Parents as Agents of Reconciliation: An Introductory Look at Discipleship at Home

The WCFS 2024 Family Leadership Conference Theme: Parenting: A Ministry of Reconciliation, focused on Humility as God’s antidote to quarreling and we learned how our identity as Adam’s kin is what enables humble repentance from the most positive and realistic perspective possible: It’s Not Your Fault, It’s Your Condition! This month, I would like to continue the theme of parents as agents of reconciliation from the perspective of Biblical discipleship.

Now don’t panic! It’s not my goal to attempt to establish a 12 Step Program of structured parental discipleship. Rather, my goal is to acknowledge that the natural structure of all parenting, flawed or not, is by its very nature an ongoing process that practically can be labeled discipling (or mentoring). In this article, I hope to point the Christian parent to a few Scriptural tweaks that can help the parenting process to be a little more focused and intentional kind of discipleship and a whole lot less condemning for feeling like we are totally not getting it.

Now the first question you might be asking is, “Am I even qualified to disciple my children?”

And the answer is: Absolutely! God has ordained the family to be the first discipleship experience for children. He not only ordained it, God designed the family to function in a mentoring/discipling manner that nearly works on autopilot. Discipling your children is not something that you need to aspire to; it’s something you are doing whether you know it or not. As a Christian parent, you need to focus on how to adjust what you are already doing to be a little more welcoming, intentional and objective, and a whole lot less condemning. This focus comes by understanding what is a realistic commitment.

A simple illustration I have often used is that a roof is designed to shed water, so by its nature, it sheds water –it never needs to think about it, it just functions as it was designed.

Parenting is very similar because God designed parents to “train up” their children even though parents don’t fully understand what they are doing, and not every parent carefully reads His provided handbook on child-rearing (the Scriptures).

Scripturally speaking, the foundation and structure of parental discipleship was ordained at the Creation of man (male & female). I don’t mean to imply that the best practices of parenting-discipleship can be carried out without thought. Contrariwise, it should be practically thought out because its guidance centers around the basic life-skills of survival. Practically speaking it’s a part of the dominion mandate:

Then God said,

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Gen. 1:26 ESV

The center core of parental discipleship is sharing the practical life-skills of survival with your children.

To be sure, these survival skills took on greater labor after the fall because God cursed the ground for Adam’s sin so that it was far less productive than before. (See Genesis 3:16-18.) But even with this greater labor, the home remained the center of survival. It’s just that now there was an even greater need for an all-hands-on-deck family unit. Note: After the fall, children were all the more desired to assist their parents in this toil of heavy labor.

“And [Lamech] called his [son’s] name Noah (rest), saying, ‘[He] shall comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD has cursed.’”

(Gen. 5:29)

In the New Testament, this dominion mandate is shown to be an integral part of the daily life for the disciples of Christ. Often referred to as the Protestant Work Ethic, the Apostle Paul was very intentional in both Epistles to the Thessalonians to establish the expectation that believers are to work with their hands in a self-reliant, productive manner.

“Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.”

1Th 4:11-12 NIV (1)

Parental discipleship functions by God’s natural design in this way: The visible ambitions of the parents create the environment and the framework of their home. When this environment functions Scripturally as a quiet, thriving, non-dependent household, it becomes a positive discipleship process for your children. And not only at home; the example of your home will also have a disciple-making testimony to those watching outside of your home! We can call this the family discipleship environment. Here, children flourish in word and deed through the necessary obligations, processes, and structures of family survival.

This is why I say that there are some Scriptural tweaks that can help focus and direct this parental discipleship process. It is already going on. Parental discipleship is not an add-on type of family activity –it’s already happening!

The question is: “How is it going for you?”

Here’s a Scriptural Tweak: Children are immersed in the parents’ environment. Be intentional of how you construct your home environment!

Does your home environment reflect the reality that you and your children were born with Adam’s sin nature, and that everyone in your home needs God’s loving redemption? We all have the disease but God has provided the cure in Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection. Your home must reflect your unilateral need and God’s readily available redemption in every nook and cranny of your life!

Deuteronomy 6: 4-6, 20 is the classical Old Testament Scripture focusing on cultivating a thriving discipleship environment for your children. Children absorb their environment before they comprehend it. Saturate your home intentionally with the transformative power of Scripture and in the future, your children will begin to ask how it applies to their own life!

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. ... In the future, when your son asks you, ‘What is the meaning of…? Tell him.’”

(Deu. 6:4-9, 20-21a NIV)

You are discipling your children with your home environment. What does your home reflect? Love for God or Love for the world? Let your home be so saturated with such genuine parental devotion to God and to His Word that eventually, that wonder- filled teachable moment will occur when your child will ask for the meaning of the examples carried out by you in your home –and you will tell them!

This is Scriptural Discipleship 101!

Here’s another Scriptural Tweak: Take the TIME to Include and Immerse your children in your family’s productive work and business. –Give them TIME!

Besides a rich environment of Scriptural perspective, discipleship requires that your children are spending time with you. Now there is no larger available time in daily family life than in sharing your work. The dominion mandate creates the reality that the largest available block of time is spent in productive work. Intentionally include your children in your work.

While I have already touched on this principle of productive work from 1 & 2 Thessalonians, my favorite New Testament Scripture is found in John 5:17ff (2) where Jesus established the premise of His own authority as coming from His Heavenly Father. Working with His Father produced life and authority for the Son.

Now I certainly do not want to equate imperfect fathers with God; however, Jesus’s illustration of the Son working with His Father is an intentional analogy based on the common experience of fathers and their children in their natural, ordinary life –that’s why Jesus used it. Spending time working with your children provides abundant occasions for discipleship. Be intentional and make the most of them!

It goes without saying that if the largest amount of time that a father spends is in working, the greatest opportunity for discipling his children will be to let them work with him in real-life, productive activities. There is nothing like work that can make your children equal with you in their developed (discipled) skills and attitudes to work just like their father! Many men ask the practical question, “How can I do this at my workplace?” While I am confident that God can show you many unique practical ways that you can include your children in your work, here are a few ideas that can tip the scales in family-work-favor.

It all starts with a genuine commitment to the priority of maximizing time with your children. Don’t be too quick to assess your situation and say, “That won’t work for me!” Opportunity will spring from your circumstances, not other people’s. (Comparing yourself to others is not wise! 2Cor. 10:12) Your responsibility is to, “redeem the time, because the days are evil!” (Eph. 5:16) What time blocks are available to you and your children? Make the most of them!

It blossoms with creative thinking. We are made in the image of God. That means that we have the creative ability to take a basic principle of life and evaluate the obstacles and institute a realistic plan that solves the problem. It’s no secret that God expects dads to spend substantive time with their children. Here’s a creative way to consider this: order your duties from God by the highest priority. Provide for the highest priorities first and trust God for those things that don’t last forever. “Seek ye first the kingdom!” (Matt. 6:33)

Be intentional about how you spend that time! While spending time is of the essence, the most compelling part of Jesus’s testimony about His Father is, “Whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does (John 5:19-20). Ten minutes of loving instruction and example will go deeper and have a greater impact than hours of toilsome labor without the genius of the father showing his son helpful short-cuts to increase productivity and gain quality results. I don’t believe it is an overstatement to say that every useful invention of man is the result of someone thoughtfully asking if there isn’t a more effective solution to some aspect of the toilsome labor prescribed in Genesis 3!

One more Tweak: If God subjected His Only Begotten Son to be discipled by a poor family of low estate, We can trust that He can use us parents to carry out the discipleship that our children need if we will embrace the call to intentionally disciple our children!

“‘Why were you searching for me?’ he asked. ‘Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?’ But they did not understand what he was saying to them. Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.

(Luke 2:49-52 NIV)

And here is the most significant element of discipleship: your children need to voluntarily and enthusiastically place themselves under obedience to the parents that God sovereignly placed over them. Self-denial and taking up one’s cross is the part of discipleship that is 100% the responsibility of the disciple. The greatest teacher in the world cannot instruct a child who does not wish to hear the instruction. Furthermore, the ability of a child to submit to parental training directly corresponds to whether or not they see God as their Father and the ultimate authority in their life Who works all things together for the good of those who love Him. (Rom. 8:28)

And remember, wealth is not the measure of good parenting! Jesus was born in a stable, lived having no place to lay his head, and was buried in the borrowed tomb of a rich man. I daresay that no one has ever lived a more productive life with a more everlasting glory than Jesus Christ, the Son of Man. And wealth, my dear friend, is often the most significant barrier to quality time with father! Meditate deeply on Matthew 6:19-34 (3)!

We will continue our discussion of parental discipleship next month!