" a pRacticaL guide foR gRowing gReat kids
an awana Resource
Linda Massey weddLe
HOW TO RAISE A MODERN-DAY JOSEPH Published by David C. Cook 4050 Lee Vance View Colorado Springs, CO 80918 U.S.A. David C. Cook Distribution Canada 55 Woodslee Avenue, Paris, Ontario, Canada N3L 3E5 David C. Cook U.K., Kingsway Communications Eastbourne, East Sussex BN23 6NT, England David C. Cook and the graphic circle C logo are registered trademarks of Cook Communications Ministries. All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form without written permission from the publisher. The Web site addresses recommended throughout this book are offered as a resource to you. These Web sites are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement on the part of David C. Cook, nor do we vouch for their content. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked N K J V are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ISBN 978-1-4347-6531-4 eISBN 978-1-4347-0027-8 © 2009 Awana® Clubs International The Team: Terry Behimer, Thomas Womack, Sarah Schultz, Jack Campbell, and Karen Athen Cover Design: Amy Kiechlin Cover Image: Getty Images, The Image Bank, John Coletti Printed in the United States of America First Edition 2009 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
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contents
INTRODUCTION: a JouRney woRtH pLanning 7
paRt one (especiaLLy foR paRents)
CHAPTER 1: at tHe staRting Line (ages 0–2) CHAPTER 2: pRescHooLeRs (ages 2–5) CHAPTER 3: eaRLy eLeMentaRy (ages 5–8: kindeRgaRten tHRougH second gRade) CHAPTER 4: oLdeR eLeMentaRy (ages 8–11: tHiRd tHRougH siXtH gRades) CHAPTER 5: MiddLe scHooL (ages 11–14: seVentH and eigHtH gRades) CHAPTER 6: HigH scHooL (ages 14–18: nintH tHRougH tweLftH gRades) 31 35 65 91 123 153
paRt two (especiaLLy foR cHuRcHes)
CHAPTER 7: wHy we need eacH otHeR CHAPTER 8: tHe pLan CHAPTER 9: at tHe staRting Line (ages 0–2) CHAPTER 10: pRescHooLeRs (ages 2–5) CHAPTER 11: eaRLy eLeMentaRy (ages 5–8: kindeRgaRten tHRougH second gRade) CHAPTER 12: oLdeR eLeMentaRy (ages 8–11: tHiRd tHRougH siXtH gRades) CHAPTER 13: MiddLe scHooL (ages 11–14: seVentH and eigHtH gRades) CHAPTER 14: HigH scHooL (ages 14–18: nintH tHRougH tweLftH gRades) 181 185 193 197 201 205 211 217
intRoduction
a JouRney woRtH pLanning
For parents like you … in churches like yours … this book is a practical guide for a child’s spiritual development—a journey in which parents and churches work together to raise kids who know, love, and serve the Lord. Much of the vision and purpose for such a journey is discussed in my friend Larry Fowler’s book Raising a Modern-Day Joseph. The book you hold in your hands—How to Raise a Modern-Day Joseph— focuses more on the practical side of that. It gives parents a workable plan for putting this vision and purpose to work in their everyday family life.
no guaRantees? Like Larry’s book, this one is needed because we’re in the midst of a crisis. The statistics stagger us as we read about, hear about, and see young people walking away from their faith. We are surprised that this could be happening, since after all … • our churches provide nurseries, Sunday school, vacation Bible school, Awana, youth ministries, and every other kind of kid and youth program imaginable. • our children’s ministry curriculum is more entertaining, colorful, and professional looking than ever before.
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• the market is flooded with “Christian” action figures, mugs, pencils, wallpaper, wallets, posters, linens, T-shirts, and toys, many decorated with clever “Christian” sayings. • radio stations play Christian music twenty-four hours a day, and television channels broadcast a never-ending selection of messages from both local churches and polished, smooth-talking televangelists. And here’s an even tougher dilemma: Why does a kid from one home walk away from the Lord, while a kid in another home stays true to Him—yet the families in both homes have attended the same church, Sunday school, vacation Bible school, Awana program, etc.? What happened? What’s the difference? Before going further, I need to say this: No plan, no curriculum, no humanly written book, no pastor, no teacher, no parent … can absolutely guarantee that a young person will not walk away from what he or she has been taught. God works with His people individually, and each individual must make the choice to trust Christ as Savior. Each one chooses to walk with the Lord or to walk away from Him. After all, even with the first two kids we read about in the Bible, one had a criminal record. The absence of such a guarantee is due to sin. Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. (Galatians 3:22) So yes, unfortunately, children don’t come with guarantees. But God’s Word does come with a guarantee: If we trust the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, believing that He died and rose again, we’re promised …
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• the forgiveness of sin (bridging the separation between imperfect people and a perfect God). • eternal life. • a future in an unimaginably perfect heaven. That’s some guarantee! No, we as parents don’t have guarantees, but we do know that children who grow up in strong, Christcentered homes—where God’s Word is both taught and lived—are more likely to live godly lives as adults. But let’s take a glimpse at what is typically going on in many families.
a cHuRcH and pastoR pRoBLeM? I grew up as a preacher’s kid and, as an adult, became a preacher’s wife—I know firsthand how often the preacher and the church get blamed for parental failures. I remember one Sunday morning after the church service when my husband was shaking hands with people filing out of the auditorium. Suddenly a visibly upset mother stormed into the lobby, yelling. She said her son had been knocked over by other boys in the parking lot. My husband’s first reaction was to call an ambulance, but the mom said that wasn’t necessary; her son just scraped his knee. “But,” she shouted, pointing to my husband, “this is your fault.” “Why?” he asked. He could see our own two kids talking with friends nearby, so they weren’t the ones who had knocked down the woman’s son. So why was the incident his fault? “Because it’s your church,” the woman screamed. (Well, that wasn’t true; the church belongs to the people as much as to the pastor.) “And so they’re your responsibility.” However, that true story is a picture of what many people do spiritually. Just as many parents leave the physical well-being of their children up to the church (the dropthem-off-in-the-parking-lot syndrome), so many parents do the same with their children’s spiritual well-being, training, and guidance: They drop them off in the parking lot and let the church do the nurturing (whether or not the parents are even in the same building). Maybe you feel this way too—at least to some extent. After all, you make sure your children go to church for every kids’ activity possible, so you figure the church’s pastors, teachers, and leaders
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are covering that spiritual-training part of your kids’ lives. You’re busy doing other things, like working long hours to provide for your family, which is your responsibility. Deep inside, you hope those people at the church are doing it right. And if your kids walk away from the Lord someday, you’ll certainly have something to say about the church’s failure, since spiritually raising your kids is its job. Right? Well … no!
fRoM tHe staRt Let’s review some essentials of what the Bible says about the family.
The Family Is the First Group God Created
The family unit came before towns or countries and before churches, youth programs, basketball teams, or Facebook. God immediately created the marriage partnership; in fact, by the second chapter of Genesis, God had already established marriage: For Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. (Genesis 2:20–22) And already by the fourth chapter in Genesis, we learn about children.
The Family (Marriage Partnership) Is a Picture of Christ and the Church
Paul says it this way:
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Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. (Ephesians 5:21–27)
Family “Rules” Are Listed Throughout the Bible
Here’s an example: Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. (Colossians 3:18–21)
Family Members Need to Encourage Each Other
Paul pointed to family encouragement as a model for the entire church: We were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children.… For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory. (1 Thessalonians 2:7, 11–12) The family has the primary responsibility in the spiritual training of children. But families also need the church to come alongside them to nurture their kids, to provide Christian friendships
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from like-minded families, and to give complementary spiritual training. (We’ll look at all that more closely later.)
soMeone wHo knew, LoVed, and seRVed god The goal of Awana (the ministry I serve with) is to train children and youth to grow into adults who know, love, and serve the Lord. We’ve come to see that this is also a priority goal for parents in training their children. And as a biblical example of a young person who grew up to know, love, and serve the Lord, it’s hard to find a better example than Joseph in the Old Testament—not that he came from a perfect family. Most children know about Joseph. They know he received a unique coat from his father—and our perception of that is a knee-length coat with rainbow-colored stripes. But why would grown men (his older half-brothers—see Genesis 30:1–25) care about their little brother’s multicolored coat? The Hebrew word here for “coat” refers to a full-length tunic—sleeves to the wrist, the hem to the ankles. This was the style of coat worn by rich young men. They didn’t have to work (they had slaves or servants to do that), and they had a position of honor both in the home and in the community. Joseph’s full-length coat was probably made of white linen, with bands of colorful embroidery as trim. By contrast, working men wore plain, looser-fitting, shorter garments so they could climb over rocks and take care of their sheep—they needed to move quickly and not be hindered by long clothing. So the brothers weren’t jealous of the colors of Joseph’s coat but rather the implied position Joseph held in wearing such a garment. Joseph lived in Hebron. The word Hebron means “community” or “fellowship.” Joseph had fellowship with his father, but this wasn’t a family that had a lot of fellowship with one another. I don’t think dinnertime conversations were leisurely discussions about the price of sheep feed or the Hebron weather. The truth is, Joseph came from a dysfunctional family. This is obvious when you read in Genesis 30 about the intrigue involving his mother, his mother’s sister, their servants, and drugs (mandrakes, which were seen as narcotics or aphrodisiacs). Rachel and Leah were both jealous women who were willing to have their servants lie with Jacob so they could win the who-can-have-the-most-sons race. And when
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Reuben brought home some mandrakes, Rachel desired them so much she was willing to “sell” Leah a night with Jacob to get her hands on them. This of course isn’t part of the biography we read about in Sunday school, but these events are worth noting here. Out of this mess, the Lord brought Joseph, a young man who never wavered from the assurance that God was with him; a young man with a true heart desire to know, love, and serve the Lord. We know that Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery and that he ended up in Egypt. We know he quickly gained power and influence in Potiphar’s house, then quickly lost it when fleeing the temptations of Mrs. Potiphar. Yet even when put in prison, Joseph knew that God was with him, and he remained faithful. Later, because he interpreted the king’s dream, he was made a VIP and placed in charge of the entire land of Egypt. In that position, he was able years later to publicly forgive his brothers. Through it all, Joseph concluded that it wasn’t his brothers who sent him to Egypt, but God. God had a plan for him, and Joseph listened to God and fulfilled His plan—something he was later able to testify about to his brothers: “God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance” (Genesis 45:7). Joseph’s life in particular reflected five godly character qualities—we’ll call them “Master Life Threads,” as Larry Fowler does in Raising a Modern-Day Joseph—that were woven into the very being of who he was and how he lived his life: • Respect for the awesomeness and authority of God (Genesis 39:6–9) • Wisdom for living life based on a knowledge of God (40:6–8) • Grace in relationships with others (41:51–52) • A sense of destiny and purpose that came from God (45:4–10) • A perspective for life based on the sovereignty of God (50:15–21) These Master Life Threads are also desired characteristics in the lives of our own children—as they learn to know, love, and serve the Lord. We know that Joseph knew about the Lord. God was the God of his father, Jacob. As Joseph’s life continued in surprising new situations—as head of Potiphar’s household, as a prisoner, and finally as the man in charge of all of Egypt—he continued following the Lord. Over and over in
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the biblical account of Joseph’s life, we read that the Lord was with him, as in Genesis 39:21: “The LORD was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden.” We know that Joseph loved the Lord because of the way he lived his life, refusing to be drawn into the temptations of a rich and powerful household, and because of his exemplary forgiveness toward the brothers who had wronged him: “But Joseph said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.’ And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them” (Genesis 50:19–21). And we know that Joseph served the Lord—by making righteous choices, by administrating the seven years of plenty, and by giving food not only to the people of Egypt but to those from other countries as well. As the famine intensified and “the people cried to Pharaoh for food,” Pharaoh responded, “Go to Joseph and do what he tells you” (Genesis 41:55).
ModeRn-day JosepHs What Christian parents wouldn’t want their child to grow up to be a modern-day Joseph—a young person who reflects those five Master Life Threads and who knows, loves, and serves the Lord? For many parents (and maybe this includes you), their children are already becoming Josephs. They do excellent jobs spiritually nurturing their children. They daily teach their kids God’s Word by guiding them toward recognizing the need to trust Christ, praying with them, reading the Bible together, encouraging Scripture memorization, explaining difficult words and concepts, and talking about the qualities of the Christian walk. Then they live out God’s Word in everyday life. They take their responsibility seriously. Then there are other parents who simply don’t think about their children’s spiritual training. These parents flounder through life, not learning much themselves about what the Bible actually says, and they couldn’t begin to explain the difference between Genesis and Galatians. Yet they’re law-abiding citizens and church-attending Christians. They figure their kids will turn out okay. After all, they get their kids to Sunday school and even sent them once to a Christian summer camp. But the majority of Christian parents are somewhere in the middle. They desire to be spiritual
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nurturers of their children, but they don’t know how. They might be intimidated that they won’t choose the right words. (What if my child asks me to explain eschatology or something?) Or they don’t know where to find a plan that shows them how to be a spiritual nurturer. (They may not even realize they should have a plan.) Furthermore, you probably know some adults who grew up without any spiritual nurturing in the home, yet who are now pastors, missionaries, church leaders, or shining witnesses in the secular workplace. The Lord used someone besides a parent to mentor that child or gave the child a desire for Bible study that transformed her into someone who truly wants to know, love, and serve the Lord.
goaL and pLan If our destination is having a child who develops Joseph-like characteristics—knowing, loving, and serving the Lord—what’s the itinerary or plan for that journey? The lack of such a plan often becomes the roadblock in our children’s spiritual development—and getting past that roadblock is what this book is all about. This book is not a step-by-step itinerary but more of an atlas where you pick and choose which stops to make in your own family journey—because we know all families are different, with different schedules, different interests, and different personalities. Our desire is to give your family (and your church) ideas—lots of ideas—for helping to spiritually nurture your children. But as the parent, you need to devise the route. It’s a plan that involves both parents—and the church as well.
Dad
The father is the head of the house and the God-ordained leader of the home. Dads and moms need to work together to spiritually raise their children. A spiritually strong dad will … • pray with his children. • lead the children in Bible study and worship. • take an interest in what the child is learning at church.
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• teach his children Bible verses, Bible concepts, and Bible truths...."
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