In previous posts I've spoken about the importance of the family home as the first church that children and young people belong to.
Parents, especially fathers, are given responsibility under God to raise their children in the fear and instruction of the Lord (Eph 6:4).
In a forthcoming book, Timothy Paul Jones presents the results of a survey of parents in a number of evangelical churches in the United States. Parents were asked about their perceptions about who was responsible for their children's spiritual growth, and what they do with their children to help them grow in faith. These are the results*:
Every parent in this survey agreed that it is their responsibility to disciple their children. Overwhelmingly these parents did not believe that this responsibility primarily belongs to church leaders.
The problem is that the perception of responsibility had not translated into practice. More than half of the families surveyed hadn't read or discussed the Bible with their children any more than once a fortnight. Two thirds hadn't engaged in any time of family devotional or worship time together more than once a month.
Here's the killer statistic: When asked, 'How often in the past year has any church leader made any contact with me to help me to engage actively in my child's spiritual development?', the results of the survey were:
Though the survey results cannot be generalised outside of the US context with any reliability, my hunch is that the results for parents in our churches would not be much different.
Jesus has gifted his church with leaders who can teach and proclaim the word of God so that all of God's people would be prepared for Christian service (Eph 4:11-12).
One group of God's people and one area of service seems to have been neglected in our churches: that of preparing parents to serve God by raising their children in the fear and instruction of the Lord.
Youthworks has recently launched a free subscription based email called Growing Faith designed for Christian people who share the great privilege of discipling their children and teenagers in the faith. When I speak to other parents, I'm often asking them what they do in their families to talk about Christian faith and life together. Most people have a couple of things that have worked for them, but often feel like they're short on new ideas. I figured that we could all benefit from a forum to share some of those ideas with each other.
Once a month the Growing Faith can turn up in the inboxes of all the parents and carers in our churches. At the very least its presence can remind us of the privilege and responsibility we've been given. The content will give ideas, encouragement and practical tips for the task.
As parents we spend a lot of time trying to teach our children to be cooperative, to eat vegetables and not watch too much television. But we can easily overlook the job of teaching them to pray, to learn how to read and understand the Bible, to understand God’s love for them and to trust his promises.
I am one of the church leaders who has not given enough time to helping parents engage actively in their children's spiritual development. I hope that this resource can help make up for that lack.
To sign up for the Growing faith e-newsletter register at [url=http://www.growingfaith.com.au]http://www.growingfaith.com.au[/url]
*Source: The Family Ministry Field Guide, to be published in 2011. This instance of The Family Discipleship Perspectives and Practices Survey was conducted among two hundred and seventy-eight parents attending adult Bible study groups in thirty-six different evangelical congregations in the United States of America.
