Discipleship: Failure or Flourish Part 1
by Natalie Holmyard
Discipleship: Failure or Flourish Part 1
Hello, beloved SRT family. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you. Let’s jump into this month’s Bulletin.
Are we raising disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ, or simply taking our kids to church?
This is a question that the body of Christ at large must answer. It is also a question that we, the people of SRT, must take an honest and frank look at answering. Why are so many of our children growing up around Christianity, without becoming disciples of Jesus Christ?
We take our children to church. We enrol them in Sunday school programmes. We send them to youth group, Christian camps, mission trips and Bible studies. We pray that they will remain faithful. Yet, for many families, something happens somewhere along the journey. The child who once sat beside us in church grows into a teenager who becomes disengaged and eventually into a young adult who walks away from the faith altogether.
Perhaps our problem is not that our children have rejected Christianity.
Perhaps the deeper problem is that we have not adequately taught, equipped and demonstrated to them how to live as disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In Holiness, Truth and the Presence of God, Francis talks about living out of relationships rather than principles - we can raise children in principles but ultimately they need to be in relationship with the Holy Spirit. Is the relationship with the Holy Spirit real in us? Do they want to “know who we know”?
Jesus did not command His followers (us) simply to attend church on Sunday. He commanded His followers (us) to “go and make disciples of all nations”. (Matthew 28:19). A disciple is not merely someone who knows about Jesus. A disciple is someone who is besotted by Jesus, trusts Jesus, obeys Jesus, and increasingly shapes their entire life around Him. This distinction matters.
One of the great assumptions of modern Christian parenting is that if we can simply get our children to church; we have done our job. So many times, when I have asked brothers and sisters in Christ if their children are believers, the general answer they give me is, “my kids go to church”. Can you see the distinction?
Understanding our place in the Body of Christ is vitally important, and gathering together corporately is also vitally important, but it does not and cannot carry the weight of discipleship.
The local expression of the body of Christ (what we call Church) can teach, encourage, equip and provide a wonderful community of faith. However, as parents, we cannot outsource the spiritual formation of our children to the corporate expression of church.
The scriptures place a profound responsibility on parents. In Deuteronomy 6, Moses instructs God’s people to teach His commands to their children, not merely in a classroom, but throughout ordinary life. “Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” This is the beginning of discipleship.
It happens around the dinner table, in the car, during family arguments, when money is lacking or in abundance. When someone in the family is sick, anxious, or fails. When seasons are beautiful and filled with love. When difficult moral questions arise. When a parent has to apologise (yes, that’s right, sometimes, in fact many, many times David and I have and will continue to apologise). When, as a family, we have to make decisions about work, relationships, entertainment, money, and priorities. This is an important part of discipleship.
Our children need to see what it means to follow Christ in real life. They need to see discipleship in us – in real time – every minute of every day.
A question that Dave and I are constantly asking of ourselves is, “Do our children see enough evidence in us that following Jesus is actually worth it?” This is a tough question we must all ask, and sometimes we may not like the answer this question honestly deserves, but ask it we must.
Children, younger, older, and in between, are extraordinarily perceptive, and they notice the gap between what we say and what we do.
If we tell them that God matters, but our lives demonstrate that just about everything else is more important than Him, they not only notice, but this information is used by their flesh and the enemy who hates them to build a case against the Kingdom of God and us.
- If we tell them that Scripture is God’s wisdom, but we barely open the bible ourselves, they notice.
- If we tell them that prayer is important, but prayer disappears whenever life becomes “busy”, they notice.
- If we tell them that being in the continual presence and filling of the Holy Spirit matters, but we rarely live this way, they notice.
- If we tell them to forgive, tell the truth, treat others as more important than ourselves, to live out of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, to love our neighbour as ourselves, but we rarely live this way and fail to produce fruit of this way of life behind closed doors, they notice.
Our children not only inherit our words, but they also inherit our actions.
If you have children, whether small, big or in between, be courageous and ask yourself: am I walking out obvious discipleship with my children? Can they see it? Are they doing the same?
Next month, we will continue along in this theme. Praying that you are ready to come along this ride with humility, honesty and transparency.
God bless you and keep you,
Natalie.
