The heart of every Christian parent is to have their children walk with Jesus.
We need to learn how to disciple our children in the faith.
We are called to Disciple
Christian parents want to teach their kids all that Jesus’ taught His disciples. Jesus’ disciples were changed people because they walked with Jesus. This is what I want in my own life, and in the life of each of my kids. I want them to be changed because they have met Jesus.
This Bible verse is not often seen as a parenting encouragement – but our children are people God has given us to disciple: to teach them all that Jesus taught.
What did Jesus teach?
–He taught who God was and who He (Jesus) was.
–He taught that following the rules didn’t connect you with God nor did it make you holy.
–He taught that He had the power to forgive sins, and connect us to God.
–He taught us how to live life in a way that brought God’s purposes to earth.
–He gave us the Holy Spirit to help us (teach, prompt, guide etc) to live in the ways that He taught
Since our kids live with us 24/7 we have the opportunity to show them Jesus, teach them His words, be an example of what He meant, answer questions, and prompt them to think about what they believe.
Don’t abdicate this privilege – dig into God yourself so you have the words and understanding ready to share with your kids.
4 Steps to Disciple our Children
Though we don’t want to create a formula, we do need to cover these 4 stages of introducing our Children to Jesus.
The Challenge for Christian Parents
For kids who grow up in a Christian home they need to know that being a Christian is relationship with Jesus – it isn’t about doing good. Read article …
Teach from your Heart
When we teach our children Bible lessons from our heart, instead of from a lesson plan, we make life-giving connections for them. Read article…
Every day opportunities
Our children need to see that God and Scripture is a normal part of every day so that it becomes real to them. Read article …
Challenge to Christian parents: Are you growing in your faith?
And do your children see your relationship with Jesus as real and living?
Think About It…
Our kids need to know they are a sinner – that is, they want to live their life their way, ignoring God. Regardless of the good things they do – unless they believe, obey, follow God then they are separated from Him.
This can be tricky to understand when they are raised in a Christian home and all things are about God and Jesus. But it is critical if they are to have a faith of their own – any faith journey is based on the words of Jesus:
I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Have you addressed this with your kids?
Do you talk about YOUR faith to your kids? Not just faith – but your faith, your journey, your convictions, your doubts, your miracles…
Discipleship is passing on beliefs, one generation to the next.
One of the lessons I learnt when my kids were young is that Bible time seemed to touch the kids hearts more when I taught from what was in my heart more than teaching from a book.
Don’t get me wrong – I used lots of books, lots of resources – but if it was just head knowledge for me, it became head knowledge for the kids. If it was something that touched my heart, it come out differently and the kids listened differently.
So the challenge really is – what do you believe – and how can you pass that onto your kids?
As we refer to Scripture in our daily life we help our children hide God’s Word in their heart.
We can of course talk about what God is saying or doing in our life, we can refer to Scripture when we teach, correct and encourage our kids. But… we can also refer to Scripture in lighter moments too.
The stories we read, listen to, or watch as well as the music we play all give us an opportunity to hear the Word of God, and discuss God’s truths.
How can you incorporate Scripture into your every day family life?
Being a Disciple is not about head knowledge – it is the act of following and copying our teacher so that we become like him. It is about growing and maturing to be changed because we know our teacher – Jesus.
~ Belinda Letchford
Over to you:
Do you have any questions about teaching your children your Christian faith? What do you find hard?
2 Comments
Let me know your thoughts...
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Thank you so much for sharing all theae wonderful, practical truths and such words of wisdom. I truly have so much to learn and it makes me wish I had known all these when my children were younger. How I need the grace of God that is sufficient for me. Right now, I do have a pressing question regarding music. May I know how do you encourage a teenager who prefers classical or other kinds of worldly music to Godly music? In church we sing a mixture of hymns and modern worship songs. At home I play a lot of worship songs over YouTube and sometimes we will sing a song or two in our family devotions. Somehow all these have not helped inspire my teenager to change his taste in music. I have tried talking but I fear that has made him even more resentful. ;(
Hi there Peiyin – It is indeed a tricky path to navigate. To be honest, my kids like music I don’t like and sometimes they’ve got into music that I wished they didn’t. Music is such a personal preference thing that what I liked or didn’t like wasn’t the standard. The standard we had was 1-can you understand the words and 2-do the words edify your soul. Sometimes they had to tell me the words because I couldn’t understand them. But like I said, I didn’t have to like it – but I did have to teach them to guard their heart and lift their soul (emotional health). I didn’t buy music that didn’t fit that criteria but once they had their own money then it was very different thing and I couldn’t really stop them from buying whatever it was that they liked. In these situations I would ask them to think about what they were feeding their heart on – I especially asked this when they were struggling with things that I thought maybe their music wasn’t helping in. It is important that our teens learn to self-reflect and understand the impact of music (and other things) on their emotions/soul.
Once they started buying their music then I took that standard and used it as the guide for what was played on the household soundwaves… when all were being affected. Which meant they often had to listen to their own music with ear buds because it wasn’t edifying or encouraging for all to hear. And then they were only allowed to wear earbuds at certain times of the day.
I think music is an issue we have to be very careful that we are principle driven and not personal preferences.