Parenting and the church

I've been thinking about parenting, church ministry, and family ministry a lot lately. One of the things that I have been growing more and more convinced about because I have a daughter of my own, what I experienced this summer, and what I have been reading this summer is that ministry to children/students is by necessity a ministry to parents as well. We will not be very successful making disciples of students if we don’t get the parents involved as well.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 is the command of parents to teach their children to love God. That is their primary responsibility as parents. The structure of the passage indicates that the parent is to be involved in all aspects in the life of their children and teaching them about God. This command is given long before there is a church, so parents are the primary owners of this responsibility.

Ephesians 4:11-12 tells us that God has given the church the responsibility of “equipping the saints for the work of service, to build up the body of Christ.” What this means for church/family ministry is that we equip the parents to do their job of parenting, and we supplement/support the discipleship that the parents are trying to instill into their child/student.

We need to stop farming the job of parenting out to teachers, coaches, etc., and parent our child. Many times those people we entrust our children to hold values that are different from and sometimes contradictory to our values. At the same time, the church needs to step up and support the parents.