“(6) And these words, which I commanded thee this day, shall be in thine heart: (7) And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. (8) And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes” (Deuteronomy 6:6-8 KJV).
Is Sunday school enough? As far as I can remember, “growing up in church” meant religiously heading there every Sunday morning, being separated from my parents and siblings for a little while upon arrival, sitting in a classroom with children that may or may not have been (typically the former) rowdy and restless, trying to understand what a visibly overwhelmed adult was trying to explain, and occasionally coloring pictures from Bible story coloring books or watching a Jesus video. By no means does this detail everyone’s experience with Sunday school, but if a similar template is the norm, what can be said of Christian education for children?
Even when attending Bible study, prayer meetings, and fellowship events a couple more times a week, are the children really learning the faith of their parents? In my case, I retained the story of Jesus and a few more from the Old Testament, but I can’t quite say that I understood them. As a child, I didn’t even understand that they were real, or how they coincided with what I was learning in public school. Some things I did understand were the water cycle, why 5 x 2 is the same as 5 + 5, how the civil rights movement started, and that if I wanted to express great emotion in a sentence, I needed to use an exclamation point. But these were the concepts I studied from 8 o’clock in the morning to the time I finished my homework in the evening, five days a week. While I am aware that some Christian families choose private education in Christian schools, most children are exposed to academia in far greater quantities than the Bible.
I am a firm advocate for quality education, so I am by no means insinuating that academic learning isn’t important. As an educator, I know that there are sets of standards that need to be taught, a set amount of time given to teach and practice them, assessments to determine retention of said standards, and analysis used to decide whether or not or how the standard should be revisited. And if the student still isn’t learning, a team of educators develop interventions to bridge the gap for that student. But more importantly, the parent is called and informed of concerns regarding their child’s development. This is because, no matter how many hours of teaching, guided practice, assessments, and interventions the education system applies, the home is the foundation for the child’s learning.
Even if a church decided to reform their children’s program and aimed to have the children retain the messages and stories in the Bible like schools do, they still do not have the primary authority over the children’s religious education. Countless studies have determined that children who have been read to at home since early in life, perform better in school. If a child is studying academics all day, attending extracurricular activities after school, watching or playing on tech devices during free time, and the primary conversations they have with parents are about what he or she did at school, their performance in sports, or whether or not they brushed their teeth, are they really being raised and trained up in the way they should go?
While every Christian family is different and cannot be lumped into one lifestyle, something can be said about the statistics of the children of Christian families regarding the number of them that leave the church as they grow older, or don’t fully commit to it. Whether they make their way back or not, the Bible is clear about them not straying from it if they are trained in it. Although there is no perfect child and no perfect person, how comfortable are we with our children conforming to the world, even if it may be for a short while?
The Bible quote above tells us to teach our children the Word, talk about it day and night, and keep it as “frontlets between our eyes,” which means that everything we see, say and experience should be done so from the perspective of the Bible. We should be holding Bible studies at home, applying concepts from the Word to events that may have happened in school, referring to what the Bible says about things that happen in our lives, and praying as a family. And this comes from a passion and desire to seek God. Now this may be where the challenge lies because stress, work, bills, the day-to-day, may keep Christians distracted from seeking to study the Word ourselves and devote our lives to it. This may be why so many Christians cling to their pastors and churches to deliver this lifestyle to them and their families for them. But this may be one of the most important decisions of our lives that affects the generations to come.
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