PRIMARY FAITH NURTURERS
Listen, my son (daughter), to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
Proverbs 1:8
A Barna Group study reported eighty-five percent of parents of children under age 13 believe they have the primary responsibility for teaching their children about religious beliefs and spiritual matters. That’s great news: parents understand their job description! The problem is negligence. They’re failing to take action and do what God requires of them. Related research “revealed that a majority of parents do not spend any time during a typical week discussing religious matters or studying religious materials with their children.” Most parents are willing to let their church (or GEMS Club) provide the religious teaching rather than doing what they acknowledge is their responsibility – training their children!
God assigned parents to be the first line of Christian education. Proverbs 1:8 points to the family lines needed in training children: Listen to your father’s instruction. Do not forsake your mother’s teaching. Proverbs 6:20 reiterates: Keep your father’s commands and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
There’s a tendency in our culture to bind our lives to schedules and things. People are tied to their calendars, car keys, cell phones, and TV remotes like a baby to her pacifier. Lose any one of these items and everything stops until the lost has been found.
God teaches us through Moses to bind ourselves to His Word and to take every opportunity to teach our children to do the same! We are to impress the command to love the LORD our God with all our heart, soul, and strength on the hearts of our 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. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates (Deuteronomy 6:6-9, emphasis mine).
What children has God entrusted into your care as a parent, grandparent, aunt, or special friend? Talk with them about God. Identify God sightings in your lives and in the world. Talk about His creation and marvel at the wonderful deeds He has done. Read His Word together at breakfast and bedtime, and other moments sandwiched in between. Pray together and for one another. Expect Him to answer! Create a journal of thanksgiving to God – an ongoing list of praise and thanks. Memorize His Word. Choose a name of God to focus on each day or week. This is the tying and binding that is most needed in families. This is the tying and binding that will change lives one home and a time.
Wisdom Step: What one-on-one faith nurturing are you doing with the children God has entrusted to you or your sphere of influence? Will you do more? If so, what?
It is very important that children learn from their fathers and mothers how to love one another – not in the school, not from the teacher, but from you.
Mother Teresa
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