"What Does It Mean to 'Disciple' My Child?"

“What Does It Mean to ‘Disciple’ My Child?”

This summer, my wife (Susan) and I were honored to published a new book in the “Joining Jesus” series. The title is “Joining Jesus as a Family: How to Raise Your Children to be Followers of Jesus.”

Below is a excerpt from chapter two of the book. It answers the question that most terrifies parents, grandparents, and anyone mentoring a child: How do I disciple a child to be a follower of Jesus?

The answer is simpler than you think and a lot more fun. Take a look below.

“What Does It Mean to ‘Disciple’ My Child?”

“Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ.”

-Paul, a follower of Jesus, writing in 1 Corinthians 11:1 

“What I really lack is to be clear in my mind about what I am to do, not what I am to know.”

–Soren Kierkegaard, renowned theologian, when he was 17

So, what does it mean to “disciple” your own child?

It’s actually a surprisingly simple answer. Because of the way God wired the child/parent relationship, you’re already doing it.

If you’re “raising” your child or “parenting” your child, you’re already “discipling” your child.

Raising my child = Discipling my child

The question is what are you raising/discipling your child to be and do?

Because the words “disciple” or “discipleship” are not ones we often use outside of religious circles, the definitions have become fuzzy for most people. However, these words have synonyms in our modern conversations that are familiar.

For instance, “apprentice,” “trainee,” and “intern” are all synonyms for the word “disciple.” So, when we read in the gospels about “the disciples of Jesus,” we are reading about “the trainees of Jesus” or “the apprentices of Jesus.” Disciples are people who are being mentored by Jesus to become like him and live like him for the good of others.

Jesus explains it this way, “A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher,” (Luke 6:40).

Disciple of Jesus = Trainee of Jesus

The word “discipleship” is often associated with “Christian Education.” In other words, discipleship = scholarship. However, in the gospels, “discipleship” is more than sitting in a classroom, mastering doctrine, and passing a test.  Rather, discipleship is Jesus’ training process where people literally follow him around to gain experience, skill, and confidence in living like him for the good of others.

Discipleship = Jesus’ training process

To put this into more familiar parenting language, we could say that Jesus’ training process for his followers was a kind of parenting process. To highlight the parallel, we could think of Jesus as “raising his kids [his disciples] to live like him.” (Jesus certainly wasn’t their biological father, but in John 13:33 he does call his disciples “my children.”)

Discipleship = Jesus’ training process = A parenting process

If we then go to the New Testament understanding that discipleship is a parallel to parenting, we start to see a lot of applications for the parenting/discipling of our children.

Read the following passages and imagine the disciples are not grown adults but impressionable children:

1. Mark 1:17 (NLT), “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people.”

2. John 13:15, “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”

3. John 13:34, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

4. Philippians 4:9, “Whatever you have learned from me or seen in me – put it into practice.”

5. 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.”

As you can see, discipling/raising your child is not just about telling your child what you believe but showing your child what you believe by how you live. Our words and what we say we believe are important, but what matters most to our child’s spiritual formation is how we live out (or don’t live out) what we say we believe.

As the old saying goes, “Actions speak louder than words.”

And because of that, Jesus says, “Come, follow me.” In other words, “Come with me. Let me show you what my words mean by how I live them out.”

How I live my life = How I disciple my child

“Follow me.”

“Observe how I live.”

“Learn from how I do it.”

“Be like me.”

“Follow my example.”

“Imitate me.”

“Consider the outcome of my way of life.”

See the pattern?

That’s what “discipling” your child looks like. God wired your child to observe you, follow you, and want to be like you, for better or worse. That doesn’t mean your child will become a carbon copy of you but a unique version of you. God has given your child his or her own unique talents, challenges, interests, and opportunities (see Psalm 139:13-14 and Jeremiah 29:11). Having said that, how you live out your life and faith is still the pattern and object lesson your child is observing and absorbing as they form their own way of life.

So, why not live the better life? Live the joyful, purposeful, fulfilling life of a Jesus-follower. Why? Because your child is following you.

A few years ago, Mark Baacke, my high school biology teacher, posted the following tribute to his late father on Facebook. I asked him if I could include it for you because he captures the essence of what we are talking about here.

“20 years ago today my dad went home to heaven. He taught me how to play golf, ping pong, baseball and how to make a game out of any situation I faced. He taught me always to do my best even at things I didn't like too much (History, English, washing the car, etc.). When something seemed impossible and I felt like quitting, he would say, ‘That's no hill for a climber.’ Or when a situation totally sucked or was unfair, he'd tell me, ‘Sometimes it goes like that for days, and then it gets worse.’ I don't recall him ever telling me to be a teacher, but he was such a good teacher himself that I grew up wanting to do what he did. He was serious about the important things in life, but he would be the first one to laugh when life threw him a curve ball. He had the ability to see right through fake people. I think the little kid in the story about the emperor's new clothes probably grew up to be my dad. He loved his country and made it better by being a good man himself.

Most importantly, he loved his Lord and Savior, and the more I think about my dad, the more I realize how many times and in how many ways he was letting me see that love in the way he treated people and the way he went through life. Over these past 20 years there are lots of memories and images of my dad that have stayed with me, but one keeps coming up more than most. I'm an eight-year-old kid, and dad is taking me fishing. There are tall weeds between where we parked the car and the pond where we're going to fish. Dad goes ahead of me and I try to follow, but soon he's lost from sight, and I'm surrounded by weeds that are twice as tall as I am. We've done this before, and he's taught me not to panic but just to follow the trail of bent and broken weeds. So that's what I do until I reach the pond and find him smiling back at me because he knows where I'll pop out of the weeds. And so it's been 20 years now that I've been walking through the weeds of life without him, but I've got his trail to follow because he intentionally did things to help me see it, and I firmly believe he was following a trail that Jesus left for him. So, one day I'll pop out of the weeds and Jesus will be waiting for me with Dad right there with Him.”

Yep. That’s what we’re talking about. We live and lead so our children can follow and imitate. That’s what it means to “disciple” our children.

Here’s the Point

So, what does it mean to “disciple” your own child? Because of the way God wired the child/parent relationship, you’re already doing it. If you are “raising” your child, you are already “discipling” your child. As Jesus shows us in the gospels, discipling/raising your child is not just about telling your child what you believe but showing your child what you believe by how you live. Our words and what we say we believe are important, but what matters most to our child’s spiritual formation is how we live out (or don’t live out) what we say we believe.

In These Final Days of Advent...

The following is an excerpt from chapter seven of our new book, “Joining Jesus as a Family.” In these final days of Advent, may it also remind you of how much your heavenly Father wants you to experience his love through his Son and how much he wants your children to experience his love through you.

_____________

For a very long time, it’s eluded us.

As parents we want our children not only to know their True Identity in their head (so they can pass a quiz) but be convinced of it in their heart (so they are living in its abundance). We want them to know the truth that they are beloved children of the heavenly King, but we also want them to be convinced of the truth that the heavenly King truly loves them.

But how?

How do we make that connection between their head and their heart? How do we turn knowledge of what is true into conviction of what is true? The answer is to help them experience the very thing they are being told to believe. 

Hearing the Truth + Experiencing the Truth = Being Convinced of the Truth

Where did we get that idea? Jesus.

“If you stick with this, living out what I tell you, you are my disciples for sure. Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will set you free,” John 8:31-32 (MSG).

Throughout the gospels, as Jesus trains his followers to live in their True Identity, he works at connecting their knowledge of the Father’s love with experiencing the Father’s love in order to convince them that the Father indeed loves them. As Jesus’ followers become convinced of the Father’s love, it sets them free to live in its abundance without reservation or uncertainty and to freely offer it to others.

How does this apply in your family?

The truth is that, because you and your family are “in Christ,” you are beloved children of the heavenly King. There’s really no question about that.

But when you do question it (and we all do), God invites you to look to the cross. “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins,” (1 John 4:10). And Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends,” (John 15:13).

The proof of God’s love is the cross of God’s Son. That should settle it, right? “This is most certainly true.”

However, there is the truth that God loves you and then there’s the experience of God loving you. As we’ve seen, human beings, in order to thrive, need both.

People experience God’s love through other people. The design is simple: love comes from God to us, then through us to the people around us (1 John 4:7-12). It is true that we receive love directly from God, but it is also true that we experience his love through other people. And human beings thrive when we have both. Jesus says it plainly, “As I have loved you, now love one another.”

Children experience God’s love through their parents. Husbands and wives experience God’s love through each other. Christians experience God’s love through one another in Christian community. Unbelieving neighbors experience God’s love through Christian neighbors.

So, when your child experiences God’s love through you, the experience becomes the evidence they need to believe that God indeed loves them too. In other words, their experience convinces them of what they have been told is true. Then, the more convinced your child becomes of God’s love, the more they are set free to live in its abundance without reservation or uncertainty and to freely offer it to others.

And your child thrives.

Obviously, a lot is at stake here. So, let’s take a little deeper dive.

As we saw in the last chapter, our True Identity as a beloved child of the heavenly King has been redeemed and restored by Jesus. It’s done. It’s settled. “This is most certainly true.”

However, as adults, we also live with the consequences of how well (or poorly) our parents discipled us to live in our True Identity. Do you feel convinced that you are the Father’s beloved or are you uncertain? Do you fully trust the Father’s love or do you struggle with it? Do you live with a joyful confidence or an anxious doubt?

Of course, we do not rely on our experiences (good or bad) to determine if something God says is true. What is true is determined by what God says, not by our experience. In fact, our faith, by the power of the Holy Spirit, clings to what God says is true especially when we aren’t experiencing it. However, it is also true that a child’s ability to experience and trust God’s love is directly connected to how well (or poorly) they experience love through their parents.

As one of my friends once said to me, “I believe God loves me, I just have a very hard time trusting that.” He was raised by parents who were unable to freely express their love to him. The parents were rule-keepers; harsh and disapproving much of the time. The love they did offer him, when it was offered, was conditional. He had to earn it. And then it was quickly withdrawn. He heard about God’s love every week in church. He believed the truth of it by faith. (Thank you, Holy Spirit!) However, because of the way he experienced love through his parents, he had a very difficult time trusting that God could love him abundantly and unconditionally.

If you, like my friend, struggle to trust that you are unconditionally loved by God, it may be because of how you experienced love through your parents. If it is easy for you to trust that you are unconditionally loved by God, likewise, it is probably because of how you experienced love through your parents. The truth that you are unconditionally loved by God is not affected one bit by how your parents loved you. However, your ability to understand and trust that truth is.

Having said that, for those of you who grew up in Christian homes where emotions were suspect or even unwelcomed, reconnecting truth with experience may feel… well, suspect. However, in sending his Son into the world, God himself shows the value he places on reconnecting his truth with our human experience.

For instance, John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory… who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Connecting the Father’s grace and truth with our human experience is one of the reasons Jesus came in the flesh. The Father wanted us, his children, who are flesh and blood, to experience his grace and truth – to see it, hear it and feel it.

So, he sent his Son to become flesh and blood and live among us:

·       Touching the leper

·       Teaching the crowds

·       Taking children into his arms to bless them

·       Eating with sinners

·       Healing eyes and ears and legs

·       Shedding his blood

·       Physically rising from the dead

In 1 John 1:1, John unabashedly points to the tangible experiences he had with Jesus as the reason he is convinced of the truth about Jesus. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim…”

Jesus came not only to tell the truth of the Father’s love, but to help us experience the Father’s love so that we become convinced that the Father really does love us (John 15:9). In other words, Jesus reconnected knowing our True Identity in our head with being convinced of it in our heart by helping us experience it in our daily life.

Why is this so important? Because when we become convinced that the Father really does love us, it sets us free to more fully live in the abundance of his love (John 14:21-23) and to join Jesus on his mission. 

Being Convinced of the Father’s Love = Being Set Free to Fully Live in Its Abundance

Merry Advent! 

Chapter One of Our Upcoming Book: "Joining Jesus as a Family"

It’s the season of gratitude and thanksgiving. And I am thankful for all you are doing with Jesus in your community. As an expression of “thanks,” here is a sneak peek at the first chapter of our upcoming book, “Joining Jesus as a Family.” God willing, it will be available in early 2022. Enjoy. And let me know what you think. (finkeonthemove@aol.com)

Chapter One: “How’s Jesus been Messing with You, Mom and Dad?”

I could see the terror on their faces.

I was somewhere in the upper Midwest having breakfast with a small group of younger dads. The night before, I had given a presentation at their church on my first two books:

• “Joining Jesus on His Mission: How to be an Everyday Missionary” and

• “Joining Jesus – Show Me How: How to Disciple Everyday Missionaries”

They were fired up by what they heard and wanted to talk more. So, they invited me to meet them at their favorite downtown breakfast spot ahead of my flight the next morning.

During breakfast, I mentioned that my wife and I were working on a new book.

“What’s it about?” they asked.

I finished chewing to give myself a moment to collect my thoughts, “It’s about taking what I unpack in the first two books and applying it to raising our families. My wife and I want to help parents intentionally disciple their kids to become lifelong followers of Jesus. We’re thinking of calling it, ‘Joining Jesus as a Family.’”

As a group, they stopped eating and looked up at me. I could tell Jesus had just started messing with them.

I smiled.

One of them clarified, “Did you say, ‘To help parents disciple their kids?’”

“Yep.”

And then the table exploded.

Everyone was shooting questions at me all at once!

Some were bewildered, “How would I do that?”

Some were excited, “How can I get started?” 

And some were incredulous, “Why would I do that? Isn’t that why we take our kids to church?”

Still smiling, I looked around the table and said, “Here’s the deal, friends. Whether you know it or not, and whether you like it or not, you’re already discipling your kids in what it looks like to be a follower of Jesus. The kind of Jesus-follower you are now is deeply affecting the kind of Jesus-follower your kid will become.”

The table got very quiet. Their brains were spinning. It seemed like Jesus was really messing with them now. And it was good.

“You see, God designed your little child to watch you, imitate you and become a version of you. That’s how discipleship works. So, your lifestyle of faith, for better or worse, is already deeply molding and shaping your child for a lifetime… just like your parents’ lifestyle deeply molded and shaped you.

I let that settle in.

“You could sum it up this way: your lifestyle is your child’s discipleship curriculum.”

Blank stares. So, I explained.

“For example, if, to you, following Jesus is nothing more than a hobby to dabble in from time to time, then that is what you are discipling your children to imitate. If following Jesus means nothing more than following rules to please others or get approval, then that is what you are discipling your children to imitate. If following Jesus means nothing more than dutifully going to church every Sunday, then that is what you are discipling your children to imitate. BUT… if following Jesus means joining him on a daily adventure and living a fulfilling life for the good of others, then that is what you are discipling your children to imitate.”

Silence.  But I was starting to see sparks of understanding in their eyes. So, I pressed on.

“The question, then, for you parents is, ‘How are you living out your faith… and is that what you want your kids to grow up and imitate?’ Because, as the old saying goes, ‘What they see is what they’ll be.’”

More silence. But I decided they needed what was next so I leaned in to deliver it.

“Here’s the good news, my friends: you’ve got this. You truly do. God has set you up to succeed in discipling your own kids.

“Think about it: from the moment your child was first placed in your arms, you’ve been their hero. God literally wired your child to look up to you and their mom, absorb your examples and want to be just like you. That literally means God designed your child to want to be discipled by you – not to be lectured by you, or drilled by you – but to be shown by you how to live life well. They want you to do that. All you have to do is not screw it up! Don’t be a jerk. Don’t be self-absorbed. Don’t be demeaning. Don’t be a religious hypocrite. The bar is really quite low.” I laughed and they nervously chuckled along.

“Instead, as St. Paul reminds us in Galatians 5, all we really have to do is let our family experience the fruit of the Spirit through us: his love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and self-control. Friends, your families don’t need you to be perfect. What they need is for you to be intentional about letting them experience some of the best of who you are.

“That may not always be easy to do, but it is a simple goal. And as often as we fail our families in this – and we will – then we get to once again humble ourselves before them, fess up to our failure and ask them for forgiveness. And when you do that, believe it or not, the respect our family has for us will actually grow even deeper.”

I saw a lot of deep thinking going on.

“You don’t have to be a theological expert or a perfect rule-keeper in order to disciple your kids well. All they need is for you to be intentional about being the kind of Jesus-follower you want your kids to imitate. Because they will imitate you. In fact, they already are. Does that make sense?”

There were nods all around the table.

I asked, “Will your kids still fuss and complain and test you?” Everyone laughed, and I laughed with them. “Of course, they will!”

Then I looked each of them in the eye as I said, “But in the end, your lifestyle, values and character will be what most deeply and permanently imprints your kids because that’s how God designed it to work. For better or for worse, they are becoming a version of you. So why not intentionally choose to make it the better version of you?”

I could see by the look on their faces that understanding was emerging. And just in time. I had a flight to catch.

_____________________________________

 What about you? As you listened to this conversation, what got your attention? How was Jesus messing with you? As a parent, grandparent or guardian, what light bulbs went on about discipling a child to be a follower of Jesus? What questions do you still have?

If you want to start being more intentional about being the kind of Jesus-follower you want your child to imitate, then come along with Susan and me as we unpack the parenting/discipling themes that were introduced in the conversation above.

This is going to be fun!

Here’s the Point

God designed your child to watch you, imitate you and become a version of you… for better or worse. That’s how discipleship works. So, the question for parents is, ‘How are you living out your faith… and is that what you want your kids to grow up and imitate?’ Because, as the old saying goes, ‘What they see is what they’ll be.’”