Leading By Example

The following includes some excerpts from p. 19-22 of my book, Training Godly Warriors.

1 Peter 5:2-3 says to, "Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly - not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God. Don't lord it over the people assigned to your care, but lead them by your own good example."

Are we leading our children by our own good example? Do we want our children to love and serve the Lord when they are older? Then we must love the serve the Lord now! Our children need to see us in the Word and in prayer daily. They need to see us serving others, admitting when we are wrong and asking for forgiveness, exuberating the gifts of the Spirit. They need to see us forgiving others even when they are not sorry. And they need to see us sharing the gospel with love and gentleness whenever an opportunity arises. We need to model for our children how God wants all of us to live. As Heidi St John often says, "You can't give what you don't possess." We must be intentional about growing our own relationship with the Lord through daily Bible study and prayer so we can pass on those habits to our children.

Luke 6:40 says that, "Students are not greater than their teacher. But the student who is fully trained will become like the teacher." This verse could be an encouragement or an admonition. Is that teacher you or a public-school atheist teacher? Who do you want your children to model? Do you possess any character traits you do not want your children to model? The good news is we can pray and ask God to help us become the role models our children need to help them grow up to become godly warriors. This verse can also be an encouragement if we look to Jesus as our teacher and continue to train in his Word so we can learn to be like him.

Christian Smith is a professor of sociology and the Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame. He and his team have been doing extensive research on youth, religion, and social theory. They conducted a sixteen-year study following nearly 3,000 children from adolescence to young adulthood gathering data through surveys, phone interviews, one-on-one in-person interviews, and parent interviews. In response to a question about whether parents who had been very religious (or not) had a significant impact on their children later in life he answered,

This is the single most consistent and powerful finding of our whole study. And that is the most important influence on the longer-term outcome of the Catholic young people and all American young people on their religious faith and practice…is the religious faith and practice of their parents… not whether they went to Catholic school or public school, not whether parish had a youth group or not a youth group, not whether they went on a mission’s trip or not on a mission’s trip. And in some ways, this should be patently obvious. So basically what the parents are, what the parents define as reality, what the parents model, the kind of identity the parents define for their children (here’s who we are, here’s how we live, here’s what we believe, we hope you’ll embrace that too), that is by far and away, no matter what you control for, the most important factor in forming children in what they become in the long-term.[1]

*Note they did not just study Catholics, but evangelicals, protestants, non-religious, and more - he just referred to Catholics here because he was speaking to a group of mostly Catholics.

Wow! The single most consistent and powerful finding of their whole sixteen-year study was the impact of parents leading by example. Our greatest responsibility as parents is to bring up our children in the Lord and the best way to do that is to model what it looks like to be a godly warrior. If you'd like to learn more about how to do that, I have written a book to help equip you for the task. I also wrote a 30-day spiritual basic training unit with activity pages for grades 1-5. Click the button below to learn more.

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References:

[1] Christian Smith, “How American Youth (Mis)understand Science-and-Religion,” February 14, 2014, McGrath Institute for Church Life, educational video, 51:30 to 52:24, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaS1SV7xwWQ.

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Onward Christian Soldiers,