There is a crew of servants in our church well-deserving of our appreciation – our KidzZone, Preschool, and Nursery servants. They serve us all by teaching and caring for our children on Sunday mornings. Outstanding job, team! But wait, what about this question?
Why doesn’t your church have a mid-week kids’ night? Isn’t that important? Our church doesn’t have one of those and yes, discipling our children during the week, beyond Sunday morning is super important. Many churches have Wednesday night programs for teaching their children and we say, “way to go” to them for it. But we have chosen not to have one. It is because we have chosen to have an extremely better child discipleship program. It’s the home.
We believe the most effective disciple-makers of children are their parents. We believe only teaching children on Sunday mornings is by far not enough. Teaching them two times per week is still by far not enough. Children need to be discipled by their parents daily in the home. We get this from the Bible. Deuteronomy 6:7 commands parents to teach God’s words to their children, “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” Ephesians 6:4 instructs, “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Dropping them off at Children’s Church and Wednesday night club is not what this means.
The church is commanded by Jesus to make disciples so we must engage in teaching both parents and children. And one of the most important things for the church to teach parents is how to disciple their children full time at home. The church only has a part time role. But parents have a fulltime role. Yes, it can be challenging. We may feel like failures often. But with God’s grace and the encouragement of other believers we can obey God. He always honors His word and uses it to accomplish His work in their hearts. Here’s some encouragement from the book Christ-Centered Parenting by Russell Moore (LifeWay).
Unless we are actively discipling our kids, the world will disciple them for us. We cannot let the responsibility of parenting fall to the culture or to the schools. We cannot even let it fall primarily to the church, although the church should be our closest partner. If we are merely sending our kids down the church hall twice a week for Sunday School and youth group meetings, while failing to teach them the truths of Scripture in our own home, then we are guilty of forsaking our God-given role as parents. Hoping they hear it from someone else isn’t good enough.
I and all the other pastors at Koinos agree with this one hundred percent. So we make it our aim not to take this duty away from parents but also we aim to teach parents that this is their responsibility, equipping them as much as possible to do a good job with this in their own home. And it is a delight to see the growing number of moms and dads discipling their children daily at home. And if you haven’t yet started this at your house, today is the perfect time to begin!
Here is a list of just few resources that might help you get started:
Christ-Centered Parenting by Russell Moore
The Lamb by John R. Cross
Grandpa’s Box by Starr Meade
Family Worship by Donald Whitney
