You know what I am talking about… Parenting, the pursuit where Ideology and Ivory Tower thinking and theories are tried and tested through the gauntlet of human reality, challenged by the presupposition of knowledgeable infallibility that is the offspring of our youth!
Yes, people, you remember the years, the time of your life when you knew everything, and actually believed such to be true! To be sure, too often knowledge and wisdom are absent bed fellows, with their human experiment affirming this for all to see!
I am Jonny King has an almost 16 year old Son, and so is not completely blowing chunks, as he is experiencing the ride of youthful dreaming. If I may be Frank (with a change of accent to boot), parenting a teenager could quite possibly be the time where I have learned more about my failings in such a transparent and stereophonic manner, that has made it clear that such a time is a definitive means of God’s grace in my life.
I am thankful for my Son, I am thankful for the joy of stewarding this brute beast of humanity, who like his Dad, is ‘want’ to run after the things of the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, and is a baseless being, without the continuing work of God’s grace in his life, mediated through the work of the Spirit.
As I reflect on the gravity and challenge of parenting teenagers in our present context, there is much that can be said and many resources that are worth their weight in God-glorifying Gold, by those who are much more experienced and wise than this thirty-something.
However, in this sort-of brief refrain, I want to focus on a couple of over-arching realities in the pursuit of parenting , which I believe affect and shape the practice of parenting, particularly as the beauty can act more like a beast!
1) Don’t Take the Salvation of Your Child for Granted
Recently, I have started reading Gospel-Powered Parenting, where this point was affirmed. The author, William Farley, affirmed and exemplified the significance of this point with two examples. The first was in a book by Christian Smith and Melissa Lundquist Denton, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. After surveying some 3000 American teenagers, they found that their religious beliefs reflected the concepts of Moralistic, Therapeutic, Deism. Here is how they describe this concept, and its impact…
These teens believe in a combination of works-righteousness, religion as psychological well-being, and a distant, non interfering god. Ironically, many of these young deists are active in their churches… It is important for every Christian parent to discern MTD from Christianity. A child can be compliant and well-behaved, attend Sunday worship, and socialize with the church youth group, but merely possess MTD. (Page 27).
In other words, your little bundle of joy can be a ‘spiritually’ dead child walking!
The second example underscores how prevalent MTD is in today’s church, with the sexual habits of evangelical children.
The following words deserve sober reflection…
Sociologist Mark Regnerus in his book Forbidden Fruit: Sex & Religion in the Lives of American Teenagersexposes the the failure of evangelical homes to discern and mold their children’s spiritual values. The author points out that evangelical teenagers are just as sexually active as their non-Christian friends. In fact, there is evidence that evangelical teenagers on the whole may be more sexually active. Those who identify themselves as evangelical teens tend to have their first sexual encounter at a younger age, 16.3 years, than liberal Protestants, who tend to lose their virginity at 16.7 years. And young evangelicals are far more likely to have had three or more sexual partners (13.7 percent) than non-evangelicals (8.9 percent). What about abstinence pledges? Those work – for a while – delaying sex on an average by about eighteen months, with 88 percent of pledgers eventually giving up their vow. (Pages 27-28).
Sobered Up? The last affirmation in regard to pledges exemplifies the problem. No, just before you’re thinking I am going to, without distinction, nay-say this often courageous choice that teens make in front of one’s peers… if you are expecting this, you would be wrong. However, if this pledge is merely an outward act of moral conformity, which it will be if it is not produced from the inside out, it will fail. The human heart being what it is, requires radical change that must come from another, outside source, which is Christ!
The statistics affirmed both show that mere religion is not mere christianity, which means that rules without a new reign within, does not bring new life, but merely a cultural assimilation that looks good for a time, but fails to produce real change that one can believe in!
Most Christian parents assume that church attendance or youth-group involvement equates to new birth. Parents are naive about new birth and its symptoms. (Page 28).
Read how A. W. Pink describes this needed change-to-believe-in
The new birth is very much more than simply shedding a few tears due to a temporary remorse over sin. It is far more than changing our course of life, the leaving off of bad habits and the substituting of good ones. It is something different from the mere cherishing and practicing of noble ideals. It goes infinitely deeper than coming forward to take some popular evangelist by the hand, signing a pledge card, or “joining the church.” The new birth is no mere turning over a new leaf, but is the inception and reception of new life. It is no mere reformation but a complete transformation. In short, the new birth is a miracle, the result of the supernatural operation of God. It is radical, revolutionary, lasting. (Page 29).
This is what our children need… Which is why you must…
2) Parent for the Heart
This can be easier said than done, and as I feel encouraged to underscore, I am no expert, but with a correct diagnosis of the problem, and a correct understanding of the solution, we would be wise to parent in such a way that reflects and encourages this reality. When parents have a rules-based focus, it tends to externalise the issue, and misses where the focus and nexus of the issue resides.
Yes, the problem may be what they are doing, and I am not suggesting that you don’t deal with these problems, but understand that the solution starts at a much deeper level. To remove a fruit tree from a garden, we would be wise to concentrate on removing the root, not merely picking off the fruit from the tree! When we parent for the heart, we are attacking the root!
For this to be a reality, we must have thought through and integrated the Gospel into our lives, and also into our philosophy of parenting, as our actions will always speak louder than our words, particularly when our actions betray our words. Thereby in our parenting, practice the Gospel, by parenting the Gospel!
If your parenting has a preponderance that focuses on what your children are doing, which fails to deal with why they are doing it, don’t be surprised if your children have an external paradigm, which sadly, has a positive attraction to dead religion… MTD anyone!
3) Say “Yes” to As Much as You Can
These following points may seem more practical, but as a parent of a teenager, theory only thrives-to-survives if it can be practiced!
In another piece of my posting, I recored some words from, R. Kent Hughes, as it related to Fatherhood, which exemplifies and affirms why this point, number 3 is important. Here are some words worth remembering, in the context of overstrictness…
Some fathers exasperate their children by being overly strict and controlling. They need to remember that rearing children is like holding a bar of wet soap – too firm a grasp and it shoots from your hand, too lose a grasp and it slides away. A gentle but firm hold keeps you in control.
We cannot begin to estimate the ravages of overstrictness on the evangelical Christian community over the years. I have had occasion in my ministry to bury people who lived virtually all of their seventy years in reaction to the harsh legalism of their upbringing – lost bars no one could manage to pick up. Others were not so tragic. They came to renounce legalism biblically and theologically, but still wrestled with it emotionally for the rest of their lives.
Why are some fathers overly strict? Many because they are trying to protect their children from an increasingly Philistine culture – and smothering rules seems the best way to accomplish that. Others are simply controlling personalities who use rules, money, friendship, or clout to rule their children’s lives. The Bible, read through their controlling grid, becomes a license to own and dominate. Still others wrongly understand their faith in terms of Law rather than grace. Some men are overly strict because they are concerned about what others will think. ”What will they think if my child goes to this place… or wears this clothing… or is heard listening to that music?” Not a few preacher’s kids have been catapulted into rebellion because their fathers squeezed their lives to fit their parishioners’ expectations. What a massive sin against one’s children!
Rather, we ought to begin our fatherhood by holding the tiny helpless bar snugly, but as it grows, gradually and wisely loosen our grip. As conscientious fathers we have to say “no” to many things. Thus we should try to say “yes” to as much as possible, and save our no’s for the really important situations.
We must be Biblical in regards to our no’s – and as our children grow, be prepared to discuss the rules biblically and principally. We must learn to trust God with our children, realizing they must learn to make decisions for themselves.
Father’s, do not exasperate your children by being overly strict. Learn to hold their lives with God’s pressure and to mold it with His love. (Emphasis mine).
An external focus, which fails to understand the Gospel, grasps rules and regulations like a drowning man grasps hold of a life raft!
Only Two to go… Phew, you may be thinking…
4) Ground Your Authority in God
From my perspective, this one has been an important reality as I have thought through parenting a growing son who wants more responsibility, control, and freedom in his life. Such realities are signs of maturity, but as is the case when we grew up, knowledge and wisdom are not synonymous concepts. As I say to my son, “knowledge can come in a moment, but wisdom takes time.” Nevertheless, this intersection can be the cause of friction, as the interaction between child and parent can easily move and morph into a battle of who has the authority, and as the cross-over to give your child more “head” is no scientific pursuit, it can be a cause of confusion for parents!
If you have an independent child, then you may perceive what I am saying, but as my son has grown, I have affirmed, for example and where appropriate, that when he has a problem with me as an authority figure, his problem is really with his Creator, as He has placed me in his life as his Father. Such a philosophy helps to defuse any personal battles that can detour the parenting pursuit as our children grow older, but also, ironically, this framing perspective helps to underscore the authority that is a God-given reality in the parent-child relationship.
This can help to take the “personal” heat out of those moments, as we make it clear that our authority is grounded in God’s will, in giving “Junior” his Dad and Mum as his parents. This is God’s wisdom Sonny!
If I may also note that this is not something that you should start as your children move into “those” years. For example, with my five year old, when I am “discipling” him, I will usually say something like the following: You are not honouring and obeying Your Creator, and while You are choosing not to, Dad and Mum will continue to do so, which is why… grounded in Prov. 3:11, 12, which one then goes on to explain what will happen with his “consequences” next!
What, you the parent, are also affirming by communicating in such a manner is that God’s wisdom and plan is the standard and goal for living one’s life, that you are God’s steward in your parenting role, and that His will, should be our way!
5) Remember, God is the One Who Must Work
This is a vitally important final point. While our efforts are important, significant, and mandated, ultimately and finally, it is God who must work in our child’s heart, and it is God who must open their eyes! Such a reality does not diminish our calling as parents, but provides a needed antidote as we consider the huge calling, role, and responsibility, which can easily cause us to wonder how such a role can ever be completed.
God calls for us to be faithful in this calling, and He will take care of the rest!
Conclusion
As a younger man, I was foolishly focused on ministry as something that took place outside of the home. As I have grown older, and a little wiser, I have come to see that ministry in the home, far from being an excursus on the ministry trail, is really the foundation from which all other ministry is validated, underscored, completed, and consecrated!
While this short-ish piece is hardly the end of all speakings on this subject, and I hardly speak from on high on this subject, God willing, it is a start to help you think through this calling!
In 20-10, may we parent with the passion and commitment of our Creator, who exemplifies this each and every day in the saving, keeping, and redeeming of our lives in and under the Son/ Sun.
Until Next Time
I am Jonny King
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