How are you doing?

At the end of my previous post, I asked parents to come up with short term and long term goals for each child. As you look over your goals, I have one question for you to consider. How are your goals different from a non-believers goal? Is it bad to want your child to do well in school, to get into a good college, or to do really well in sports? No, it is not bad, but it becomes dangerous when those goals are more important than your child’s spiritual development. As you look at your goals, answer the following questions about them:

How many hours a week you spend on each of your goals?
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:19-21

Parents face tension because you have to do homework for school; you have to go to sports practices and all of the other events in your child’s life; so what is a parent to do? You are going to obviously have to spend more time on homework than you can on a family devotional every night. The question to ask is “what does my child think is of most importance in my mom or dad’s life?” What do you think their answer would be? Would they would say being involved in school, or doing well in sports, or being involved in church? Or would they say loving God with all your heart is the most important thing in your life? Do you even want to know? This may mean that you have to let your child be involved in less so that you can focus more on spiritual goal(s) that you have set for your child(ren). The Bible never said that being a disciple is easy. Just read Luke 14:25-35. You have the ultimate task as a parent to raise a disciple in your home.

How are at pursuing your goals in your own life? 
“Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 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.” Deuteronomy 6:5-7

Most of you have heard the statistics that anywhere from 60% to 90% of teenagers who attend church are walking away from the faith within 2 years after high school graduation. The number one reason that people are giving for walking away from the faith is hypocrisy. They are not seeing faith being lived out in the home. Mark Holmen, author of Faith @ Home, shared at a recent conference I attended, some scary statistics.

• Only 28% of children talk with mom about their faith
• Only 26% of children talk with dad about their faith
• Less than 10% of families pray & read the bible at home

Your child will do what you model for them. If parents do not talk to their child about their faith, pray with their child, or even read the Bible with their child, then how will a child know that their parent’s faith is important to them?

This week take your goals, revise them if you would like, then put down how you plan to accomplish your goals. If one of your goals is to have your child follow God, then put down how you plan to accomplish that. You could put down to take them to church, to pray together as a family daily in the morning, or to read the Bible together as a family on Thursday evenings.

Where is your family headed?

At the end of my previous post, I asked parents “What are you goals as a parent?” This is the time of year where many families set goals and expectations for the upcoming year. Some examples might be for your child to make better grades, to eat dinner more often as a family, to go to church more. The beginning of the school year is when most churches have the highest attendance. Then Labor Day hits, and the well-intended goals that you made for God start to die off. The excuses that parents use are too much homework, sports practices, or another Bible study; basically, God did not put enough hours in the day.

Think about the goals that you have made in your life. Career goals may range from first finding a job to now it is time to work up in the company. Personal goals may include to eat better and exercise more or to even doing something crazy like running a 5k or marathon. (Trust me, there is no desire in me to do this!) Spiritual goals may include getting up earlier and reading the Bible more, praying more with your spouse, and praying together as a family.

And then of course family goals which begin with starting a family, but then what? Have you ever made goals for your family? It makes sense to have goals for your family and for your child. If you do not have something that you are striving for, then you can wander aimlessly. It would be like if my wife and I decided to go on a trip to New York City without a map or her Garmin. I know there is a highway that will get us there. Let’s just drive until we get there. We may arrive in New York City or California or Brazil or Alaska - almost anywhere. The Bible says in Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, but happy is he who keeps the law.”

Take some time this weekend or this next week to pray with your spouse and make some goals for each child. Make 3 to 5 long term goals by asking “where would I like _____ to be when they are 25 or 30?” Then come up with 3 to 5 short term goals by asking “where would I like _____ to be next year at this time?” Then pray over these goals and determine how you are going to implement your goals.

Some of you might think that the church should be making these goals for me. This is a bigger question to address later, but look at Deut 6:7-9. Ask yourself, “whose responsibility is it to disciple your children?” It is not the pastor or church’s responsibility to disciple your child; it is the parents’. The church’s role is to come alongside and support parents.