Funny Parenting tweets - (Title Slide)
One of the reasons we are honoring parents today is very simple...parenting is often a hard and thankless job! So we want to recognize and thank you for your commitment to the task of raising your children.
I remember the first time I did a sermon series on parenting, I was 26 years old and planting a church. That’s crazy right? My knowledge about parenting then couldn’t have filled his diaper.
Today, I stand before you as a father with nearly 30 years of parenting experience behind me, but experience is not the same as expertise! In fact I’m not sure there is any such thing as a parenting expert. If you’re a parent you know there are days we get it right and then there are days that we…well not so much! Do we have any parents who are attempting to potty train their kids? (story about potty training Trevor) You think that was one of my parenting mistakes. You might even think I scared him for life but I’ll have you know that he’s 20 years old and to my knowledge has not had another accident in his pants. And the book I’m writing Where do you put your Poo? Potty training your child in 3 minutes or less is going to fund my retirement.
As a pastor I have had an opportunity to see parenting, the good, the bad and the ugly, up close and personal. (Story of Kipp and Sue Burgin don’t have sex but if you do use a condom)
No matter where you are in this parenting thing, in the early years, anticipating empty nesting, somewhere in between or maybe looking forward to GRANDParenting. God’s Word gives us incredible insight for parenting, I believe the things I am going to share with you today can absolutely make us better parents.
By the way, when I say “where you are in this parenting thing” I want to start off by showing you this chart…4 stages of Parenting…(slide)
Ages and Stages of Parenting
1-5 Discipline Years.
5-12 Training Years
12-18 mentoring Years
18-30 Coaching years
30+ Friendship Years
If you are in years 1-5 this is great stuff! Disciplining our children isn’t fun. But God’s word tells us loving parents discipline their children. Discipline early and it will make your life easier in the long run. When Parents don’t discipline in years 1-5 and then they are trying to discipline in years 5-12 or worse in years 12-18 it becomes extremely difficult. When they’re young you can make them do the things you want them to do. But when you can’t physically make them, and you are still trying to discipline them, you have a major fight on your hands. God’s Word says, (slide) “No Discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful but later on it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” Heb 12:11
Many parents want to be the kids friends so bad that they can’t bring themselves to say No! Can I just tell you, you cannot be your middle schoolers friend, they need you to be their parent! But follow that chart and get it right and you can be friends later! And Remember later lasts longer!
I know I am talking to people at all different stages with all different ages. Some of you are parents who have yet to deliver. Congratulations Mike and Jenn Miller and Brandon and Ashley Taylor. Others of you have kids who have kids. And everything in between. But no matter where you are on the parenting spectrum one of the greatest challenges for Christian parents is to keep from getting drawn into the trends of culture, as it relates to parenting.
One trend is that if I just get my child the right (slide) EXPERIENCES, you know if they can make the soccer team, baseball team, basketball team or hockey team, then that will help them fit in, and build their self-esteem and they’ll be great.
Or if I can just get them into the right college. The right school and the right education will ensure their success in life.
If I can get them the things, I never had growing up. Right? I had to drive an old junky used car so I’m going to make sure they get a nice new car on their 16th birthday. Or… I never had brand named stuff when I was a kid so I’m going to make sure they have the right clothes, the right shoes.
These cultural trends try to tell us as parents how to ensure our kids turn out well. And there is nothing wrong with these things. But basing our hopes and dreams for our kids on these things is a shaky foundation for success at best.
In all my years of pastoral counseling I have never heard anyone look at their troubles and say “You know, it all started when my parents couldn’t afford to buy me Air Jordan’s. Or I didn’t make the football team and its been downhill ever since. Or My problems all began when I didn’t get accepted at Virginia Tech.”
I’m miserable today because my Dad made me drive the family mini van when I was in High School? Really? Who says that?
Our culture tells us those things are essential. That’s one of the reasons our kids are so busy all the time. We want them to experience sports, and music, and travel, and camps and retreats and everything. Often what drives that is we want our kids to either have the experiences we never had, or we want them to enjoy the things we enjoyed growing up. The truth is they actually have little to do with successful parenting or how our kids turn out.
Romans 12:2 says (slide) “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds”… We need to start thinking differently about our parenting and what’s important when it comes to raising our kids.
Now don’t misunderstand me, experiences are wonderful and important. But there’s more to life and more to our kids lives than just having one experience after another. We need to understand other equally important factors are vital in shaping the lives of our children and help point them toward success. Like (slide) RELATIONSHIPS.
We’re busy, busy, busy running our kids from one experience to the next but when was the last time you sat down for dinner as a family and had a meaningful conversation about something other than your schedules and what kid had to be where next? Seems like often we are intent on making sure our kids have rich experiences at the expense of rewarding relationships.
Yet we know if you can’t build and maintain healthy relationships life is going to be a struggle. Relationships are vital to success in marriage, business, friendships, or anywhere else. We laugh at the guy wearing the t-shirt that says, (Slide) ”Does not play well with others” but the truth is the inability to get along with other is such a serious problem today that is actually recognized as a disability under the Americans with Disability Act.
So in addition to our experiences, Our live and the lives of our children are shaped and impacted good, bad or otherwise by our relationships. That’s why God’s word talks so much about the importance of relationships. In the book of Genesis God said it is not good for man to be alone. We were made to live in relationship with others. The influence of our relationships on our lives is emphasized in verses like I Cor. 15:33 that warns (slide) “Bad company corrupts good character.” And Proverbs 13:20 (slide) “Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm.” Scripture tells us that in a big way our relationship define us. Who we are good or bad is highly influenced by our relationships.
When we think about that we often think about the friends our kids choose. Are they good influences or bad influences. But what about their teachers and coaches are they the kind of people we want influencing our children? Parents, think about your friends are they the kind of people you want influencing your children. If not you need some new friends because your friends have an influence on your kids.
Proverbs 12:26 tells us (slide) “the righteous choose their friends carefully but the way of the wicked leads them astray.”
This verse emphases not just the importance of relationships but the personal responsibility we have for choosing our relationships wisely. We need to carefully determine who our friends will be because they will help determine who we be.
And that bring us to the big third thing that shapes who we are…(slide) The CHOICES we make! Primarily the choices we make regarding our life experiences and our relationships. The choices we make about our jobs and careers. Who we choose to date. Where we choose to live, Who’s advice we choose to listen to. How we choose to spend our free time, Who we hang out with, How we choose to invest our time and money. Who we choose to marry. And our most important decision whether we chose to live for ourselves or follow Christ. Learning to make wise choices is vital because saying yes to one thing often means not being able to say yes to something else.
Our choices regarding our experiences and our relationships more than anything else define who we are. And if making those choices were clear cut, black and white, right and wrong it would be so much easier but as it is most of the time the choices seem to be between what’s good, what’s better and what’s BEST. Not only that but the choices we make are not isolated from each other. Every decision we make has an impact on every other choice we make. We need wisdom learning to make right choices and helping our children learn to make right choices.
Imagine, that your life has two knobs. (slide) One knob helps control your experiences and the other controls the influence of the relationships in your life. And you can dial up or dial down the each of these areas as necessary by the choices you make. Now imagine being able to go back to certain key moments and in those moments could dial up or dial down any of your experiences or relationships.
Imagine you could go back and dial up more relationship with Dad. Think about that time Dad was trying to get through to you, but you didn’t listen; you didn’t care what he had to say. Imagine you could go back and dial that relationship up a little.
Or maybe go back and dial up or maybe dial down your relationship with Mom. You know if Mom was overbearing or overprotective and you could dial mom back little. What if you could go back in time and adjust the influence of those relationships and the impact of those experiences?
Imagine if you could go back to any point in your life and crank up your relationship with God? Maybe you’re looking back on the biggest mistake of your life and your thinking, “if I’d had a more active relationship with Christ..if I had had a little more God in life, I could have avoided my greatest regret.”
If we could do that I’m telling you …looking back with what we know now we would dial up certain relationships and experiences and dial down others and do our best to avoid some of our greatest pain and regret and we’d be far more balanced and emotionally healthy as adults.
Well I’ve bad news, good new and even better news. The bad news there’s not much you can do about your past. You can’t change the past. The good news is that (slide) “in ALL things God is working for the good of those that love him and are called according to his purpose.” God uses ALL, our experiences and ALL our relationships and ALL our choices good bad or otherwise for our GOOD and for His GLORY if we’ll let him.
The even better news is that as parents, God has given us the opportunity, and the responsibility to guide our children in dialing up or down the relationships and experiences in their lives as needed. Proverbs 29:15 says a (slide) “disciplining a child produces wisdom but an undisciplined child disgraces his mother.” The Discipline we talked about earlier comes down to helping our children make right choices about their experiences and relationships.
And the earlier we start being intentional about this, the easier it is for us to influence them in a way they need to be influenced!
Let me tell you about your kids. Your kids, currently and in the future, are the result and the mix of the experiences they have, and their relationships and learning to make right choices. That’s who they are now. That’s who they will be. We as parents have to help them get the mix right.
As a parent you know you can’t control everything aspect of your kids life. And the older they get the hard it is to control what they experience, who their friends are and the choices they make. But it really isn’t about control as much as it is (slide) INFLUENCE. As a parent you can have HUGE influence in the life of your kids especially when they’re young and still living under your roof. God’s word says in Proverbs 22:6 (slide) “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. This verse is calling us as parents to be intentional about parenting. To be intentional about their experiences, and their relationships and training them to make wise choices about these things that have such a huge impact on who they become.
We need to begin to asking, “What can I, as a parent, do to dial up of our relationship with our kids, and dial up the frequency, the volume of their relationship with God, and wisely turn up or dial down who they hang out with outside of the home. What experiences do I need make certain my kids have and what ones do I need to make certain they avoid?
Now I want you to think about conversations you have had with other people about your parents. You have all had them. I have heard them in small groups, in counseling, whenever people get together. At some point you are like, “Oh my Dad or my Mom…she always or he never, or I wish…” We all know we wish we could change that a little bit. You have the opportunity to do that for your kids. Cause one day our kids are going to be sitting around talking about…us. Hopefully not in counseling.
You have the opportunity, no matter where you are in your parenting, to define a lot of that.
In our final few minutes I want you to see three passages of scripture that address the importance our choices we make and the choices we teach our children to make regarding experiences and relationship . (slide)
1. Our relationship with our kids.
2. Our kids relationship with God.
3. And the relationship our kids have with people
outside the home.
In these 3 areas you will quickly see how we can gain influence and turn up the dial in these areas of our kids lives.
1.(slide) Our relationship with our kids. (Eph.6:4)
“Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”
This is a powerful verse Moms and Dad’s here is what it is saying, (slide) You are never to alienate your children relationally.
“Bring them up…” Literally means, “nurture them.” Be highly involved, highly relational, connected to them in a way that feeds them, provides for them, intentionally involved with them. God wants us to nurture a great relationship with our children. Early parents try to control…easy to control when you can pick them up and make them. But as they grow older we need to transition from control to influence. That what the chart I showed earlier shows…the transition from control to influence. Do that wrong and exasperate and frustrate our kids to the point that they eventually want nothing to do with us. I saw a meme (Slide) that said “Be nice to your kids one day they’ll choose your nursing home.” If we do that right we never lose the influence we have in the lives of our children.
2.(slide) Our kids relationship with God.
That same verse implies that we frustrate or exasperate our children when we fail to help them establish a solid relationship with God. Don’t exasperate your children instead bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Proverbs 3:5-6
There is an incredible promise to you and to our kids in Proverbs 3:5-6 that says if we teach our kids to surrender to our heavenly father in every area of their lives our God will engage with our kids and will guide and direct their lives. (slide) “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and he will make your paths straight.”
(tell the story about Mom asking me to pray with her about a puppet)
3.(slide) Relationship with People Outside the Home. (Proverbs 13:20)
“He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.”
Your kids friends will determine the direction and quality of their life.
You know this is true. Which is why you care about the people your kids are hanging out with.
You have to keep asking yourself the question:
What am I doing to influence the people my kids have a relationship outside of our home? I know one family who home is the neighborhood hang out. They regularly have multiple neighborhood kids not just hanging out at their home but eating with them at dinner. What a great way to have influence on the kids that influence your kids. Of course sometimes it’s about keeping little Jimmy away from so n so next door.
But It’s also about enlisting, recruiting, encouraging people you know and look up to come alongside of your child and influence them. It’s about asking the question, “Lord, who can I influence TOWARD my child?” Not just peers, but even other adults. Imagine your teenage son or daughter decides they no longer want to attend church, or their attendance is sporadic. How cool would it be if another adult called them, or texted or emailed them to say, “We’ve missed you at church.” or “Let’s get together sometimes this week.” For the purpose of coming alongside them to be another voice in their life. That’s why our volunteers in our children’s ministry are so important. You are able to be another voice, another encouraging adult who loves and cares about them.
So here is what I know about you. Wherever you are in the parenting process. You are already influencing them in these 3 areas. You are already influencing them in their relationship with you as a parent. Either you are dialing them up or down in that relationship. You are influencing them in their relationship with God. Either you are encouraging a relationship or somehow discouraging them. Either it is important to you or it is not. And you are either dialing up or dialing down their relationships with people outside your home. You’re already doing that.
But are you doing it intentionally, are you influencing them toward these healthy, vital relationships?
Ok, so here are the 3 questions you need to begin asking on a regular basis…
(slide)
1.What are you doing to enhance your child’s relationship with you?
(slide)
2.What are you doing to advance your child’s relationship with God?
(slide)
3.What are you doing to create an alliance of influential people for your child to connect with outside the home?
What if we sat down with our spouse and we began to strategically ask these 3 questions? How can you creatively work on these 3 things?
Final thought... Providing experiences for our kids can get expensive. Trips to Disney, Travel Baseball etc... And important to know what to dial up or down when it comes to the experiences we give our children because if we can find the right balance and make the right choices there can be a ton of value in many of those experiences.
My question to you parents is, are you equally invested in helping your children dial up or down and make wise choices regarding the relationships they have with you, with others and most importantly with God?
Let’s pray.
