Helping the Next Gen Win
Week two - The Dependents
Deuteronomy 6:3-12
Bottom line: The goal of parenting has less to do with raising independent adults and more to do with raising God-dependent adults.
Dependents - typically a tax description for our kids, but think about it in a larger sense, who are the people depending on you?
Whether they’re our kids or grandkids or someone else’s kids, most of us feel a desire and a need to get in the corner of kids.
- They’re lonelier than they’ve ever been
- They’re more anxious than they’ve ever been
- There are challenges that are new, and changes happening more quickly than ever before
If we want to get in the corner of kids, we have to know and understand what the biggest influencers are on our kids today:
(in no particular order) Parents, peers, and smartphones
Smartphones
Screens have changed us. The data is clear. We’re going to talk a lot more about that in a couple of weeks…
“Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt
There is a ‘God-shaped hole’ in every human heart. Or, at least, many people feel a yearning for meaning, connection, and spiritual elevation. A phone-based life often fills that hole with trivial and degrading content. The ancients taught us to be more deliberate in choosing what we expose ourselves to. —Jonathan Haidt, Anxious Generation
Choosing what (and who) we expose ourselves to - this is where our faith, and the faith of our ancestors has a whole lot to offer:
3 Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you. —Deuteronomy 6:3
The Israelites were heading into a new place and a new phase in their journey, and they were going to have lots of generations living together in this place.
And the responsibility for these generations belonged to everyone - “Hear, Israel”
Spiritually walking with kids requires a wide circle. —Jeff Brodie
We need the parents, the grandparents, the aunts and the uncles, and the teachers, and the coaches, and the next-door neighbors.
Example: this church and my kids - small group leaders, intentional relationships (turning 13 years old)
At Ashley Ridge:
We partner with families to raise kids who love Jesus and love His church.
4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. —Deuteronomy 6:4-6
Before we get to what we tell the kids, we need to talk about what’s in you.
You can’t lead your kids to places you haven’t been.
Is the God-shaped hole in your life filled with God?
Faith has to be personal to you if it’s going to be personal for your kids.
How close are you to God right now?
Do you have the prayer life you want your kids to have?
This is personal.
Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. —Deuteronomy 6:7-9
We need to normalize spiritual conversations with our kids
“What do you think about God when you think about God?
“When you pray, what’s that like for you?”
Weird - yes
No one says, “Man, I just had such a breakthrough in my comfort zone.”
10 When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, 11 houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, 12 be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. —Deuteronomy 6:10-12
When you get what you want, don’t forget God!
To be human is to be a spiritual being. When we stuff our lives full of everything else and leave no room for God, we end up in an anxious place. Moses is begging the Israelites not to do that. I’m begging us not to do that.
Ancient Practices:
Widen the circle - be intentional about who is influencing your kids
Make it personal - we can’t give our kids something we don’t have
Create a rhythm - finding the right kind of dependence
We think the goal of parenting is raising kids who are independent.
Truth is, none of us are independent.
We’re dependent on jobs, relationships, leisure activities, healthy habits, etc. On the unhealthy side, we’re dependent on alcohol, destructive relationships…
So, what is the goal? What are we parenting to?
Our observation is that most parents are so busy parenting, they never stop to consider what they’re parenting to. —Andy and Sandra Stanley, Parenting
Instead of parenting toward independence, how can we parent and lead kids to make intentional choices about who or what to be dependent on?
The goal is to raise God-dependent adults.
They need to depend on a God who never changes because nothing else is a firm foundation when marriage is struggling, jobs change, health challenges happen…
We all have voices that speak more loudly or more clearly than others in our lives - our primary influences for good or for ill. But at some point, those voices won’t be there.
Have we taught our kids to hear from God?
Have we taught them that their value and purpose comes from Him?
The goal of parenting isn’t perfection, but pointing our kids to a Father who is. —Jeff Brodie
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. —2 Corinthians 1:3-4
This is the parent I want my kids to know. This is the parent I want your kids to know.
This is the parent I want you to know.
Resources:
“Parenting: Getting It Right” by Andy and Sandra Stanley
“Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt
w/ link to interview from NP on “Mental Health and our Kids”