Spider-Man and discovering who is discipling our children

Seeing this meme got me thinking about the interaction between family, church and kids/youth leaders in the faith development of a child. As you think about those three groups of people I wonder how you would answer that question: whose job is it to raise our kids to know Jesus?

Well, let’s explore the different options.

It’s probably obvious to state how a child’s home is going to play a big part in their development in life and faith. But in fact, it probably can’t really be overstated. Statistics and research constantly tell us that parents are the single most influential contributor to a child coming to faith and remaining in their faith.

This was a given in both Old Testament and New Testament times. As we read in Deuteronomy, families are to pass on the law of God to the next generation in whatever they are doing. God gives them his commands and instructs families to “Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deut 6:7). Similarly as you fast forward in your Bible to Ephesians, you find the same kind of expectation on families to raise children to know Jesus. There Paul directly addresses parents, in particular Dads, telling them to “Fathers, do not  exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Eph 6:4). It’s clear that the mandate from the Bible is that parents are the primary disciple-makers in a child’s life. What a responsibility God has given to all the mums and dads!

Yet, this is all said with an acknowledgment that in reality families can be messy and come in all kinds of forms. I speak with many parents and carers who are convicted of those same truths above yet lack the confidence to be able to go about doing it. Some never saw it modelled by their own parents, others are caught in the whirlwind of all the activities of their child’s life and still others are so exhausted that they are barely just making through a single day. While our circumstances do not excuse us from obeying God, it is why he does not ask parents to do it alone.

So keep persevering in this task and don’t forget that God has given the church.

Our households were never meant to or expected to do this job of raising kids in the faith all by themselves. Both verses I’ve quoted above from Deuteronomy and Ephesians are written in a context that assumes the involvement of a wider community. The people of God are to form the bigger, spiritual family in which children are to be taught about Jesus. Like those passages, there are other places like Psalm 78 that exhort the whole community of believers to “tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord” (Ps 78:4). In fact, the future that God has in mind, and the picture we get in Revelation 4-5, elevates the church to be the ultimate family in which all believers (and therefore Christian families) belong.

God’s gift to children and families is the church. In it young people can find examples and models of what Christian faith looks like at every age and stage. It’s where teenagers can discover a constellation of relationships with other adults besides their parents and so greatly increases their likelihood of sticking with Jesus into adulthood. Similarly, it’s where parents/carers can be encouraged to press on in their task and equipped with resources to more effectively disciple their children. All the while the little ones among us can show us the child-like humble faith that Jesus spoke of and be a gift to us in return. I pray that our church family would be a place where all of these things are occurring!

Thus, while the parents remain the primary disciple-makers, the church family has an invaluable role in the faith development of young people. Which is also why it remains non-negotiable for our churches to be places that are safe for children too and that we keep high standards of child protection policies to avoid the tragic events of the past.

But if you have parents taking up their role as God intended and if the church is ably partnering with them in that role, what is the place of kids/youth leaders or all the extra programs that we put on?

Each week (praise God) we have teams of leaders from across our church families coming together to run specialised events, from playgroup to kids club to youth group – extra activities put on especially for young people. Not to mention the kind of Christian input that they might get from teachers during school programs like SRE, chapel services, Christian studies or lunch time groups. Throw in all the camps available in the school holidays too. We are often even paying a pastor full time to oversee all of this!

If you send your kids or were to go along to any of these programs, I’m convinced that you would be super encouraged by the team of volunteers leading them and would see God’s Spirit at work in the lives of many young people every week. But then we must ask questions like:

I hope you know that the answer to all three of those questions is a resounding NO.

Parents cannot abdicate their responsibility as the primary disciple-makers – just sending them to youth group in year 7 and hoping they pop out the other end as a Christian. Nor will these programs ever be sufficient to replace what the whole church body can offer. Not least because they all have a time limit on them, where children max out when they reach a certain age.

Having said that, these specialised programs can partner with and perhaps enhance the impact of both the home and the church. Our kids and youth leaders play a valuable role in walking alongside young people as they navigate faith in a complex world. In addition to that these extra programs can offer age-appropriate teaching, peer-to-peer relationships, outreach opportunities and a space to exercise their gifts.

While extra programs are effective for achieving these factors, it’s worth noting that it’s possible for them to all be achieved in the home and/or in the church too. Youth and kids leaders are not replacements rather, they can partner with all ministry done in the home and church.

Coming back to our Spider-Man meme from the start, who is responsible for the faith development of our children and youth?

Plot twist: it’s all of them AND also none of them!

You might have noticed that the one person missing from the picture so far is God. Where does he fit in to a child’s faith discovery? Well, it’s clear that He has planned things in such a way as to give children parents to teach them the Bible, and a church family to nurture their faith. But of course, any faith that a child or teenager has is only a gift from God in the first place. Back to Ephesians, Paul writes “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8). It’s not until God pours out his grace, which he does often and abundantly, that young people can acknowledge Jesus as Lord and saviour.

So whatever relationship we have to a child, we must start by praying and depending on God to do the work of transforming their heart. It is only by his grace that anyone, including children, can be forgiven and set free. That doesn’t remove our ongoing responsibility but it does lift the burden of needing to be their saviour – that’s Jesus’ job.

We can simply take up our God-given role and trust our Heavenly Father to do what he has promised to do.

I hope you can see that, under God, there is an important role for parents, the church and leaders. God delights in each one working in unity, with each taking responsibility for their part to pass on the gospel to the next generation.

If you want all our kids and youth to follow Jesus, like I do, then let’s partner together in growing them to be his disciples.