good point to which I have three responses. First of all, if Christians today “lost” only one out of every twelve of their children I’d be much more encouraged with the situation than I am now. Secondly, it seems as if Judas may have been chosen as a disciple not to be a disciple, but for the very purpose of betraying Jesus and fulfilling Scripture (John 17:12). Thirdly, most of us would agree that Judas wasn’t “fully trained” as referred to in the verse when it says, “Everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.” Had Judas been Jesus’ son (sounds like a great Star Wars plot) I most certainly would not have expected that kind of outcome from his life.

If you do a good job raising your kids, they will be much more likely to be model citizens than if you don’t. Your kids should be far more likely to be following God than to become atheists. They should be far more likely to be doctors, missionaries, and judges than to turn out to be frauds, serial killers, or terrorists. Why? Your example, training, and influence are shaping them. Yes, they have free will. But you can greatly influence that will, just as your parents, teachers, and Sunday school teachers have greatly influenced you—for the better or for the worse.


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Originally posted January 2005.
 
Parenting is a peculiar thing. Unlike many of life’s other decisions, parenting is often entered into without a lot of forethought. When we think about what career we want, we give it much consideration. We reflect upon how a particular career will fit with our gifts and talents, we consider what kind of income we will need, and we weigh what type of school or training we will have to go through. When we get married, we often plan for months and go to marriage counseling and try to prepare ourselves for the difficult transition.

There may not be a single event in your life that affects you more than having kids. For most of us, it requires a total change in our level of self-sacrifice. It puts demands on our patience, sleep, marriage, and finances. When you become a mom or dad your child is completely and totally dependent on you. Perhaps for the first time in your life you become keenly aware of how your choices impact another individual. You can’t just run off into the mountains and escape from the pressures of life anymore. That option comes at too high a cost. You’re stuck here for at least eighteen years.

That’s pretty serious! How is it that you need a license to prune trees, cut hair, or unclog toilets, but anyone can be a parent? Shouldn’t you have to take six weeks of pre-parenting classes like you do with marriage, or maybe a couple of community college courses? I’m not saying we should institutionalize parenting; I’m just saying that it seems like we don’t give it much forethought.

For many of us, parenting was more of a byproduct of a relationship than it was something we consciously thought through. Perhaps we knew we wanted children, but we really had no idea of the demands it would have on our lives.

Perhaps what got us to this point is irrelevant. We are parents now! God has given us the charge of raising His little ones, and we need to carry out that charge faithfully. We need to take careful inventory of our lives. Where are we? Where do we want to be? How do we get there?

I call this premeditated parenting. I’m not talking about thinking through whether or not to have children. I’m talking about parenting. Pregnancy might be something that just happens to us, but parenting requires thoughtful and strategic planning. Having children is one thing, but raising them is quite another.

I often worry that people raise children much like they do pets—just keep them fed and watered and don’t let them irritate the neighbors too much. Keep their messes to a minimum, and train them enough to keep them somewhat enjoyable. A pat on the head here and there mixed in with a good scolding now and then should do the trick. That about sums it up for many parents.

That may create an 18-year-old, but that is unlikely to produce a man or woman of God, a spiritual champion, a good citizen, a leader, or even a good follower. Raising a child to physical maturity is fairly straightforward (if not nerve-wracking), but raising an 18-year-old world-changer is quite another matter. Many have given up on dreaming about raising a world-changer, but has God changed His plan? No, God still has great plans for each of our children.

Let’s take this to a practical level. I’d like to ask you to do an exercise. Take out a piece of paper and start brainstorming some ideas of what characteristics you want your child to have when she turns 16. I know you’re not worried about that yet, but don’t you think it would be wise to develop that picture in your mind now so that you know what you are working toward? You could sit down and do it as an exercise with your spouse, or you could just stick a sheet of paper in this book or in your Bible, and jot down thoughts as they come to mind.

I’ve been trying to stress critical aspects of how we think about parenting. As parents, it is crucial that we have a mindset of seriousness and urgency. We must embrace our calling and grasp the significance of the task at hand. However, none of that really matters if it has not moved us enough to get up and get a pencil. (Remember, I warned you about that fatherly tone!)

You want to win and you desire great things for your child. All I’m asking is that you take a little effort now to start defining what that looks like to you. I mentioned earlier that some people aim at nothing and hit it. Let’s aim for a bull’s-eye. Let’s think through an ideal picture of what we are aiming at. Then let’s throw everything we’ve got at hitting it. If we end up being a little off target, then so be it. But we are sure to miss if we haven’t even defined the target, and that is what I am asking you to do now.

With God’s help we can rise to the challenge and take seriously the charge with which we’ve been entrusted.
 
1 Corinthians 4:2 Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. 

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Originally posted December 2004.
 
A small boy played quietly by the stream, watched silently by several men who hid in the cover of the dense jungle. As a leaf floated down the stream he bombarded it with rocks of all sizes, some nearly too large for him to lift.  Occasionally the water splashed back on his dark skin making him squeal with laughter.  After several minutes he spied a shiny object on the ground.  He had never seen anything quite so colorful and after a minute he peeled of the bright red wrapper.  Inside the wrapper was a hard ball-shaped object.  Intrigued, he rolled it in his fingers.  It was much harder than a berry, which it reminded him of.  He held it to his nose but didn’t perceive much of a smell.  He touched his tongue to it and as he contemplated the taste, he noticed that his fingers were becoming sticky.  His eyes grew big and round as he tasted it again.  It was sweet and wonderful—unlike anything he had ever tasted in his life.  Once again, he squealed with laughter. 
 
As he plopped it in his mouth, he started to scan the ground for more of these wonderful berries.  Just then a man stepped out from the jungle.  He had a young smiling face and a kind look about him, although he was ghastly pale.  The boy would have normally run away, but the man’s outstretched hand held out to him many more of the strangely wonderful berries.  The man spoke softly and kindly as he befriended the boy.
 
Soon the other men also stepped out from the jungle.  They seemed to be friends with the first man.  They all seemed to be nice enough and invited the boy back to their ship.  He really didn’t think much about going with them.  It was all too easy.
 
As all this happened, the boy’s father stood and watched.  He wasn’t quite sure what was happening and didn’t want to interfere in the boy’s life.
 
The boy was taken to a neighboring island.  There he was taught different customs, a different religion, and a different language.
 
Although the father knew where the boy went, he did not bother to rescue him.  He was very busy and wasn’t sure what to do.  Other men in his village were also losing their sons and daughters, so this wasn’t shocking or out of the ordinary; it was just what happened sometimes.  Sure, on occasion they would talk about how they missed their children, and how they wish they could do something, but what could they do? 
 
This story seems implausible, because what parent could possibly sit by idly while losing his or her child to invaders? Yet, a similar scene is played out in America every day.  Children are pulled away from their parents.  They are given immoral values, sexy clothes, false religion, crude language, and a general distaste of all that is good.  They learn to love leisure and endless forms of entertainment, while disdaining hard work and honorable living.  Sex becomes acceptable in any form, and marriage seems like an old-fashioned ceremony that serves no purpose, but to pose an opportunity to play dress-up. 
 
Parents lose their children every day, but not to slavery as we know it.  Parents lose their kids to a different slavery.  A man is a slave to whatever has mastered him,[1] and our children are becoming slaves to the world around them.
 
The process is so gradual that can go undetected.  The amusingly defiant “No!” of the two-year-old becomes the abrasive “get out of my face” of the thirteen-year-old.  The defiant thirteen-year-old becomes the detached sixteen-year-old who won’t talk to her parents, follow their advice, or perhaps even come home at night.
 
We are losing our children—in the United States, and in the church.  We cannot stand to lose our children any longer.  God forbid that we should just stand by and watch it happen to us. 
 
We must fight.  We must study the tactics of our enemy and the vulnerabilities of our children.  Even our own values and beliefs must be challenged.  We must be willing to be different.  It would be insane for us to keep doing the same thing as everyone else and to expect a different result.  Our own pride must be challenged.  Are we willing to go to any extreme, even if it makes us look odd to our friends and families? 
 
It is one thing to lose our kids, but it is quite another to lose them while silently watching from the bank of the river.  We must realize the gravity of the state of our youth and take action.


[1] 2 Peter 2:19

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