Thoughts from the Chair on Training Up A Child

There is not one of us who has a guarantee on how any child raised in our home will choose to live their life.

However, Proverbs 22:6 DOES say to "train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."  I take that to mean that if they stray, they will come back at least by the time they are old.  And by then, I may be dead!  So, I cannot with assurance say that we are guaranteed to see a successful end result to all of this child rearing.

But what really troubles me is the fact that so many think that "training up a child in the way he should go" means making sure they learn their memory verse for Sunday School and making sure they are in Sunday School, church, and Children's ministry.

Then, eight hours per day, five days per week, nine months per year, they are sent to be trained by the world's system.

They are taught values by a teacher who may or may not believe in God.

They are taught social interaction by other children who receive their teaching from Hollywood.

They are cared for by someone else while their parents work until late or attend church meetings until late or stress over homework with them until late.

They are loved.  Absolutely!  They are well-fed, well-clothed, and well-entertained.  They are prayed with at bedtime and hugged and celebrated.

And that's it.  That's the training.  And the cries of lamentation are loud when the attitudes and dysfunction and lack of assuming responsibility and disrespect toward God and leaders and authority begin to overtake the bedtime prayers and the gifts and snuggles.

I wish I had the voice and the influence and the right words to say it.

Society and school and church cannot raise your children.  Only YOU can do that.  And it takes sacrifice of extra money and sacrifice of some personal dreams for a whole lot of your years while you put your life on hold to shape theirs.

YOU had them.  YOU have the responsibility of training them in the way they should go.  And that is a 24/7 job.

Well....can you tell I have a somewhat strong opinion about that?

Until our homes become the church, the church is merely religion.