More than just winging it - developing a plan for spiritual development in the home

Years ago, the Barna research group put together a report based on polling data among Christian families called “Parents Accept Responsibility for Their Child’s Spiritual Development But Struggle With Effectiveness”.

The biggest take away was the following:

The survey data indicate that parents generally rely upon their church to do all of the religious training their children will receive. Parents are not so much unwilling to provide more substantive training to their children as they are ill-equipped to do such work. According to the research, parents typically have no plan for the spiritual development of their children; do not consider it a priority, have little or no training in how to nurture a child’s faith, have no related standards or goals that they are seeking to satisfy, and experience no accountability for their efforts.

The responsibility of the spiritual development of the family falls squarely on the parents, primarily the father. The research by Barna suggests that most families (85%) already believe this. However, the fact that “a majority of parents do not spend any time during a typical week discussing religious matters or studying religious materials with their children” reveals a major gap in desire versus action.

Fathers

Fathers, God will hold us responsible for the duty of teaching and training our children or the lack thereof. The responsibility for the vision, the plan, and the execution belongs to us; we need to take it seriously.

We can delegate instruction to Christian educators and pastors but it must be under our supervision and be an addition to our instruction and not the overwhelming majority of it.

Outsource culture

Our modern American culture is big on sending our children away to be taught by others. We send our children to schools to receive their academic instruction in things like reading, writing, arithmetic, and history. We send them to sports groups to be coached in football, volleyball, or soccer. And finally we send them to children’s church, youth group, and bible camp to be instructed in the Bible and spiritual matters.

Now just as a sobering aside:

• My coach was a pervert and womanizer who taught us how to take advantage of women.
• My school teacher was godless and worshipped evolution.
• My youth pastor went to jail for molesting boys.
• My pastor groomed and molested someone on his staff.

Even if these outside roles are solid and wholesome like many are, they still should not replace or even outpace the role of mom and dad.

The sobering fact is research shows that:

A majority of parents do not spend any time during a typical week discussing religious matters or studying religious materials with their children

— Barna Research Group

Christian parents are not engaging their God-given role of teaching and training their children, not realizing that this role can not be replaced or delegated. God told Israel to diligently teach his statutes to their children day and night.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.
— Deuteronomy 6:4–7 (NKJV)

God instituted sabbaths and feasts that were intended to be a tool for parents to teach their children about the things God has done and the promises He has made.

Parents should be the primary source of biblical and spiritual instruction to their children and fathers should be leading this effort with diligence and fortitude.

Excuses

“But we are all so busy. How do I find time to add one more thing to my plate?”
Well it depends on the priority you put on this task. Here are some ideas:

• Stop watching TV.
• Stop going to the gym.
• Get up earlier in the morning.
• Take the kids out of sports.
• Drop out of another group you are in.
• Even skip a Sunday of church once a month (sacrilege I know ;))

We live in the most affluent time and place in all of history. We have less excuse than anytime in history for not being able to spend time on something as important as the spiritual development of our children.

Write down your plan

“OK, you’ve convinced me, I’ll make the time. But how do I get started?”

Just like any other area of your life, failure to plan is planning to fail. A lack of goals will result in achieving very little. Only through diligent goal setting and disciplined execution can we achieve worthwhile things. Just a little planning goes a long way.

When it comes to developing your family spiritually here are the kinds of things we should be planning and preparing for:

• Plan your daily, weekly, and monthly routines. Bible reading times, discussion times, family worship times, prayer times, etc.
• Biblical concepts and doctrines you want to teach this month or year.
• People in in your circles and community that you want to be an influence to your family and how you can be intentional to make that happen.

Find support

If you don’t know anybody else doing this kind of stuff you are not alone. If the research is true then the vast majority of even good, solid Christian families in your circles likely don’t even have this on their radar.

It is important to find other families that practice regular family worship and discipleship. Seek them out if you have to. Dad, if you need, go find some solid brothers and ask them to join you and you can figure this out together. Speaking of solid brothers, every elder in your church should be, by definition, a “solid brother”. Seek one of them out and ask them to walk along side you on this path. (Ideally your church elders are seeking you out about these kinds of things as well.)

Here is the help a community of like-minded families can be:

• Accountability to keep to our regular routines.
• Ideas for things to do and teach.
• Sharing our successes and failures. (Knowing other people are struggling as much as you are can be motivation to keep at it.)

My story

I’ve believed in the importance of the father’s role in regular family instruction and discipleship since my first child was a baby. I was fortunate enough to have been exposed to good teachers that highlighted these things on a regular basis, especially in the homeschool community. There have been many seasons of diligence and way too many seasons of neglect in this area of my life.

When I say that “winging it” is the most common plan for spiritual development in our children, it is not only because this is what research shows but because I have been winging it for so long myself. I have a renewed desire to make sure that those seasons of neglect are eliminated altogether through diligent planning and purposefully seeking accountability from my community.