I am not naturally drawn to children. But everything changed when my firstborn was born on February 1, 2017. As I held her in my arms, a flow of unexpressed joy and hope overwhelmed my heart. The birth of my firstborn opened my heart to loving children. The Holy Spirit prompted me to write this thesis. If it were not for the Lord, I would probably write about missions or helping the poor because they are the ministries I am passionate about. Because of my children, God opened my eyes to see how we can build up the next generation to continue to follow Jesus.
My thesis considers biblical parenthood to disciple the next generation. I am thankful that God blessed my wife, Wai Jia, and me with two wonderful girls. I am also thankful to have Wai Jia on this parenting journeying as together we wrestle and discover what it means to raise children in a way that honours God and follows Jesus.
More importantly, I thank God for leading me on this journey. I am currently a stay-at-home dad. If I were to do it my way, I would relinquish my responsibility as a father to daycare and work in the church full-time. But God has other plans for me in this season in Singapore. I am thankful for this journey of taking care of my children full-time. Being hands-on helps me understand the importance of the role of a father in discipling his children.
I interviewed Pastor John Mah and Pastor Cameron Walcott as part of my research. Pastor Cameron leads The Cornerstone Church in Caledonia, Michigan, USA. He grew up in the Zion Christian community. He is a father of three, but the oldest, Caleb, passed away in 2020. Pastor Cameron’s parents were not ministers but were heavily involved in church and missions. His aunt and uncle served as missionaries in Africa for many years. His parents and his relatives had a significant influence on his desire to become a minister. Before pastoring a church in Michigan, Pastor Cameron travelled to Southeast Asia for missions and served as the mission pastor at Cornerstone Church in Singapore.
Pastor John Mah is a Canadian-born Chinese English pastor serving at Mississauga Chinese Alliance Church (MCAC) in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. He is the father of two boys. Pastor John’s parents were pioneers in planting Chinese churches in Toronto in the 1970s and 80s. I met Pastor John in MCAC when he started as a Youth Pastor in 2004.
Before becoming a parent, I had never considered how to disciple children. Even when I started as a stay-at-home dad, I complained to Wai Jia that I was wasting my time. I failed to see any value in spending time with my children. Wouldn’t I be more valuable to God’s kingdom as part of a ministry and labouring for Him? However, after a year of looking after my children, the Lord changed my heart. I learned that there are opportunities to disciple my children when I take care of them every day. I’ve realized this is my duty and responsibility as a father, and it is the most worthwhile investment I can make.
Unfortunately, our society does not value raising children. We live in a self-centred, fast-paced society. Children can be viewed as a liability because they prevent their parents from pursuing their dreams, whether climbing the corporate ladder or enjoying lavish entertainment. In Singapore, it is common for both parents to work while the domestic helper looks after the children. In the USA, children go to daycare as early as six weeks (McClure). If a helper or daycare is unavailable, parents use other methods, like gadgets, to occupy their children (V. Taylor).
God views children differently. They are not a liability but a blessing (Psalm 127:3 NKJV). If God treasures children, then we should too. If we believe that Jesus is the precious pearl worth a great price, then doesn’t it make sense to invest our time, aspiration, and effort to make sure our children know who Jesus is and delight in walking with Him? That is treasure upon treasure!
This thesis consists of two parts: What is Biblical Parenting and Applying Biblical Parenthood. The first section defines biblical parenthood. I will go through the Old and New Testaments to explain how God designs parenting to disciple the next generation. In the second part, I will explore the idea of parenting under the umbrella of discipleship. What if we view parenting as an opportunity to make disciples? I will explore how Jesus made disciples and how parents can apply the same principles. I will also consider how parents should view their children in the mission field and how we can apply missionary methods to share the gospel. Lastly, I will cover how the church needs to change and adapt if we are to take biblical parenthood seriously.
When I embarked on this thesis, the first question I asked myself was, is the discipleship of the next generation a problem? Is the children’s program at church working? As we explore these questions, we must define what success is. Success is not based on attendance alone. After all, the goal of Sunday School is not for the children to come to class but to help them decide to follow Jesus. Success is when the child grows into adulthood and remains faithful to Jesus. In 2 Timothy 4, Paul wrote to Timothy, knowing that he would soon face execution for preaching the Gospel. Paul wrote in verse 7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” Paul’s mindset of fighting the good fight is an example of Christian success. All parents should desire this for themselves and their children.
Dr. Brian Bailey taught along the same lines when he emphasized the importance of becoming a one hundred-fold Christian (The Pastor 59). One hundred-fold Christian is a reference from Jesus’s parable of the Sower mentioned in Matthew 13:8, “[b]ut others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” Many Christians think thirtyfold is good enough since it is a seed planted in good soil (Bailey, Leadership 101). However, thirty-fold is one hundred minus seventy. This means the believer falls short of God’s mark. One hundredfold should be our desire for our walk with the Lord and the desire for our children.
In Raising Disciples, Natalie Frisk, a curriculum pastor at The Meeting House Church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, describes successful discipleship as the point at which a “…disciple is truly a learner or student of Christ. A disciple is discipled by Christ and those who are further along in their spiritual journey” (17). Our desire is not merely for our children to recite the sinner’s prayer or get water baptized. The goal is for our children to desire and choose to be followers of Jesus Christ. Even though Frisk is responsible for creating Sunday school programs and materials, she sees that discipleship goes beyond Sunday school. She describes it as a “24/7 way of living” (Frisk 17). Discipleship is a lifestyle.
In the book, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer described discipleship in one line, “when Christ calls a man, He bids him to die” (6). Discipleship involves the process of a person dying to the world and oneself. This is my definition of discipleship. Discipleship starts with the calling from Jesus (Matt. 4:18). When the person answers the call of Jesus, that is the beginning of discipleship. When Jesus called Peter and his brother Andrew in Matthew 4:20, they left their fishing nets and followed Jesus. They forego their careers as fishermen. The journey of discipleship is progressive. A disciple seeks Jesus and His Righteousness (Matt. 6:33) by choosing the narrow way (Matt. 7:13). The fundamental of discipleship is a living relationship with Jesus Christ (John 15:10). A true disciple will want to do God’s work and embody God’s characteristics in the form of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22–23).
Now that I defined success in discipling the next generation, I’ll explore the issue of children being discipled in the church. You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church … and Rethinking Faith, David Kinnaman surveyed different denominations in the USA and found that fifty-nine per cent of young people (age 18–29) stopped attending church (23). These individuals were active in church when they were young. Based on this statistic, Kinnaman concluded that even though children and teen church programs are active in many North American churches, they are not producing “…faithful young adult disciples of Christ” (21).
A 2018 report from the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada called Renegotiating Faith looked at the impact of delaying young adult identity formation on the church. The report focused on young adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty-eight who were active in church when they were young (Hiemstra et al. 10). Based on the results of this study, evangelicals in Canada were able to keep two-thirds of young adults in church (Hiemstra et al. 13). It may seem like the Canadian churches are better at passing the faith to the next generation. However, one out of three children in the church will leave the faith by the time they become young adults. We should continue to ask ourselves how we can better equip the next generation to follow Jesus.
How do we ensure that the next generation remains faithful to Jesus when they reach maturity? We can consider a few options. The first option is to improve our children’s programs in the hope that they will remain faithful when they grow up. Second, do nothing and believe they will return to the faith once they become young adults. The last option I advocate in my thesis is to reinforce the idea of the parents as the primary disciplers for their children.
When it comes to church programs for children, most churches already excellently provide various options. When I was in Canada a few years ago, I attended a church called LifeHouse. It is a small church with 80 attendees, including children. Despite being a small church with limited resources, it has an extensive and comprehensive program for toddlers (children) to high school (youth). Regardless of church size, youth and children’s programs are readily available.
We can always make existing programs better or add more programs. But it is expensive in terms of resources, money, and volunteers, with a diminishing return. Frisk observes that as ministry becomes more professional, though done with good intentions, parents inadvertently outsource discipling their children to the church (56). The assumption is that Sunday school classes or youth programs are all the children need to prepare them to be disciples of Christ. Unfortunately, data show otherwise.
In Intentional Parenting: Family Discipleship by Design, Tad Thompson noted that parents are not discipling their children, and the church is not doing anything about it (6). Taking data from Alvin Reid, a professor of evangelism at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Thompson noted that with more youth pastors and more resources in youth ministry, the number of youths accepting Christ is dropping (7). Thompson concluded that “[t]he spiritual futures of children must be placed as a matter of primary importance back into the hands of the people who have the greatest opportunity to influence them for the Kingdom of God—their parents” (9).
The issue of young adults leaving the church is complex. People leave the faith for various reasons. Thus, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. My goal is to move a few notches in the right direction by addressing circumstances where parents’ discipleship can help the child stay in the faith. If parents disciple their children consistently and lovingly, many children will become strong disciples even as they grow up into young adults.
When Jesus preached about the kingdom of God, He was aware that not everyone would follow Him. In Matthew 13, Jesus used four types of soil to describe someone coming to faith. Of the four soil types, only the seeds in good soil will produce fruits. This means only one out of four persons who heard the gospel will remain faithful to Jesus. It is a sobering thought for parents, including me, to think that my children may one day decide not to follow Jesus. In The Disciple-Making Parent, Chap Bettis describes the reality that some children wander away from the faith because they view the world as more important than Jesus, like the seeds which fell among the thorns (29).
The situation is not hopeless; some children will remain faithful if they are discipled properly. Bettis notes that some kids leave the faith because the church fails to answer their spiritual questions (29). They feel the church is too oppressive, and they are excluded if they raise questions or express doubts (Bettis 210). If the church addresses the concerns and doubts of young adults, it’s far more likely that they will stay in the church and continue to follow Christ. Kinnaman identified similar reasons why young adults leave the church. This is why Kinnaman believes it’s important for churches to establish multi-generation relationships with young adults (203). In these relationships, questions can be answered, and doubts can be addressed.
We assume that the church is an excellent place to disciple kids. In a way, it is. My children love going to Sunday school. The classes are filled with games, songs, and Bible stories. The volunteers are always joyful and energetic. It does seem like Sunday School, and church programs are the perfect place for kids to get to know Jesus. The rationale is that parents can drop off their children at Sunday School and attend the service themselves. Both the parents and the children can grow together separately. What’s the problem?
Sunday School and youth programs did not originate to disciple children and youth. Rather, Sunday School started as a way for churches to provide free education to less fortunate children in the 1800s (Frisk 54). It was held on Sunday because children had to work six days a week. Parachurch organizations started youth programs in the 1940s and 50s as evangelism tools to reach non-Christian youths. The idea was to hold big gatherings for youths so they could know Jesus. Youth ministry evolved through the years to be a discipleship program teaching children and youths who Jesus is.
One problem with relying on Sunday School to disciple children is that the time spent is insufficient. If a child goes to Sunday school every week and each class is an hour long, that equates to fifty-two hours a year. Frisk argued that fifty-two hours a year is very little compared to the hours a child spends at home with his parents (52).
Children’s programs attract busy parents because they accommodate their fast-paced lifestyle. In the article “Do Parents Regret Working Too Much during Their Kids’ Early Years?” Goh observes that it is common for both parents in Singapore to work long hours. The kids are busy with school and tuition programs. A tuition program is a paid program where a teacher teaches a child to excel academically. This is common practice in Asia because getting into a good school is competitive. With the internet and smartphones, parents can work at home and neglect their children. In North America, many parents are busy shuttling their children to sports and other activities. Pastor Cameron observed that Americans focus more on entertainment and sports than education (Walcott).
Christian parents understand the importance of their children knowing Jesus. The church, understanding this need, creates children’s programs to fill this need. With trained and eager volunteers and paid staff providing creative programs and fun-filled activities, parents will naturally outsource discipling their children to the church. Frisk made the same observation in Canada. She described Sunday school as “an unfortunate by-product: parents began to believe that the responsibility of discipling their own children could be shared more significantly … Christian parents were beginning to allow others to take on the role of primary discipler in their children’s lives” (Frisk 54). Parents are outsourcing their kids’ spiritual development to experts. For me, who is not naturally good with children, it is very attractive to let the church take care of my children.
Frisk described the North American culture as the idea of “…busyness has become so normative in our culture that I don’t think we have even begun to tally its many costs” (37). It is nearly impossible to disciple someone when our schedules are packed and we rush from one thing to another. From a parent’s perspective, there is nothing more inviting than having an expert to help our kids know about Jesus. It frees the parents’ time and gives them a safe place to drop the kids off.
As parents’ lives become busier with work or entertainment, they are looking for ways to outsource their responsibilities for their children to others. As the pace of life becomes faster, the church responds by creating eye-catching, fun, and exciting programs to draw children to church. It creates a chicken-and-egg effect. Parents will never match the excitement or the fun factor of professional children’s programs. Thus, they feel inadequate to disciple their children compare to professionals like youth and children’s pastors. So, the parents withdraw from discipling their children, believing the church can do a better job. The church realizes the need and jumps on board with new and exciting programs to attract children.
Busyness and fast-paced lifestyles are also a concern among ministers. The Barna Group and Pepperdine University studied the relational health of pastors among their families and friends. In an article titled “How Healthy Are Pastors’ Relationships?”, they found that forty-two per cent wished they could spend more time with their children (4). About half admitted that their role in the church has been demanding on their family. In another survey by the Barna Group titled “Prodigal Pastor Kids: Fact or Fiction,” pastors admitted that thirty-three per cent of their children under fifteen are no longer active in the church. Seven per cent no longer consider themselves to be Christian. This is significant as forty per cent of pastors’ kids are at risk of losing their faith even before they turn eighteen.
Pastor’s kids have a more challenging time in church than children whose parents are not in ministry. Because their parents are leaders in the church, their children are expected to be perfect Christians (“Prodigal Pastor Kids”). Twenty-eight per cent of pastors feel that this unrealistic expectation of their children is the number one reason their children struggle with faith. The second reason, relevant to the idea of ministers being too busy for their families, is that seventeen per cent of pastors admit they are too busy for their children. In this study, forty-two per cent of pastors wished they had spent more time with their kids.
When we look at these statistics side by side, we can see that pastors, given their high-demand work life, don’t spend enough time with their children to disciple them. On a positive note, the report concluded that pastors feel they’ve parented successfully in passing Christian values and faith to them. However, in contrast, many pastors regret not spending time with their children and acknowledge that something is missing. Discipleship requires relationships, and relationships are built by time spent together. This leads to my next point about relying on Sunday school and youth programs to disciple our children.
We often view the success of a program primarily on attendance. The more people attend a program, the more successful we deem it to be. Even the data measuring children’s spiritual growth from You Lost Me is based on church and church programs attendance. I understand this is a more accessible metric to measure. But relying on only this metric is flawed for determining whether we are making disciples.
One can attend a program for various reasons. Young children go to church because their parents bring them. Children do not usually have a choice, as the parents have power and authority over them. Another reason children go to church is that their friends are going, and they want to join them.
One can attend church but doesn’t have the desire to follow Jesus. In the Renegotiating Faith report, the authors interviewed a few young adults who stopped attending church programs when they were teenagers. They may not outright defy their parents by stating they do not want to attend church. Instead, the common exit strategies are excuses like having a job, moving, or other commitments that conflict with church attendance (Hiemstra et al. 35). They may not be interested in Christianity anymore. Still, they do not want their parents to know or want to hurt their feelings. They may still attend church only to please their parents. Therefore, measuring one’s spirituality by attendance can be misleading.
In another study by the Barna Group, “Who is Responsible for Children’s Faith Formation,” the unanimous view among Catholic and Protestant ministers is that parents are the number one factor in a child’s spiritual development. At the same time, 73% of Protestant pastors say that they address children’s spiritual development through programs like Sunday school and youth classes. Only 20% of Protestant pastors provide training for parents.
If ministers agree that parents are the main factor in developing a child’s spiritual growth, doesn’t it make sense for the church to invest in resources to help parents be better disciplers to their children? A common requirement in churches for engaged couples is to attend a Marriage Preparation Course (MPC) before marriage. Most pastors will not officiate the marriage if the couples do not complete the MPC. Why aren’t there similar requirements for couples when they become parents?
I understand that from the church’s perspective enforcing parent training will be challenging. A church will be seen as legalistic if it does not allow the children to attend Sunday school if the parents haven’t taken a parenting course. Yet, most parents undertake other preparation and training before a baby is born—prenatal classes and reading parenting books. Is it unrealistic to ask parents to spend more time learning how to disciple their children and assume their spiritual responsibility as a parent?
Some may argue that parents cannot disciple their children because they are too young. I don’t see it this way. Parents can show God’s love even to a newborn. The language of the baby is not verbal but with emotions. They respond positively when speaking softly to a newborn or baby. If one yells in anger, the baby will be frightened and cry. Since emotion is a child’s language, parents can show their heavenly Father’s love by being gentle and kind to them. The fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22–23 are spiritual characteristics. The parents can show these qualities, which is who God is, to a child right from the get-go.
Next ->