Mother’s Day Sermon
2013 Maple Ridge Wesleyan
Our family has changed quite a bit since Pastor Jay Guptill
made that video 8 yrs ago. A rundown: Leanne RCMP in AB, Kurt missionary with
GP in Turkey, The 4 middle boys are in university, the 3 girls in gr 9,8, &
6. We also added another boy who’s 7 now so that puts the [final] tally at 6
boys and 4 girls. Hopefully none of the women believed I was crazy enough to
let someone into the house on an actual Sunday morning to video us…we did a
re-enactment of sorts on a Sat aft after I’d tidied, done my hair and make-up,
& thrown on a housecoat. We did pull up to the church on a Sun morn to give
it some semblance of honesty….but it’s fun to look back on now.
By now, having a lot of kids is normal for us….we feel we’re
like every other family except louder and I guess with the age spread (the
oldest was gr 12 when the youngest was born) I feel a bit like a recycled mom.
However, I’m married to a recycled dad as Ken actually retired before Shawn was
in Kindergarten. He’s kind of worried Shawn’ll grow up thinking he hasn’t
worked a day in his life .I used to think our issues were related to having a
large family- like forgetting kids places,. “Home alone” isn’t just the name of
a movie at our house. To be a Bandy IS to experience being “home alone” at many
diff places—arenas, school, friends’ houses, church, work… Before Ken retired I
obviously drove the kids more often so I forgot them more often than him. I
even forgot other peoples’ kids places who weren’t front and centre when it was
time to go. But Ken wins the prize for forgetting the most kids at once. One of
them was sick on a Sun morn so he stayed home and I took the kids to first
service. I scooted home between services and he went to second service. When he
came home, I had lunch on the table and asked him to call the kids in (I
figured they’d just stayed outside bec it was a nice day.) He asked where they
were and I said, “What do you mean? Didn’t you bring them home from church? We
have 9 kids! Didn’t the van seem a little quiet on the way home?” But of course
his man brain had thought since he went to church in an empty van, it was ok to
come home in one. I used to feel worse about forgetting kids places but I’ve
shared these stories a couple of times now, and always hear back amazing
stories of forgotten children from ppl who have waaay fewer kids than we do so
I don’t feel so bad about it anymore.
Pastor Nick old me you’re in a series on parenting and
suggested I share things that have been helpful to Ken and me. I like what Bill
Cosby said about parenting- that he and his wife had 5 theories on how to raise
children…then had 5 children and no theories. Luckily we’re Christians and
don’t have to make up theories…we have a comprehensive guide for child-rearing
as you already know. Pastor Nick and Ken and I have prayed that the Holy Spirit
will give you one thing to take home today that will make a big difference to
you. So let’s pause and pray so you can ask Him too. PRAY BRIEFLY.
1. Get a Glimpse of the
Big Picture
I confess in
the day to day nitty gritty of parenting, I can settle for just wanting good
kids… mainly for 3 reasons: 1) they make me look like a good parent and I like
that. 2) I feel like a good parent and I like that. 3) They’re easier to deal
with and I like that.
There are 2
main problems with that: 1) It falls far short of what God wants. The whole
purpose of man, some have said, is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. So
somehow I should be trying to glorify God and raising my kids to do that, too.
Somehow that seems complicated and what does it mean to gloify God anyway? 2)
While “good” kids to me, usually means easy to handle (behaviour) God places
more emphasis on the heart. One diagram really helped Ken and me take these
huge concepts and simplify them into something we found very manageable.
You know
that God chooses to reveal Himself
through His Word (the Bible.) Pastor
Nick emphasized last week, that we are to impress these commands/teachings on
our children’s hearts (after
adopting them into OUR hearts [Deut 6:6] Very little of this will work without
parental example). We also know that the
heart is what drives behaviour. Luke
6:45 says: The
good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart. The evil
man brings evil out of the evil stored up in his hear For out of the overflow
of the heart, the mouth speaks. People can’t see hearts, but they can see
behaviour as it says in Prov. 20:11: Even a child is known by his actions, by whether his conduct
is pure and right. So people are actually seeing what God is like
through godly children. The prhase DKDW uses to describe this is “defining God to the world so that the
world can find God.” They are seeing “Jesus with skin on” in our kids.
If we think
back to the chief end/purpose of man—to glorify God and enjoy Him forever and
if we realize that glorifying God means
making Him recognizable, we see it’s not such a complicated thing after all if
their hearts are trained by God’s word, and their actions are reflecting that.
This flow
chart is also reminding me to focus on my child’s heart. It’ easy to get
sidetracked by behaviour because it’s beh that alerts me to the fact your child
needs correction. Beh is irritating so I can focus on it. But if I just fix the
beh and not address the underlying heart issue, it looks like the problem is
solved but it’s actually worse than before because now I have a hypocrite on my
hands! Jesus soundly condemned the Pharisees for looking good on the outside but
rotten on the inside when he called them “white-washed tombs.”
Qu: Do I have a big picture in mind? Am I aiming at
something? Do I need to ask the Lord for a vision statement that makes sense to
me?
Qu: Have I been sidetracked by behaviour and forgotten to
address the heart behind the behaviour?
2: Be Aware of
Parenting Stages
Again this is from GKGW. I remember one night when Ken was on
a business trip reading in a book “It will take 5 years in the mind of the
child your right to rule the child. “
Five years?? I thought not at the time….that I could convince the child
of my authority a lot sooner than that… but I couldn’t. It took 5 yrs. That’s
where a knowledge of the stages of parenting was useful. [Gary Ezzo]
Discipline Phase
Ages 1-5 Your right to rule… not
oppressive, not a power trip; tight boundaries that will give way to freedoms
as the child demonstrates responsible behaviour.
Training Phase
Ages 6-12 Sports
Analogy…trainer works on an athlete in different settings going through various
drills and exercises. He can stop the player and make an immediate correction.
They’re not in a real game; it’s practice
Coaching Phase
Ages 13-18 Children are in the
game of life at this point. We can send in plays from the sidelines, huddle during
time outs, but we can’t stop the game for extended periods of time. They’re
calling the plays themselves and moving forward.
Friendship
Ages 18 and up. This is the relational goal of parenting. A child once said, “Parents are just
babysitters for God.” The family unit is how God chose to transform helpless
babies into adults ready to be used for His glory. (What’s His glory? It’s how
He is recognizable….back to the diagram… people see what God is like when they
see someone living according to His principles) So at 18 or so, God says,
“Thank you very much; now I have a job for this one to do and as the Commanding
Officer he assigns them a position in the army of God. Whether it’s an RCMP
officer, missionary, physiotherapist, maple sugar bush worker, or busy
stay-at-home mom, the child becomes our friend and brother or sister in Christ.
God desires that they honour us, as their parents, but HE is now their
authority. I personally think as a
culture, we’ve rushed to this phase and have tried to be a friend to our child
when we should be focusing on training, coaching, or even establishing our
authority.
Qu. 2: What phase (s) am I in? Am I rushing it?
3.Consider your
Parenting Style.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota identified 4 broad
parenting categories that everyone more or less falls into. They fit along an
axis that runs from low relationship to high relationship and low control to
high control.
Best? Authoritative….actively involved in kids’
lives, willing to communicate boundaries & rules but also love and
affection. Interestingly, P Nick has addressed in this series how to have a
strong rel’p (approp touch, abundant time, & encouraging words) AND the
importance of requiring your children to obey you. In fact, his key phrase
“Discipline is correction driven by love” describes this style perfectly.
Worst?
Authoritarian….lots of laws but little love “Rules without relationship lead to rebellion” Want to make a
teenager really angry? Give him a bunch of rules (When/where/who he can can’t
hang out with) without making an emotional connection; without the relationship
that allows him to see the heart behind the lawgiver.
Question 3: What style do I bring to the table? Do I need to
modify it? Repent of it?
4. Aim for First Time
Obedience.
Let’s go back for a moment to our role as the authority in
our children’s lives. It’s not to hold them under our power like the auth.
parent wants to do….have control for the sake of control… but ultimately to
empower them to be self-controlled and live under God’s authority. If we can’t obey someone we can see, how will
we obey someone we CAN’T see? So they go from parent controlled, to
self-controlled to God controlled.
FTO means responding immediately, completely and without
challenge. When we first introduced this at home, we had one child who had been
so characterized by challenging everything we said, that we put 3 words on a
paper on the fridge: NO, BUT, and WHY. He wasn’t allowed to answer any of our
directions with one of these words. It wiped out his vocabulary for a week!
What are your other options? You can be
a threatening, repeating parent. (We’ve been those.) “I’m not going to tell you
again. Do you hear me? I said…” Or, you could be a bribing parent… and the
Bible frowns on that idea with verses like “A bribe perverts the heart of the
righteous.”
Your kids know when
you finally mean it. If you can teach them to obey on the count of 3 or at
a certain pitch in your voice, or when you stand up, or reach for the wooden
spoon drawer, or whatever signal you’ve taught your kids that you’re finally
expecting them to obey you, then you can train them and more importantly you
can train YOU to have them obey you the first time. The main problem with this
issue is the parents. First of all most of us don’t even believe FTO is
possible. (and it is with certain hints and helps). Secondly, we’re not even
aware we’re the problem. Half the time I use to give an order I didn't expect
to be obeyed. (“We’re leaving now, get your coat” really meant we’ll be leaving
in 15 min or so and I’ll ask you 3 or 4 more times) I had to earn NOT to give
an order I didn’t expect to be obeyed and that was tough to do!
Since God requires me as a parent to teach my children to
obey (Eph 6:1) if I don’t do that, I’m the one in sin! I had to learn to be
very consistent and not let my moods decide when I really meant it. The kids
are confused if they get 5 chances one day when there’s company watching or I’m
in a good mood, and the next day I expect them to do it the first time I ask.
There’s ways of facilitating FTO. One is giving a 5 minute warning (works great for
husbands too). Another is having you
kids say Ok, Mom. Somehow
that verbal response…hearing themselves say it really helps. Coach them, say,
“Say ‘Ok Mom’”
Question 4: Are you teaching your young children to obey you?
Do you need to make some changes?
7. Be careful about the
decisions you let your children make.
We started out giving our children too many choices at a
young age thinking that the way to make wise choices was to get lots of
practice. We now believe the way to make wise choices is to first see them
modelled, learn trust and submission to parents, and then be gradually given more
freedoms as responsible behaviour is demonstrated. Proverbs 26:12 says, “Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There
is more hope for a fool than that man.” Too many choices too early gives a
child a false self-sufficiency and a prideful self-reliance. Ken and I do a
skit in our parenting classes where I become a little girl who gets to choose
between the blue A& and red cup, Orange juice and apple juice, reading
books or playing with Barbies - then when Dad wants her to clean up her toys
she decides she’ll do it later and pitches a fit when he insist she do it now.
She’s make so many choices in the non-moral arena (such as the blue and red
cup…there’s nothing right or wrong about which one), she’ can’t make the switch
when she’s in a moral situation where there IS a right or wrong response
obedience/disobedience.
One of the ways you diagnose this problem is by determining
whether your child announces their intentions (I’m going over to Griffin’s
house or asks permission (May I go over to Griffin’s house?)
Question 7: Is your child wise in his own eyes? Is he addicted to choice? Are you getting ahead of
yourself on the timeline from boundaries to freedoms?
8. Remember the lesson
of the potter and the clay.
I have a friend who’s a potter. As she was talking about
working with clay she said that she can only mold the clay into certain shapes
if it’s “willing.” Some clay (if it’s been worked before, lost some water
content, etc.) is no longer pliable enough to be thrown (put on the potter’s
wheel). It can only be squeezed through 2 rollers – made flat like a pancake-
and made into a plate or platter but it can’t be worked upward into a bowl or
mug, or vase.
Children are like that, too. There’s something in them that
responds or doesn’t respond easily. It’s not just about what we as parents and
our end of the equation. At a Father’s Day service, many years ago, HC Wilson
said, “When kids turn out right, parents take too much credit. When kids turn
out wrong, parents take too much blame.” Kids don’t come with guarantees or
formulas. God wants us to do our very very best and trust Him with the results.
Question 8: Are you taking too much credit for how your kids
are turning out? Too much blame?
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