Discipleship and Parenting

First off, I'm not a parent, and I'm very happy with that. Part of my job description is to give teenagers Jesus and a RedBull and give them back, and I like it like that.

But there is a lot to be learned about parenting from working with teenagers, and I'm beginning to see distinct  parallels between parenting and discipleship. (maybe that's why the writer of Proverbs said to train up a child in the way he should go and he will not depart from it. Maybe you could read it as: disciple your children in the way they should go and they will not depart from it.)

Lately I've been rereading a book from college called The Master Plan of Evangelism, by Robert Coleman. The book lays out piece by piece the plan of Jesus to reach the world. You could sum it up simply by saying God's plan to evangelize the world is by making disciples. In chapter 5, specifically, the author talks about demonstration. He basically claims that one of the keys to Jesus' discipleship was that he let people watch the way he lived.

In other words the heart of discipleship lies in living your life alongside someone so that they can emulate you. If 2 +2 still makes 4 then I'd bet the people we disciple the most are our spouses and our children.

The terrifying fact of the matter is that children and teens are sponges. They absorb everything. They either become just like the adults they are regularly around or they rebel against them, and the funny thing is that more often than not when someone rebels against something, they still emulate it.

Humans will become like whatever they feel the strongest towards, and teenagers feel the strongest towards their parents, in one way or another.

Gandhi said "be the change you wish to see in the world." I would say "Be the person you wish your child (disciple) to become, because, more than likely, you are the person they will become."

Granted there are anomalies, children who push back against unhealthy parents and healthily become something different, but those children usually had another mentor to facilitate that.

The most powerful tool for changing a life and changing the world is becoming someone worth watching, and then letting someone watch. Let someone watch you succeed and watch you fail, and let them watch the grace of Christ lift you back up to keep pursuing Him. 

Hypocrisy and elephants.

There has been a lot of talk lately about the elephant in the room in the church. Nearest I can surmise the issue is the same thing we have been talking about as long as I can remember... the church is full of hypocrites. Same old very valid argument I have heard from jaded, frustrated, or uninterested people against the church. We don't live up to what we claim to be. For all of the holiness and morality we stand by we don't quite make the mark every time, and, let's be real, when the bar is where we have put it even the best of tries looks pretty pathetic.
So here's to the traditional response. The church needs to liven up! We need to be better. We need to love Jesus more, help poor people more, be abstinent more, and give more away. We also need to gorge ourselves less, look at porn less, cuss when we hit our toes less, and have road rage less. We need to be better.

Seems like we're trapped in a vicious cycle of raising the bar, but not quite making it so raising it higher.

And that's the most logical way to improve our image. That and hire more attractive worship leaders for good PR.

I think we have it backwards. We've spent so long denying that Christians are hypocrites and trying to do better, and frankly the world sees straight through our facade. We've forgotten the ever present fact that Christians have not arrived, we are all in route. We are all broken fallen people who have lots of issues that, by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, we are working on, and by His grace and mercy we are forgiven. We're not less broken and wounded than the world, we've just been found by the healer and we're on the mend. We still limp.

I believe, as a young and opinionated and inexperienced pastor, that the best thing the church can do for it's PR is to stop trying to do what we say and start saying what we do.

I am not implying that we should stop trying to be moral, have less road rage, give more, look at porn less, and love Jesus more. We are called to abstain from sin. We just forget that we didn't beat sin, Jesus did, and We can't be sin, Jesus did.

The elephant in the room would be much smaller if we realized one very important thing: Of course the church is full of hypocrites... you and I are in it.

Isaiah 64:6