Take the kids along...

Many parents struggle with how to teach their children about God, truth, morality, and how to be selflessly Christ-like. Raising kids is a difficult challenge today with the pervasive influence of a “worldly” culture.

I remember a friend I had in elementary and Jr. High, who lost his faith. He had gone to church each week. He even went to a "Christian" school through the 8th grade. By the time he was in high school, he was smoking pot, getting drunk, watching porn and sleeping with his girl friend. What happened?

I remember a sticker on the refrigerator at his house that said, "Families that pray together stay together." They prayed together, but didn’t stay together. His parents had trouble in their marriage. They had tried "family devotions" and “family prayer time,” but studying the Bible doesn't help if you wont obey it.

His dad got caught cheating and the parents split up. His mom quit going to church and had a live-in boyfriend. His parents still sent my friend to church and Christian school, but they did not go themselves. They didn’t live out the Christian life.

He watched whatever he wanted on cable, looked at Playboys found under his dad’s bed in boxes. His dad had alcohol in the fridge, which my friend tried when his dad was gone. His dad was constantly bringing home various women for the night. My friend’s parents told him not to smoke, drink, or commit fornication, but they didn’t abide by those rules themselves. All the family devotions and family prayer time in the world will not teach a kid to do the right thing when he is getting a different much stronger lesson from his parent’s example.

In contrast, I didn’t go to a Christian school. My dad didn’t have organized family devotions with me. He never forced me to go read the Bible each day. We didn’t have a set prayer time each day. We didn’t have a rigorous Bible study schedule. We never gathered the family together for prayer time. He never “preached” at me at home about serving others, visiting the sick, having a prayer time, or studying the Bible. So how did I learn to love all those things?

How did I learn to pray? How did I learn to trust in God? How did I learn to serve others? How did I learn the Bible stories inside and out? Where did I get this love for the truth and hunger for the Word of God? I’ll tell you where I got it from… My father’s example and the examples of other sincere believers I was influenced by from our church.

I would come home from playing outside with my friends and guess where I would find my father. He would be studying God’s Word. Most kids came home to find dad asleep in the easy chair in front of the TV. Not me! I would find him asleep at his desk with the Bible in his hands and a yellow legal note pad next to it with notes scribbled about what he had learned. He constantly studied and meditated on God’s Word.

And he would discuss the Bible with me. Even when I was very young, he included me in conversations about the Bible and asked my opinion. He taught me to meditate on a subject and critically think about it. He taught me to challenge his ideas and take a fresh look at what the Bible teaches to be sure what I was taught was right.

He would even allow himself to be taught by me at times. I was a mere boy, but he would change his view if I was right (This was very rare! It was always a difficult thing to move him from a long held belief, but, he would admit he was wrong and change his view if I had logical Biblical evidence.) He taught me to be a thinker, a student, and a teacher by including me in the conversation.

I remember going out to eat with some famous preacher or Bible College professor that was visiting our church or visiting my dad. He would include me in the conversation if they were discussing some finer point of doctrine. I was encouraged to meditate and debate to sharpen my own point of view. I remember at 9 or 10 years old, he would give me a paper and pencil and tell me that I would get a reward, if I would listen to his sermon and write down his outline point for point. I remember how he would praise me and how good I felt when I could recite the outline to him as we drove to lunch after church. It was like I had hit a home run or made a touch down in his eyes.

Much of my learning happened in the car. In modern times, we do a lot of driving. As we drove, we would talk about the Bible, listen to sermons on tape, or sing. I have cherished memories of riding along in some big old 1970’s tank of a car singing praises to God with my dad. He didn’t sit me down like it was a school class room to teach me about Jesus. It was a journey and he invited me along for the ride. Sometimes, I miss those days of being discipled by dad. Jesus didn’t say to the twelve apostles, “Come sit down in my lecture hall.” He said, “Come, follow me!”

I learned by following my dad’s life. I would walk in his bedroom to say good night and find him praying. Once he told me, “I fall asleep each night praying and wake up the next morning praying.” Sure, we would pray before meals together, but prayer for dad was always something mostly personal. Today, I am a prayer, because of his example.

He took me with him calling on visitors, going to the nursing homes, or even visiting people in the hospital. I knew how to do a hospital call long before Bible College because dad took me along. I learned lessons about how you don’t stay too long in a room with someone or they will wish you had not come because they need privacy and rest. “Never stay over 10 to 15 minutes unless asked to,” he would casually say. I didn’t even realize that I was being trained. I was just hanging out with dad.

I learned about benevolence from watching him help people through the years. I saw him give to those in need and give money to people secretly who were in financial trouble. I learned to give 10% of my allowance to the offering just like he gave 10% of what he received to God. He didn’t ask me to do anything he wasn’t doing. In fact, he just taught me to do what he did. There was no contradiction between what I was taught and what he did.

When I was older, I heard a sermon on tape that my Dad preached about parenting years before. He said that when he would parent, he tried to follow a principle he learned from the Old Testament. God didn’t command them to teach in a “family devotions” or a set time of teaching. They were to teach during the every day things of life.

Deuteronomy 6:6-7 says, "These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." And again Deuteronomy 11:19 says, "Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”

I realize now, that is how my father taught me. We talked sitting at home, as we drove down the highway, as he put me to bed by telling me Bible stories as a little boy, or when we got up and talked about the beauty of God’s creation. I saw him walking-the-walk and following Jesus. I saw the devotion, the love, the truth, the way of Jesus in him. And I wanted it. It was the path of Jesus love. It was a path of personal sacrifice and dying to self. It was the path to eternal life. I saw all that in Dad and it enticed me to “Come, follow me!”

Psalm 78:5-7 says, “He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands.”

I realize my responsibility to teach my children the path of God. My eight year old daughter sits and tries to write out my sermon outline to get a reward. My son loves to hear Bible stories at night. I prayed with them and for them and now they pray for me. I didn’t teach the mindless memorized rhyming prayers. I taught them to have a conversation with God. They have heard me do it. Their prayers are simple, direct, and heartfelt, as they should be. Now they instinctively pray on their own for friends, family and fears. When a strong thunderstorm rolled through, my daughter said, “Daddy, I prayed for God to protect us.” She was not forced to. She learned that by example.

They both have been to the nursing home and hospital with me to visit, encourage and pray for the sick. My daughter now goes with friends every Wednesday after school with a lady from our church. She is a minister of God’s grace. I even have the children offer the prayer for people at the hospital.

I’ll never forget my son praying for Hank not long before he passed on and how Hank thanked Drake for the prayer almost in tears. Both kids invite their friends from school to come to church. They see me invite people and figured they should too. My children are learning to minister to others, not by class room lectures, but by following my example.

And that can be a scary thought, because I know my example isn’t perfect. I have to set an example in repentance and say" I am sorry" sometimes, too. Even people with a sinful pasts can repent and set an example to their children of how Jesus changes lives. The Apostles Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 1:16, “But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.”

Your example is your most powerful lesson. Words are important, but they had better match what you do. Hypocrisy destroys your ability to teach. Titus 2:7 says, “In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness.” Our example and teach must match up. That is integrity.

Jesus came to set for us a perfect example. We learn about character, endurance, and holiness through him. 1 Peter 2:21 says, “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.” Jesus said after being a servant to the disciples in John 13:15, “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”

The Bible teaches us in 1 Timothy 4:12 to, “…set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.” Are you doing that for your Children? Are you setting an example worthy of following? Are you following the ultimate example of Christ? Are you sending them to church, VBS, camp or a Christian School to learn values you don’t follow yourself? Do they see the life of Christ lived out in you daily?

Could you say to your child what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11:1? “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” Or Philippians 3:17, “Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.” Or 2 Thessalonians 3:7 “For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example.”

Don’t lecture your kids or force them into boring “family devotions” or forced prayer times. Set an example. Walk the walk of love and take them along on the journey. Soon, they will want to walk it on their own. I know I did.