Student Ministry - February 2022
Here are some questions and answers from a recent Life Group Discussion Guide I wrote for our church. I wanted to leave them here with you and pray that they would be helpful to you and your family!
What should be the primary goal of a child’s upbringing? Why is it essential to understand what the responsibility of a parent truly is?
“The primary object of a child’s upbringing must be the salvation of his soul.” (Charles Bridges) What else
actually matters if a child is still “dead in trespasses and sins?” (Ephesians 2:1) And what compares to growth in sanctification? What does it profit a parent if their child gains the whole world but loses his soul? God has given parents the primary responsibility of training them to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, and strength. (Deuteronomy 6:4-7) It is no one else’s job to parent your children.
How do parents sometimes try to “outsource” their responsibility, and why is that not acceptable in God’s eyes?
There are many ways that parents try to outsource parenting. Ultimately it is not God’s design for someone else to parent your child. He does not see that as a parenting win, but rather as shirking responsibility. This is not to say that parents should not seek help and find new and creative ways and partners in the spiritual development of their children! That is what student ministries are supposed to be about. But parents ought not think that their job is satisfied by sending a child to church and enrolling them in programs. Those things are not bad and can actually be very helpful, but God expects us to have a hands-on approach to raising our children.
Why is it also important for parents to understand that children are responsible for their lives as they grow into adulthood?
A child’s faithfulness and successes are not solely attributable to his parents. Likewise, a child’s faithlessness and failures are not solely attributable to his parents. The way parents raise their children has enormous impact and bares a large portion of the responsibility for how a child turns out; but that is not the sole and ultimate determining factor in people’s lives. Children are still individual image bearers who eventually have to choose for themselves “whom they will serve.”
While parents have a tremendous responsibility, the personal responsibility of each individual removes a great deal of weight off the parents’ shoulders. The way this works is a mystery that only God knows fully. But we can take the responsibility that He has given us and rest in His sovereign will for our children.
Why is it unreasonable to think that children will lovingly obey their parents and will sin less than their parents did as a child? How is the gospel the best and only true resolution for a child’s behavior?
Children are born naturally sinful. That’s why you don’t have to teach them how to lie and take toys away from other kids. Instead, you must teach them to tell the truth and share. If we are honest about ourselves, we can look back and think of the sinful things we did, said, and thought as kids. We are fooling ourselves if we think our children aren’t capable of at least as much. But thanks be to God that there is a solution to our sinfulness! It isn’t strict obedience. It is the gospel; through faith in Christ, God gives us new hearts and new desires so that we now love God and others. It is only through the gospel that our children will love others and desire obedience. But again, obedience is not the end in itself. Love for God is the end, and obedience is the wonderful overflow of that love.
Why is it vital to invest in the relationship between a parent and a teenager?
The word “relationship” is key. As your child grows, they are moving into adulthood. There is a difficult but rewarding balance that must be held between relating to them as a child and relating to them as an adult. One way to do this is to develop a relationship with them. It has to start becoming a two-way stream. You still get to be the parent, but your interactions start to become more than just parent-child interactions. You start growing into the unique experience of friend (who happens to be the parent) and friend (who happens to be the child).
Investing in that kind of relationship is vital, because when you only have a parent-child relationship, when the child becomes a grown and independent adult, it will feel like you no longer have any kind of relationship. This, sadly, is the state of many parents of grown children. But, if that is where you find yourself, then by God’s grace, it is not be too late to try and invest in a new kind of relationship now.
