Raising Children in the Church

God has given us a church family to help us raise our children for Christ. Today, Sinclair Ferguson considers the benefits of receiving the wisdom and support of older parents in the congregation.

We began to think a little about family life—Christian family life—on yesterday’s Things Unseen. I’ve often noticed that when young couples are beginning to establish their family and raise their children for the Lord Jesus, they’re very likely to get some Christian books on the subject. I don’t know what your reaction will be to what I’m about to say, but I think we do need to be discerning about books on how we should raise our family. The very best of them will do us good, but the very best help you’re likely to be able to find is not from books, but from parents you respect and your church family, not least older parents who have seen the fruit of the way in which they’ve raised their children for Christ.

I suspect the best of them will not provide you with a formula, although that’s what we sometimes want, isn’t it? “Just tell me what to do to have a good family, and I’ll do it.” But older, wiser parents will share with you what they’ve found helpful, where they made mistakes, what they’ve seen and learned about applying biblical principles to their unique family life and to each of their unique children, and most of all, they will focus on what you can never get from a book—the importance of the atmosphere of love.

It used to be said that young people didn’t fully become themselves until they were well into their twenties, and now it’s possible that that’s even stretched a bit. I know if you’re in your late teens or early twenties, you maybe don’t want to hear that, and maybe you don’t even agree with it. But I think you will agree with this, that parents don’t see the long-term effects of their family life or the way they’ve raised their children until the children have actually grown up. And that’s one reason why I’d be cautious about listening to a child-rearing guru whose children are still children.

I remember asking about a lady who was speaking at a Christian conference and bringing up children because even though I hadn’t heard her speak, I had the impression that she wasn’t actually all that old. “Does she herself have children?” I asked. I know it seems a bit naive to ask that question about someone speaking at a conference on children, but these days you never know. Well, she did have children, so I asked my next question, “Do you know how old they are?” The children were actually young. I can’t remember if they were even in any way beyond the early teens. And I’m a little embarrassed to say I blurted out, although quietly, “Then she doesn’t really know anything about the effects of her own child-rearing.” I thought, “It’s not really right for a young man or woman to be known as a child-rearing family life teacher or counselor or guru.” Yes, I know a young minister may still be responsible for expounding biblical passages that deal with family life, but he does this not as a guru, but as a member of a church family, where there are living illustrations of how these principles are applied in different families.

So, here’s a principle that’s biblical, that we need to take heart: God has given us our church to help us raise our children for Christ. And that’s why a lot of the instruction in the New Testament about family life is found in letters that were written to be read out loud in the presence of the whole church.

You see, in the church family, the Lord has given us older men to help us when we’re young fathers. He’s given us older women to teach younger women how to be wives and mothers, not by speaking to them at conferences, but by befriending them, encouraging them, sharing their experience and their hard-won wisdom. And maybe one of the best things that could happen to our youngsters is that they get to know old Mr. or Mrs. Smith who sit at the side of the church, and they become an additional grandfather or grandmother who cares for them, takes a lively interest in them, and also in you, and prays them into Christian adulthood.

Incidentally, that’s why I suspect it may be one of the great tragedies of the contemporary church that we’ve lost a second service on the Lord’s Day, because it was often in the lingering behind at the end of that service that youngsters naturally mingled with and got to know—and yes, got to love—the older members of the church. I know if someone asked me what I thought helped us as a couple to raise our children, I would be bound to say, “Sunday night church.” It’s not rocket science; it’s just one of the sweet and natural ways God works to bless us.

So, why don’t we take this to heart and fold our family into the church family? Because not to do that would be cutting off a supply of life, a supply of life for both families.