Child Training...What's the Church Got To Do With It?

We love our local church. We believe local establishments of the universal church are where God is doing His work in the world today. He ordained a visual reality of the invisible, to bear witness to the world of His relationship to His people, who submit to Jesus as their Head, and live out His priorities providing a light in the darkness.  So, we orient our family life around the mission of our church. Our family calendar is happily organized according to our church's calendar. We live in a close knit community with other members of our body for accountability, edification, correction, and mutual instruction. And we do this out of necessity, not obligation. We firmly believe we need each other. Our Christian lives are less than they should be if we aren't in it together. That's the way God intended it.

In local churches, God uses many means to build His people up to maturity. One of the main means He uses is the preaching and teaching of His Word by our pastors and teachers to instruct us line upon line, precept upon precept. One of our pastors in college said that expositional preaching will help a person easily discern teaching that doesn't match up with the Word of God. He or she might not be able to articulate all the reasons why, but the error will be readily apparent since he or she is well taught in Scripture.

So, how does our commitment to and need for the church connect with training our children?

The Church Helps Train Our Children

Our children are also learning from what is taught at church through us as their parents reiterating it to them (Deuteronomy 6), the older men and women in the church informally training them (Titus 2), and directly from their pastors and teachers. I was reminded of what our previous pastor said (mentioned above) when we were at the hospital getting x-rays for Ruby last month. The controversial Easter "Newsweek" was prominently displayed on the side table in the waiting room. Stella saw the cover and ran over to it saying, "Jesus!" Her excitement turned to a look of bewilderment after she read the headline, "Forget the Church, Follow Jesus". I hadn't seen the magazine yet, but she came over to me and said, "Something doesn't seem quite right about this, Mom." I asked her what it said and then asked her what her problem was with the statement. She said, "Well, don't we follow Jesus by being part of the church?" Amen, Stell! The instruction she is receiving at CBC is serving her well by equipping her to discern truth from error.

Our Children Help The Church Hold To Sound Doctrine

The local church is only as strong as its members. In our suburban area, that means our church is only as strong as the families represented. A few months back, I read an article by Dr. Gerald Priest, former Church History Professor at DBTS, and another piece of the parenting puzzle came together for me. He writes:

"...local churches will only be as spiritually healthy as their families. We know from Scripture that the means of maintaining strong churches is instruction in sound doctrine (1 Timothy 4:11-16). The formal expression of that doctrine is the church's statement of faith or confession...The practical means of confessional instruction has been the catechism...Proper biblical instruction in the home [through the catechism] will reinforce what is learned in the church and help safeguard the truth [held by the church] as we indoctrinate the generation who will succeed us."

Dr. Priest quotes the church father, Chrysostom, and challenges parents to "raise up a champion for Christ" and develop "a strategy for building children into devoted servants of our great God and Christ's church...training [them] in Christian doctrine."

Of course, the most foundational way to do this is using the Bible itself. But, another strategy parents have used through history in conjunction with Bible teaching and study, is the implementation of a confession of faith like the Westminster Shorter Catechism. We, as a family, have adopted this strategy for the past 5 years. We updated the Catechism slightly to be in line with our church's confession of the Baptist distinctives. It has been a helpful springboard off of which we can elaborate in handling our kids' abstract questions about God ("Does God have a body?" "No, God is a Spirit."), dealing with practical matters like calming bedtime fears ("Can you see God?" "No, I cannot see Him, but He always sees me."), and addressing their need for salvation by pointing them to Jesus ("What did Christ undertake in the covenant of grace?" "To keep the whole law for his people, and to suffer the punishment due to their sins.").

A few resources we've found helpful are the Catechism itself located here (and updated as indicated above). Some friends recommended these CDs several years back and we love all of them! (Only Volume 1 is linked to, but there are currently 3 CDs available.) This year, I've used these books during breakfast and taught more systematically through each question. Even Ruby has gotten into it! And Stella understands why "total inability" is a better explanation for man's fallen condition than "total depravity."

Is This Just a Cerebral Exercise?

The Bible teaches in Jude that the truth is something for which we have to fight in this world and even in the church. Fighting for truth presupposes we know the truth. So we act offensively and inculcate our kids in truth so they can "test and approve what God's will is." (Romans 12:2) And, we also act defensively, teaching them to stand on guard against error, protecting the truth and testimony of Christ's church.

A Mutual Help

The church has everything to do with child training. First, it helps us and our kids. Maybe you're a single parent, or married to an unbeliever, or weren't raised in a Christian home, or are just very aware of your limitations as a parent. We can rely on the church! It helps make our job of training our kids easier because we can follow its lead, set by our pastors, in what we teach our kids and how. And, we and our kids, can benefit from the help provided by the example, teaching, and input from our relationships with people in the church.  We aren't alone in the task! Last, the church helps us so we can help the church. With all the competing voices of what we should and shouldn't be doing as parents, the church helps keeps us focused and clarifies the purpose for why we're training our kids in the first place - to maintain its strength and health in the generations to come. "To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." (Ephesians 3:21)
_______________________
If you need further inspiration, listen here to D.A. Carson and Voice give a fun explanation of the Westminster Cat. :)

The Capacity for Pain in Parenting

"A wise son makes a father glad, but a foolish son is a grief to his mother." Proverbs 10:1

The sobriety of this truth came to bear again upon my heart as I studied through Proverbs while I held you, our newborn son, in my arms just two short years ago. I wasn't new to the almost overwhelming responsibility that comes with parenting. When Stella was just two, I wrote here about feeling the weight of caring for her soul that would live forever. Now it was the same burden, but times three! 

John Kitchen, in his commentary on Proverbs, admits regarding this verse, "What capacity for pain we take on when we [first] hold our...child in our arms!"

Carolyn Mahaney, posting of A Mother's Trust, transparently confesses her biggest struggle as a parent was that she didn't trust God more. She saw her children's sins and feared how those vices might grip their hearts and play out in detrimental ways in their lives. I know I'm not alone in acknowledging my own similar battle.

I see dear Christian friends heart broken over their wayward grown children. I've heard them rehearse how they parented and try to pinpoint where they went wrong as if they were ultimately to blame for how their children turned out. I've seen them almost collapse under the grief of the foolishness of their son and/or daughter. 

Honestly, all of this sometimes makes me wonder why in the world we opened ourselves up to the potential for such pain!

 

But love drives out fear. And these risks, the possibility of the heart breaks, this sacrifice, is what biblical love is all about. It's following God's path in a responsible way, counting the cost not dear, and trusting Him with each step. It's knowing a sword might pierce my soul, like it did Jesus' mother's, but going ahead with it nonetheless.  It's examining the high price tag on love, and gladly paying it all. How do I know this?

Because I've learned from Jesus who is the fulfillment of the loving truth that it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). I know how I should love because I've been shown great love even though I broke my Father's heart, caused Him unimaginable pain, grieving Him by thousands of falls. Jesus loved me to the end of Himself (John 13:1), while I was still a sinner and completely undeserving (Romans 5:8), and covered the high cost of my sin (1 John 4:10).

So this great love controls me (2 Corinthians 5:14) and compels me to love my precious children, regardless of how they reciprocate my love for them and even His love for them. I follow Jesus who gave, even if I might not receive. In doing this, I try to keep a few things in mind.

1. No matter how faithful I am to train my children in the way they should go, I must humbly remember it is not a guarantee they will not depart from it. 

Dr. Sam Dawson, Professor of Biblical Hermeneutics at DBTS, helped me learn to interpret the literary genre of proverbs. Proverbs are not promises. They are wise sayings that are generally true in life. It's actually freeing to know Proverbs 22:6 isn't a set-in-stone guarantee, because I would be way too self-reliant if it were. Instead, I remain dependent on God to keep my kids from departing, and ask Him to use our hopefully diligent but still feeble, failing, insufficient attempts at training. We work hard, but pray hard, as well, since it all depends on God to make our work bear fruit in their lives.  And if it comes to this, "When the harvest time is over and I still see no fruit, I will wait for You." (emphasis mine)

And you, dear ones with wayward children, can be free too from scrutinizing your past parenting failures. I have a long list of regrets only seven years into it. Our expectation is ultimately in God, not our training efforts. We all fall hopelessly short. Wait for Him.

2. What my kids need most, I can't give them. They need a new heart. A regenerated heart. A new birth. I might give them a first birth, but only God can give them a second. So, again, we pray, and wait on God.

3. I need to seek out the encouraging perspective of moms with grown kids. "[The older women] can urge the younger women to love...their children." (Titus 2:4)

A few times last month, I was encouraged greatly by what two moms at our church shared with me. One told me about her grown son and his wife becoming foster parents. She said when he was growing up she never would've dreamed he would do this important ministry. I thanked her for reminding me not to see my kids as the sum of their faults but to remember that nothing is too wonderful for the Lord! He knows the plans He has for them and is sufficient to equip them accordingly! Another mom told me how fervently she prayed her daughter through her public school years and helped her navigate being the designated driver for her friends and confrontations with sexual temptations. God kept her daughter safe, in spite of the peer pressure and teasing, and she gave her husband the gift of purity on their wedding night.

Carolyn Mahaney finished her transparent confession referenced above, with this encouragement in her book, Girl Talk:

"For every fearful peek into the future, I wish I had looked to Christ instead. For each imaginary trouble conjured up, I wish I had recalled the specific, unfailing faithfulness of God. In place of dismay and dread, I wish I had exhibited hope and joy. I wish I had approached mothering like the preacher Charles Spurgeon approached his job: 'forecasting victory, not foreboding defeat.'"

4. I need to listen to the encouraging perspective of grown children.

I loved hearing Matt talk about the instructive, edifying sermons he heard at Together for the Gospel when he came home last month. But the most encouraging thing he relayed to me, hands down, was from a panel discussion on the topic of the inerrancy of Scripture. One by one, the panelists explained from a scholarly point of view, why they each held the belief that Scripture is without error. It was John Piper's turn and the gist of his answer was, "I believe the Bible is inerrant because my mom told me it was." I was choking back tears when I heard this brilliant grown man's admission to the power of his mother's influential teaching.

As I take you again in my arms today, my bigger, wigglier, broader, heavier, ornerier 2-year-old baby boy, I will remind you how much I love you, even with all the sacrifice, risk, and potential for personal pain love entails. I will remind you that I love you enough to tell you no when you do wrong and warn you repeatedly that the way of the transgressor is hard. I will remind you that I love you enough to instruct you in wisdom's way - the way you should go - by directing you to the One in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Those treasures are worth digging for! I will remind you that I love you enough to diligently seek to drive out the foolishness that has deep roots in your heart. And I will admit to you - although you'll soon realize it yourself - that as much as I want to be the perfect picture of biblical love to you, I am but a poor reflection of the great love I've received. So, as long as I am able, I will remind you too, that you can know perfect love. And this is how: "Jesus Christ laid down his life for us." (1 John 3:16)

Happy 2nd Birthday, to the 2nd boy who stole my heart!