Leading Your Kids to Christ
Parents can become intentional about passing on their faith.
Jim thought he was a great spiritual leader. He took his kids to Sunday school every week and planned to send them to a Christian school when he could afford it. But one Sunday as he was getting ready for church, he found his young children sitting at the bottom of the stairs.
“What’s wrong?” he asked them.
“We don’t want to go to church, Daddy,” Janae said.
“It’s boring,” Jake said.
“We’ve heard the Noah story so many times we don’t want to go anymore,” the eldest, Josh, added.
Jim realized he had no idea what they were being taught in church. “I needed to assume the responsibility of teaching them biblical truth,” Jim said.
For many, the notion of spiritual training at home creates tension. Let’s start with a clean slate. Erase all your preconceived notions about training your children in the Christian faith. For a moment, forget all the guilt-driven, unpleasant attempts you’ve made or any ideas about this being boring and ineffective. A few principles can keep the process simple and on track.
Principle 1: Relationship is your priority.
During childhood, Kathleen barely got to know her dad. Long work hours and business travel kept him away from home during the week. Church activities consumed his weekends.
By the time Kathleen was a junior in high school, the tension between her and her father was thick. Whenever he led the family in prayer or tried to read a short devotion, her body stiffened. As the family marched dutifully into church behind her father, Kathleen felt sick to her stomach. In those moments, every fault in his life was magnified. What a hypocrite, Kathleen thought.
When Kathleen left home as a young adult, she left the faith of her family as well. Despite her father’s diligent efforts to instill Christian values, they didn’t take. You see, Kathleen needed more than mere knowledge of her father’s faith—she needed a relationship with her father. Without the latter, she wasn’t interested in the former.
If we want the values we teach them to stick, we must apply heavy amounts of the glue called love. Children perceive parental instruction through emotional lenses. Those lenses are framed by the quality of the parent-child relationship.
Principle 2: The Bible is your handbook.
The Bible is “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). Teaching the Bible to our children is not an exercise in teaching religious ideas and ceremonies; it is teaching them how to live. The Bible is their guidebook, their lifeline, their textbook, their help menu, their answer, their emergency first-aid kit and their key to knowing God.
If we believe the Bible is God’s Word, we will not only teach our children that its contents should guide their lives, but we will also demonstrate it as a guide for our own lives.
Principle 3: Life is your classroom.
When someone is learning how to fix a transmission, his practical training takes place in a garage. In our case, practical training needs to take place in a relevant venue—in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Our life is an example to our kids. Practice-what-you-preach parenting is the only kind that works.
However, parenting by example does not demand that we be perfect. If we demand performance and perfection from our kids, our faults will appear as signs of hypocrisy. But if we encourage growth by grace, our faults will become signs of authenticity.
We, along with our children, are learning about God. This means discussing our growth in Christ in practical, everyday terms with them. It includes letting them see us apply our faith to our lives. Then they will get excited about joining in the process.
Principle 4: Your methods should target your child.
We need to understand what the important issues are for our children—in their eyes, not ours—and communicate on their level. When we can at least imagine walking in their shoes, our teaching will be more effective and certainly more relevant.
Many parents have hesitations and fears about training their children. But parents can become intentional about passing on their faith—and have a great time doing it.