Abdicate: in it’s broadest sense, the word means to renounce or resign from a formal position. It got it’s meaning from monarchs or kings who formally resigned from completing their role.
Abdication in parenting simply refers to the lack of involvement and engagement in parenting children in some of the simple ways the Bible lays forth as God’s will.
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| Never meant to lead children to Jesus |
It is very humbling to see (as the blog title reveals) how easy it is for me to disengage from truly leading and guiding my children according to God’s design. I know I can come up with lots of different reasons and really good excuses. I know I can share how busy and difficult life is and how we’re trying to do so much to further our children. But the simple truth is that many times—it’s just easier to abdicate than engage spiritually with my children.
3 Abdicating Excuses
1. Church Happens At the Building: It is easier to let church times/church events be my children’s primary spiritual engagement each week.
It is so much easier for me to want the events at the church building (Sunday mornings & Wednesday nights) to be the majority of where my children get their spiritual food for the week—while abdicating my role as spiritual leader at home. But we cannot abdicate our God-given role thinking the church event will lead my children faithfully.
Jupiter Jumps and carnivals don't lead children to Jesus. Parents and people lead children to Jesus by clarifying the gospel message. Jupiter Jumps are not evil--they have their place. But don't select your church or abdicate your role of parenting based on how good the church "events" are.
Part of the supplemental teaching, fellowship, prayer, and worship they experience must be in the context of the local assembly gathered together (Heb. 10:24-25). But this reality by no means allows parents to resolve to do little to nothing in the home. In fact, in the staggering numbers of twenty somethings who have left the church after graduation—this is one of the most consistent complaints.
“My parents had two separate lives—their home life and their church life. We never engaged with the Bible, worship, or prayer at home or away from the church. Church was a place we went and not a lifestyle. It was a very insignificant part of their lives so why should it be big in my life?”
It is much easier to expect their Sunday morning and Wednesday night teachings at church to be the place where my kids get most of their spiritual nourishment. Don't fall for the lie.
2. I Failed Again: It is easier to let failures keep you from seeing long-term change brought about in your family and your family legacy.
It is difficult to just keep up with the pace of life sometimes. There are some weeks when we only read the Bible with the boys 3 nights a week as they go to bed (see typical week below). Sometimes I feel like a failure for that. But there are some weeks when it just doesn’t happen as I would have liked. But I don’t beat myself up about it. This is no legalistic equation that guarantees great morals and Godly offspring. This is process.
Our Bible times with our boys in the evenings or our Faith Talks once a week or our spontaneous Faith Walks/God Moments where we pause to see how something points us back to God’s greatness will never get my kids to heaven. Jesus substitution in their place taking on the wrath of God is what bought their atonement, freedom from sin, and eternal life.
Therefore, my feelings of failure are lies. I simply trust in that same gospel truth—and based off of what Jesus already accomplished on my behalf (and theirs) I resolve to be diligent and faithful this next few days. It is a process and not a quick fix.
3. Too Busy for God’s Best: It is easier to let the busy-ness of life fill up our schedules and our daily lives to the point where there is no time left for eternal investment in our own kids.
John Piper has often stated how our “lack of desire for God” is because we are so filled with the pursuits and desires from this temporal world. We fill ourselves up with the things of this world so much that we are never hungry for the more pleasurable and eternal things of God.1
What if…God’s best was actually found in living our lives according to His design laid out clearly in Deuteronomy 6?
Look at Psalm 16:11
“You make known to me the path of life; in Your presence there is fullness of joy; at Your righthand are pleasures forevermore.”
What if…there were immeasurable pleasure in slowly, consistently leading our children to the gospel each day and each night—pointing them to treasure in Christ and then seeing them one day surrender to His calling on their life? Would that be fulfilling? Is that not a worthy object of our time to have our offspring captivated by this living Christ? What would you give or pay for that? What is that worth to you?
What if the answer was found in how we either spend our time laboring for that goal or we ignore His Word and abdicate our role?
What if so many Christians (and lost people) are missing out on immeasurable pleasures and joys simply because they never get into dialogue and experience the work of the Spirit in their own living room, dining rooms, and bedrooms?
But just like me, sometimes you may be too busy for God’s best. Our reality currently looks like this.
Sample Week:
- Monday Night: a school event
- Tuesday Night: basketball practice 6 pm for Owen, 7 pm for Sankie, home @ 8:20, eat, shower it’s 9:15
- Wednesday Night: church night, at building from 5:30—home by 8:45
- Thursday Night: family comes over for dinner, leave at 9:15
- Friday Night: first night off as a family
And I’m guessing there are many of you who have a busier schedule than that.
How do you have faith talks, faith walks, and live in faith mission when your week looks like that?
So how do we live with spiritual intentionality in the midst of busy schedules?
I think part of the answer is in having a plan. And that means more than just pie-in-the-sky ideas. It takes having a simple, workable plan with concrete steps that all types of family settings could all implement and live out. This plan is for the long-established church attenders just the same as it is for the newly saved, struggling family. This is for nuclear families and broken families and blended families and jacked-up families (like mine!). This is for single-moms and single-dads as well as foster parents and adopting parents. It works for family guardians and grandparents. It’s simple enough that anyone who has a Bible can lead a discussion and engage the family.
Another part of the answer is in being intentional and purposeful in implementing the plan. Sure, some weeks you’ll blow it and merely let your kid’s youth leader or children’s minister carry the load spiritually—but that’s an exception and not a pattern because of your diligence and intentional living. Some weeks, you’ll simply forget and feel like a failure—but this is a long process so you don’t let failure keep you from seeing change. And some weeks, you’ll be so busy you won’t feel like you’ve done anything spiritually—but you work at guarding from those weeks being the norm and make spiritual parenting the norm for your family.
Don’t miss out on experiencing God doing beautiful and fulfilling things through Jesus’ life and death because of excuses like these. It will take diligence. It will take discipline. It will take intentional and purposeful planning and action on your part. You are diligent, disciplined, intentional and purposeful in the areas of your life where you seek certain reward—why not seek rewards, pleasures, and fulfillments of a different kind in leading your family in this way?
Have a plan. Implement the plan. Remember the plan is a process over time. Be faithful to the Person of Christ and the process He’s got your family in.
Sankie P. Lynch
Pastor of Families
sankie@nbchurch.info
1. John Piper, Desiring God & A Hunger for God
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