The most important job you have
Mission as Life wants to help you take responsibility for the spiritual, intellectual and social development of your children.
Deut. 6:6-9 "And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. NKJV
The teaching of our children involves formal and informal instruction. The most effective means for embedding values and spiritual truth to our children involves them first seeing us live out those values in our lives and then having an opportunity to cement those values into their personal lives through action.
For too long many families have handed off the spiritual instruction of their children to the church. Unfortunately, research shows that churches are failing miserably at this. Studies from the Southern Baptists have shown that up to 90% of youth who have spent their young lives in our churches, attended our Sunday schools and gone to our youth groups drop out of church after two years in college. A full 75% never return to church.
Some important questions for you to consider:
- How often do you talk to your children about how God expects them to use their skills and abilities in the world?
- How often do you take your children with you to serve others?
- Which of these two actions is more common, 1) you set aside church, opportunities for serving others or other spiritual activity to pursue recreation, or 2) you set aside recreation or entertainment to pursue church, serving others, or other spiritual activity?
- How often do you use the “news”, current events, popular movies or music as a launching point for teaching spiritual truth (whether examples of what not to do or what to do)?
- What is your family’s sense of “calling” as it relates to God’s purposes in the world?
What is your family’s sense of “calling” as it relates to God’s purposes in the world?
