“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:
Mark 1:17 (NLT), “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people.”
John 13:15, “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”
John 13:34, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
Philippians 4:9, “Whatever you have learned from me or seen in me – put it into practice.”
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.