According to Biblical teaching, parents have primary responsibility for raising godly children (Deuteronomy 6).  The role of the church is to compliment and reinforce the teaching of the Scriptures at home but not to replace the proper role of the parents in the spiritual formation of children.  Both the researcher George Barna (Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions) and the popular Christian speaker Josh McDowell have concluded from their sociological studies that parents have a much stronger influence on children’s values than pastors or youth pastors do.  The research has also shown that people in general are much more receptive to the gospel as children than when they are older.  Thus, the prime opportunity for reaching people is in their childhood at home if the parents are Christians.  However, in cases where only one parent is Christian or the parents are immature Christians, the church must fill in the gap in the spiritual formation of the child.

For these reason, the emphasis in our church is to diligently instruct the parents in Biblical teaching through all of its ministries to adults and exhort our adult members to raise their children in the fear and instruction of the Lord.  At the same time, we offer a unified curriculum for instructing children to reinforce the instruction the children receive at home.

In line with our philosophy of the significance of parents in spiritual formation of children and youth, we are piloting the Fathers and Sons Fellowship in which Biblical values of manhood are being taught to our boys 10 and older through interaction with fathers in our church in a variety of practical training and outing contexts. Please see our link to Resources for Parents for details.  Likewise, we will need a proposal for training our girls in their development into godly women through interaction with older godly women (Titus 2:3-5).

We are also proposing for discussion among our parents the development of a rite of passage for our youth to better prepare our youth for life away from home in college – perhaps we would call it a “Sending”.  Please see our link to Resources for Parents, under “Leaving for College”, for details.