Parenting Like Hannah

One of the frustrations in Christian parenting can be when you don’t believe the church you attend is giving your children everything they need spiritually. But I will tell you a secret. One of the frustrations of the ministers on the staff of your church is that they think you have unrealistic expectations of what they can actually accomplish in helping your kids grow spiritually. The problem is the two sides rarely have open collaborative discussions about who will commit to do what to help young people build unshakable faith foundations and develop to their full God given potential.

While the answers to what your church can and can’t do to help you will vary, I believe there are some realistic (and unrealistic) expectations you can have as a parent of children in a children’s or youth ministry. Having said that, the underlying caveat is that you make sure your children are fully participating in all of the opportunities the ministries at your church give them to learn and grow.

You can expect ministries to:

1. Provide age appropriate Bible classes once or twice a week.
2. Teach Bible based lessons in those classes that include lots of scripture as well as discussions or activities designed to help them understand how to apply that scripture to daily life.
3. Provide adult volunteers who will support your efforts to require your children to obey God and not undermine those efforts.
4. Provide occasional (preferably regular) opportunities outside of regular class time to dive deeper into scripture or learn more about the things they are learning in Bible classes.
5. Provide opportunities to serve others and begin sharing their faith.
6. Provide encouragement for your children to read the Bible independently, memorize scripture and live out what the Bible teaches them to do.
7. Teach your children how to become a Christian.
8. Provide spiritual mentors for your children. This may be casually through relationships with staff or ministry volunteers or in a more formal mentoring program.

What your church can’t do:

1. Teach your children more than about 20% of what is in the Bible on average. Yes, it would be nice if Bible class curricula covered more of the Bible instead of constantly repeating the same few stories and scriptures, but most churches aren’t truly analyzing what young people and aren’t being taught and informing parents so they can fill in the gaps. No matter how great you think the Bible classes are at your church, your kids aren’t being taught most of what is in the Bible. Which means your kids will be trying to live a Christian life with a small fraction of the information God intended them to have. You need to be intentional at home about making sure they know everything God wanted them to know in the Bible.
2. Provide the amount of spiritual coaching and correction your children need to develop godly habits and character. They are only around your kids a couple of hours a week at best. They only see a snippet of the children you live with every day. You need to be their “coach” spiritually. Encouraging, teaching, correcting and giving consequences for rebellion.
3. Most churches aren’t great at providing opportunities for young people to dive deeper into scripture outside of Bible class – particularly in children’s ministry. Find opportunities to have great spiritual conversations with your kids. Take them to museums to see some of the things they read about in the Bible. Ask them what questions they have about what they are learning and if you don’t know the answers, research them together. Have regular conversations and find ways to encourage each other to live out the things they are learning from the Bible. Have regular family devotionals and really talk about what you are reading and what God wants them to do with what you read from scripture.
4. At best, most youth ministries provide one or two opportunities to serve others a year and group most of those are in the summer months. Children rarely get to serve in their ministry environments. From the time they are beginning to walk and talk, your kids should be serving others constantly. Talk about ways they can personally serve others daily. Serve others together as a family regularly. Serving others only a couple of times a year does not result in children who grow to have servant hearts. Whenever you serve others, talk about ways you can also help those you are serving learn something about God or take the next step towards God spiritually.
5. Most churches aren’t great at truly encouraging independent Bible reading or scripture memorization. Your kids need both habits to be able to make the choices God wants them to do in the amount of time they generally have to make those choices. Which means they have to really know the Bible well and have the gist of it in their long term memories. They will also need you to help them practice the Christian life skills that make it easier to obey God.
6. Make sure your child becomes a Christian. Parents have the greatest impact on whether or not their children decide to be baptized and commit their lives to Christ. If you don’t talk about it constantly and teach them God’s expectations, they may never become a Christian.
7. Most churches don’t provide formal mentors for teens or especially children. You can help develop these relationships by keeping your kids in worship with you and helping them get to know the adults in your congregation to build relationships with them. You can also invite strong Christians your family knows over to your home on a regular basis so your kids will become comfortable talking with them. Effective mentorships require spending time together so providing opportunities for your kids to know strong Christian adults will give them people they feel comfortable enough with (and who you trust to give your kids godly advice) that they can ask for advice.

So what can you do if you believe your church isn’t providing the bare minimum to help you – rather it is the curriculum, lack of opportunities or staffing issues? Say something! Start with the person who has the best ability to make changes and then work your way up if necessary. Be prepared to offer suggestions or help make changes happen. The reason most children’s and youth ministries aren’t more helpful to parents is that parents aren’t speaking up about what they expect in ways ministries and church leaders can understand.

Most leaders only know they see and what people tell them. If they don’t hear there are issues or problems, they will assume everything is great – even if it’s horrible. Don’t just complain to your spouse or other parents, talk to someone who can make change happen. Your job as a Christian parent is hard, but so is theirs and many are not adequately trained in the skills needed to do their job well. So unless they hear from you, they think they are doing a great job. Be loving and kind, but be honest. Remember, some kids aren’t getting any help spiritually at home. If they aren’t really learning anything at church either, then they will really have trouble becoming the strong productive Christians God wants them to be. Knowing whether or not your ministry expectations are fair and holding others accountable for their part in loving ways is best done collaboratively. When you and ministries truly work together, your kids will get everything they need to become strong productive Christians.

Of all of the spiritual disciplines we are covering, you may think worship is the easiest. You just take them to church every Sunday, right? Spiritual disciplines are practices Christians have partaken in for over two thousand years in an effort to become who God wanted them to be. Many of the disciplines Jesus himself practiced while he was on Earth. Since it’s so important to spiritual health and growth, we may need to take a closer look at worship.

The dictionary definition of worship is to show reverence and adoration to God. While corporate worship as a community of believers is crucial, your kids need to also learn how to constantly worship God. There are all kinds of clues in scripture about what God considers worship. In Isaiah, the prophet says, “…I will exalt you, I will praise your name, for you have done marvelous things…” (25:1) and “Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously.” (12:5) Paul writes in Romans that we are to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” (12:1) In Psalms we read “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.” (150:6)

You can help your children have a worshipful life by modeling one yourself. Sing praise songs around the house or in your car. (There are some great kids’ praise songs that have scriptures as lyrics so they are also memorizing scripture as they sing.) Be thankful to God out loud and praise Him in front of your children… “Isn’t God amazing that he created such a beautiful sunset for us to enjoy?!” “It is awesome to see how God worked in that situation even better than we could have imagined or hoped!” If you are sincere and consistent, your kids will begin to follow your lead in most cases.

But what about corporate worship at church? Although some churches still provide separate environments for children during worship services, don’t let your kids participate. Studies are finding children fare better spiritually when they are brought in with the adults as modeled in scripture. Yes it is more work for you, but they will grow so much more by learning how to worship from a young age, rather than being entertained. They will develop relationships that can become mentoring with Christians older than them who sit near you. They will feel like part of a family – which is what church was always designed to be.

Once they’re in worship with you, it’s crucial they participate – no matter how young they are. Our daughter was encouraged to sing along from infancy and would often hum along before she could say the words. When we stood, she either stood or was picked up and held while we stood. She was encouraged to fold her hands and pray when the grown ups did – even if she just said her own prayer because she couldn’t quite understand what the person was praying. She gave her own money to God from her allowance each week. (Most churches have a box in the foyer where your children can put their money.)

But what about the sermons? When she was tiny, we had a fidget book I had made that was based on the Bible. Each page was a different story and had something she could do on it to keep her hands busy. She only saw that book during the sermon on Sunday, so she never had a chance to get tired of it. I also had a few other Bible based books she could look through.

As soon as she was old enough to begin drawing. We got her a special notebook for sermons. We would draw pictures based on things in the sermon and she would color them. As she got a little older, she was encouraged to listen to the sermon and draw things she heard from it. Most weeks she might only catch one or two points – usually the Bible story or theme in the sermon, but it taught her that the point was to listen and learn. Afterwards, we would often talk briefly at lunch about her notes and what she learned.

So what if your child gets antsy? Starting at about one year old, we began training her about appropriate behavior in worship. We sat in the back for several months and I would take her out and correct her if she became disruptive and then bring her back into worship. I won’t lie. Some weeks, I had to get up more than once. It’s important to state clearly what was disruptive in your correction and repeat that we don’t do things to disrupt the worship of others. It is also important to return as quickly as possible, because some children will learn acting out gets them out of worship and into an environment with toys. The point of training is not just about behavior. It is teaching them worship is not about them being entertained, but about praising God and helping others worship Him as well. It’s the beginning of a foundation of considering the needs of others and putting God first, instead of themselves.

Work with your kids on worship. It keeps them in constant contact with God and keeps their perspective and priorities focused on God instead of their own “selfish desires”.