It’s starting as a fairly calm morning, waking up to playing instead of screams is always a good thing. I don’t know about you but the first mission I embark on as I wake up from sleep is the coffee pot. The moment I open the door the kids flood me with questions, allegories about their dreamland from last night and/or little spats between them they haven’t settled and need a referee. I usually nod my head to acknowledge I know they need me and then point to the coffee pot as their sign to just wait a few more minutes until mommy has had her first cup of morning goodness to help me ease into the day’s activities. The big girls know the routine and sigh with understanding while the little one is catching onto the trend. “Coffee momma?” she squeals. “That’s right, honey” I reply still a bit groggy but gentle, so she knows momma is just waking up. On this particular morning, it’s calm as I said, and they are all playing nicely together, which is a victory, something worth celebrating. As I sit down with my cup of delight and open my phone up to scroll through today’s most recent posts on social media, something pops out at me. I begin reading a quote that Lisa Bevere, a well-known Christian minister, posted. It said this, “If your children SEE YOU following God, they will follow suit.” So simple and yet it rang so true that I could almost hear bells going off in my living room.
As Christian parents we are often looking for the keys to raising our children up in the Lord. We read the passage in the bible from Proverbs 22:6 which says, “train up a child in the way they should go; and when they are old, they will not depart from it.” I am sure that you have read and heard this passage one or more times as you’ve begun to raise your family. When I first read this passage, it was an encouraging truth. I felt it was doable, attainable, and I was up for the task. I have to say, as a leader in the Body of Christ and firsthand witnessing the departure of many young people in the church today, this passage became more and more of a challenge to me and I have had to ponder it deeply. I have been considering the process to accomplishing this charge in our children today. Barna research shows nearly two-thirds of U.S. 18–29-year-olds who grew up in church have withdrawn from church involvement as an adult after having been active as a child or teen. That is 64% of young adults according to the study. Another recent Barna study showed that approximately 70% of parents say they are at least somewhat concerned about their children staying true to their spiritual faith. And for good reason I believe. We are living in a very different world then the one we grew up in as children. It seems like the battlegrounds of our faith have increased and the assault on children has become more intentional, even starting as young as kindergarten.
I am a church girl, always have been since I could crawl, and I was one of the ones who stayed in church as an adult. I believe in the importance of having a faith community around you in every aspect and stage of your life, continually receiving fresh impartation of the Word of God, worshipping among fellow believers as we lift a chorus of “hallelujah” together. And no, the church is not perfect. I once heard someone say a phrase to which I had to give a resounding amen. They said, “as long as the church has people in it, it will never be perfect.” That is not to come down on people or to be critical in any way, it is just the truth. The ones sitting in the chairs, even preaching the sermon at the pulpit, are the flesh and blood behind the imperfect church. I am sure that if you have attended church for any amount of time you may have encountered church hurt. It is bound to happen, and I have had my fair share. I personally believe that as you’re looking for a church where you fit, I’ve learned to look for the following: a willingness to hear, a willingness to be wrong and ask for forgiveness if necessary, and a people who strive to walk towards being more and more transformed into the likeness of Christ. That is a place I feel you can grow and trust. I am not saying there are not places that don’t have spiritual abuse and, in those situations, with wise counsel and guidance, it may be the best for you and your family to part ways. But in the imperfect church, what I have learned is that this in no way is a representation of the God that I serve. That is not the God I read in my Bible, the one I surrender my life to at the age of 14 years old. It is just broken people who need Him more and more as the days grow darker and more difficult. Jesus himself warned us in Matthew 24:4-14, “Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”
You may or may not be thinking at this moment, “Ok, Tarrah. What does this all have to do with pursuing God and training our children up?” Well, my response to that would be, EVERYTHING. We want to be aware of the times and season we are living in and the climate we are raising our children in to fully arm ourselves with the tools to ender till the end. I personally don’t want to just raise my kids to make it, I want them to be God chasers who can discern between good and evil and stand up for righteousness in their generation. We all may have different ideas of what this looks like, but I want to suggest to you to start with this one thing…LEAD BY EXAMPLE. You want your kids to be on fire for God, be on fire for God. Let them see what it looks like by watching you worship on your knees, getting up early in the morning to read your bible, praying in the car on the way to school. There is such power in sowing the seed of your very life into your kids. They will remember the time you couldn’t afford groceries and prayed to Jesus to supply all your needs, when a knock on the door comes and behold, they see bags of groceries left on your front porch. He is a God who answers prayer! They will remember when you yelled at them unnecessarily because you were under stress from work and came to them later to ask them for your forgiveness and humble yourself before them (yes, even to your children). We were a part of a church that had your children in worship with you and after they were released into children class. At first it was hard; I am not going to lie. I wanted to worship freely but instead if had little ones who wanted to be held, pulled on me for snacks, randomly broke out in tears because it was too loud. The frustration I felt in these moments made me wonder if it was worth it, do I give up and stay in the lobby or stay home for the worship portion. At times when they were really young, I did do this and there is no shame in that at all, but something inside of me personally had to be in worship. I needed it like I needed water. So, I would press through, imperfectly at times, and worship with a baby on my hip and toddlers in the aisles. The thing I can see now that I didn’t realize when they were younger, was that not only did I need to be immersed in that corporate worship atmosphere, did needed it too. Even if they didn’t know it themselves, their spirits came alive. Eventually they watched as mommy lifted her hands and began to lift their little hands and they sang along to the worship. I know that at first this was only mimicking, they watched and did as I did, but somewhere it changed and became their worship. They began encountering God in such a beautiful way during the worship service at church. They would fall on their knees and bow before God, not because anyone told them to or because they saw me do it, they were overcome with love for Jesus that they bowed before Him all on their own.
In the words of Lisa Bevere, “let them SEE YOU.” If you don’t know where to start, start there. Start by being the biggest witness in their life for God. You may be thinking, oh I’ve messed up. I didn’t start when they were little, or I haven’t’ been the best example and so this won’t work for me. I want to encourage you that there is no time like the present to start pursuing God and being that example to your children, no matter where they are at in life. They might start seeing, wow something is different, what happened? What a great way to say, “Jesus happened.” That will stick with them. You may not do it perfectly; Lord knows I have made mistakes and not been perfect in my example. The key for me has been, just like I have looked in a good church family, to be willing to humble myself and even to my children apologize for not being a good witness of Jesus and keep pursuing Him. I also encourage you to find those other mommas, community is such an important part of our walk with God and in parenting. Find one or two momma friends you can lean on, who will encourage you and keep cheering you on in your pursuit of God. Be blessed today in your pursuit of God and know that little (and not so little) eyes are watching you.