Family Discipleship Minute 9: Continuing the Foundation

This series of posts is an attempt to expand the reach of the message about family discipleship. As stated before, it is not my message; rather it is part of a growing movement given voice by people such as Will and Meeke Addison, Voddie Baucham Jr., Mark Holmen, Ron Hunter Jr., Timothy Paul Jones, Rob Reinow, and others. This movement is important to me for two main reasons. One, it is biblical. Two, after almost 27 years of youth ministry, I am fully convinced that this is the only hope the church has for successfully training young people to be fully devoted followers of Christ.

Today’s post continues the discussion begun in Family Discipleship Minute 7, which looked briefly at the idea of building your own theology of family. To this point, I’ve listed what I believe are four big principles related to a biblical idea of family. In review, those principles are:

• Family is the first institution ordained by God
• Marital unity is a living picture of the unity found in the Trinity
• Marital unity is a living picture of Christ and the church
• In God’s view, marriage can only honorably be dissolved by death
• Singles and childless couples are equally important families within the body of Christ.

The next part of our theology of family is to consider the roll of children. Again, I will keep this very brief and encourage you to delve into these ideas on your own. In fact, I think I’ll just bullet point these as well.

• Children are the normal result of godly marriages (Genesis 1:27-28)
• A main goal of having/rearing children, since we bear God’s image, is for the world to be filled with His glory (Genesis 1:27-28)
• Children are a blessing from God and should be valued accordingly (Psalm 127:3-5)
• Parents (with the dad as the leader) bear the responsibility for training children in spiritual matters (Deuteronomy 6:4-7, Ephesians 6:4)
• Children should honor their parents (Exodus 20:12, Ephesians 6:1-3)

At this point, you have a list of Scriptures and thoughts to get you started developing a theology of family. Please continue to think about this and read what others say about it. Next week we will take a brief look at ecclesiology, a theology of church. Once we have a belief system of family and church we can put them together to see how the two institutions should cooperate in training children.

Please do me a favor. I need to get this message out. Again, this is not about me. I'm simply echoing what others are saying. The more I read, the more I observe, the more strongly I believe the idea of parents teaching their children to follow Christ must be proclaimed and practiced. The favor I'm asking is, will you help me spread this concept? How? Simply share the link to one of these family discipleship minutes on your social media or in your own blog. If you are really bold, you could email the link to one of these posts to friends who might find it useful. Thanks for stopping by. Thanks for reading. Thanks for sharing. God bless you.

Questions to ponder or comment on:

How have your children blessed you?

If one purpose of rearing children is to spread God's glory throughout the earth, how will your children fulfill this role? Do they even know that they are supposed to do that?

Family Discipleship Minute 4: Tell Me What You Want

 Last week I touched on the idea of what you want for your kids; what goals do you have for them? Today's post will delve a little more deeply into that. When your children were born, did you give any thought to the kind of adults they would grow to be? When you picture your kids at different stages in life, are there certain qualities or traits you hope they will possess? What is it that you are seeking when you discipline your children or when you endeavor to instruct them in some realm? In your mind, what will your child be like at the age of 24 in order for you to consider him/her a success? In your mind, what will your child be like at the age of 24 in order for you to consider yourself a success as a parent?

Why am I asking you so many questions about how you want your progeny to turn out? Well, there is an old saying, "if you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time." In other words, if you do not have an objective, or target, which you are working to achieve, you cannot possibly end up with a specific result. For example, suppose you want to make a pecan pie, you cannot simply go into the kitchen and start randomly doing tasks. You must first obtain a pecan pie recipe and then enact the steps listed in it.

Clearly, having no target to aim at is a bad way to go about life. Another bad way to go about life is to aim at the wrong target. Suppose your goal in life is to make a fortune. You spend your time and energy doing what it takes to amass wealth and suppose you succeed. Now suppose you come to the end of your life and Jesus says to you, "what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul?" You had a target, you hit your target, but in the light of eternity it was the wrong target. When it comes to bringing up our children, it is vital that we are not laboring without an end in mind and equally vital that we are laboring with the correct end in mind.

Perspectives on Family Ministry: Three Views (edited by Timothy Paul Jones) includes a story of a church staff that wanted to do a better job of discipling teenagers. The youth ministry surveyed the parents to find out what they wanted for their kids. The idea was that such information would help them know how to come alongside the parents and work towards the same spiritual goals. However, very few parents had any spiritual goals for their kids. The basic desires parents had was for their teens to make good grades so they could get into a good college so they could get a good job so they could be happy. Of course, these are worthwhile things to wish for your offspring. However, the Bible calls us to much higher purposes.

The first three posts in this series aimed to cheer-lead for you. The idea was to convince you that you can lead your family spiritually. This post is meant to challenge you. Do the goals you have for your child line up with what God wants for him/her? Is it your desire to see your child know Christ and have His character formed in his/her life? If not, why not?

Let's close with a suggestion. Read Matthew 6:33. Then, spend some time praying about what it would look like for your family to make that verse a priority. Next, talk that idea over with your spouse. Finally, discuss it as a family.

Questions:

1. What goals have you had for your children?

2. Do you need to re-evaluate any of those goals or make any new ones?

3. Does your family need to make any adjustments in order to make your (new) goals come about?

4. What do you do in your life that would qualify as seeking first God's kingdom? How can you build on that foundation?

Family Discipleship Minute (1)

 Last week I committed to begin posting ideas for Christian parents. My hope is to help you be the primary spiritual trainers of your family. I do not presume to teach you. Rather, I hope to encourage you, assist you, point you towards helpful resources, and provide a place where others in the same boat can ask questions of one another. Today I want to be an encouragement by trying to help you see past some obstacles. 

Perhaps the three biggest things that people see as barriers to leading their families spiritually are lack of knowledge, lack of skill, and lack of time. In other words, parents feel that they do not know enough about the Bible or basic Christian doctrine to teach their children about theological matters, they do not believe they know how to lead their kids spiritually, and they do not believe they have the time in their busy schedules to make this happen in the home. I do not discount these beliefs and feelings. However, I believe you can overcome them, so let me give you a few practical counterpoints.

First, let's talk about the notion that you, as a parent, do not know enough about Scripture, theology, or God to train your children. For the sake of argument, let us assume a worst-case scenario in which the parents are brand-new Christians and truly know almost nothing about God or the Bible. To those parents, and all others, I would say, "start where you are." Nobody knows everything but everybody knows something. Even if you are a brand-new Christian, you know at least what it takes to share the gospel because someone shared it with you. You know what sin is because you recognized it in your own life. You know that Jesus is Savior and Son of God because you trusted him for salvation. If that is all you know, then that is where you start with your kids.

Teachers have an old saying, "give me a book and a week's head start and I can teach anyone anything." Parents, start where you are, grab The Book, and learn something from it. Next week, you will be able to teach your children what you learned. 

Second, let's talk about the skill factor. You may have trepidation because you do not think you know how to impart spiritual truth to your family. Pause and think just a minute. How much did you know about how to be a parent when your first child was born? Probably not much. Yet, how much have you taught your children since then. Did you teach your kids to bathe themselves, get dressed, bush their teeth, tie their shoes, use proper manners, ride a bike, get along with their siblings, ask for help, throw a ball, bake cookies, or anything else? You may have failed on your first attempts at these things, but you eventually succeeded (or you are still trying). Consider it on the job training. Well, on the job training is perfectly acceptable when figuring out the practical ways to pass faith on to your kids.

You can begin to learn how to lead your family spiritually by actually doing it. Further, you can get help in this department through a multitude of resources. You can find many of these types of resources online. To get you started, may I suggest checking out Visionary Family Ministries, Faith At Home, and D6. Obviously, these are not the only ministries that can help you in this arena. If you do not like these, simply search the web or talk to your pastor and I'm sure you can find one you like.

Third and finally, let's talk about the matter of time. The first counterpoint to the lack of available time is to use what I will call multi-purpose time. Multi-purpose time is time that is already blocked off in your schedule during which you could do more than one thing. For example, do you have a bedtime routine with your kids? If so, talk to them about God while you are getting them ready for bed. Do you  eat at least one meal each week together as a family? Use this mealtime to discuss a Bible verse. Do you wake your kids up in the morning? Sit on the bed and pray with them while you are trying to get them up. Do you drive your kids to school? Instead of listening to the radio or talking on the phone, talk about Sunday's sermon on the way to school on Monday. See what I mean? Use time that is already blocked off to kill two birds with one stone.

Now I have another counterpoint to the time objection, but you may not like it. At the risk of sounding trite, let me suggest to you that we make time for what is important to us. Do you have time to play games on social media? Do you have time to work? Do you have time to see friends? Do you have time to exercise? Do you have time for little league? Do you have time for date night? Do you have time for the evening news? Do you have time to read the paper? Do you have time for PTA meetings, cub scouts, and dance classes? If you have time for things like that, but you do not have time for family discipleship, then you probably need to rethink your priorities.

That last sentence may have sounded harsh. The truth is, I want you to learn from my mistakes. When my kids came along, I had many ideas for teaching them to love Jesus, but life got busy, and I did not manage to practice everything I thought I would. Now, frankly, I regret it. Put boundaries in your life and make family discipleship a priority. I firmly believe that when your kids head off to college you will be very glad you made the time for spiritual things.

In summary, if you think you do not know enough to lead your family spiritually, then start where you are (but keep learning.) If you think you do not know how to lead your family spiritually, then simply start trying and learn as you go. If you think you do not have time for family discipleship, then use the time you do have and consider reprioritizing other times. Leading your family in spiritual matters may seem daunting. However, you can do it; just get started, and you and your kids will grow together.

Thanks for reading this, I hope you found it challenging but encouraging.