TLP 20: Ten Things Parents Miss by Mark Massey

According to the Barna Group, six out of ten 20-somethings were involved in church during their teen years, but have failed to translate that into active spirituality during their early adulthood.

The Need for Revival in the Next Generation

Welcome to Truth. Love. Parents. Where we use God's Word to become intentional, premeditated parents. Here's your host, A .M. Brewster.

On August 16th of 2014, I packed up my family, drove five hours, a little bit past nowhere into the Northwoods of Wisconsin, and joined forces with Mark Massey, the Executive Director of Victory Academy for Boys.

Thank you for joining us today. I am A .M. Brewster, and this is Truth. Love. Parents. The program at Victory is amazing. There's no more effective disciple-making paradigm than the family. That's why the counseling format at Victory takes at-risk boys and injects them into an already functioning family.

The boys live, sleep, eat, play, study, and grow in a house with a mom and dad and siblings. They're trained from God's Word how to glorify Him at the table, in the bathroom, at school, during a hike, in front of the TV, and in the hallways.

As the lead counselor at Victory, I see the amazing opportunities intentional disciple-making parenting affords, but I also understand how many parents miss those opportunities when they don't consider their child to be quote-unquote at-risk.

Well, Mark Massey wrote a great article called, 10 Things Parents Miss. If you think it's just another list of cigarette butts and porno mags, you're desperately mistaken. This is an outline of significant biblical principles and mandates that parents frequently ignore in their child rearing.

Your son or daughter may not be at risk, but they may be in the future, and you may know someone who's at risk right now, and we would love to help. Now, I'm going to give you the link to this article in the description, but I'd like to step through it with you today.

Humility as the Key to Parenting

The article starts with a statistic from the Barnard Group. It says, six out of ten 20-somethings were involved in a church during their teen years, but have failed to translate that into active spirituality during their early adulthood.

We obviously need revival in the work of raising the next generation for God. And what comes next is going to be a quote from the article, so listen carefully. The number one thing parents miss, humility is the key.

The parent's worldview is critical to the success of parenting. How can we tell who's at the center of our worldviews? Ourselves or God? Well, easy. We just evaluate what we do when things don't go our way.

Particularly, how do we respond when a child doesn't do right? Pride demands that we have our own way, that the child submit to us. Humility may demand the same action or attitude, but since the focus is not on my way, but on the child's desperate need to walk in God's ways, the attitude, which teens do read by the way, is very different.

Parenting as a Team and the Need for a Secure Home

Number two, parenting as a team. The greatest gift we can give our teens is a secure home. The marriage relationship is the foundation of a child's world. When mom and dad have their disagreements in private and present a unified, consistent direction, teens are much more secure.

Honest Evaluation of the Human Heart

Number three, honest evaluation. How often have I heard, my son is a really good boy, he's good at heart. The reality is that all of our hearts gravitate towards sin. Just read Jeremiah 17 9. We all think more highly of ourselves than we ought.

Honestly, recognizing the deep hold of sin in the human heart is essential to guiding our children. Without that, the parents let their protective boundaries fail and the teen is at great risk. The fourth thing that parents miss is this, reaching the heart is key.

We must get past behavior modification, the linking of good behavior to a reward, like getting a driver's license, or punishment, like getting grounded. Reward and punishment are biblical, but they are not the totality of God's plan.

With only those, we get teens who calculate the cost. Is the fun of disobedience worth the pain of the punishment? And they conclude, yes, all too often. Number five thing that we miss is really the main point.

Reaching the Heart Beyond Behavior Modification

The world talks about the parent-centered approach versus the child-centered approach, but both fail. The main point of parenting is to produce a God-worshiping adult, and we see that in Ephesians 6 1 through 4.

I'm gonna take a break here from the article just to remind you that at evermindministries .com you can find a copy of a PDF which will list out these ten things. I know we're going through them quickly, and that's okay.

You can print out this copy and have the notes available to you anytime you want to go back and review them. I will also put the link there for you in the description. Now back to the article. The sixth thing that parents often miss is this, the blindness of immaturity.

Teens naturally must try new things as they grow. However, the danger is that in their inexperience may experiment with things that bring bondage. A quick note for me here, this happens all of the time.

We want to give our children the freedom to be able to make choices and liberty in certain areas, but we need to understand that foolishness is bound up in their hearts. They are immature, and they're inexperienced, and sometimes their sinfulness and their foolishness set them up for failure in new things.

We need to be able to allow them to try new things, but we need to be there to help them if they start to slip. Don't just say, oh, they'll be okay with C because they were fine with A and B. Moving on in the article is number seven, the value of values.

The Blindness of Immaturity and the Value of Values

Hypocrisy is intolerable. It eats away at the soul as cancer eats at the flesh. We and our teens must do the right deed for the right reason. Bible-based, God-honoring values are at the core of our being.

The eighth thing that parents miss is strategic planning. Sounds a lot like what we call premeditated parenting here at Truth Love Parent. Do we have a more definitive plan for our finances than we do for our families?

To develop character in our children, we need to plan the process and have tangible goals. That is, we can see whether or not there's progress. Ephesians 6 calls us to bring our children through the process of maturing spiritually.

We need to write down each child's unique set of needs, spiritual, emotional, relational, physical, mental, the methods of meeting the needs, and what observable action or condition would indicate success.

Strategic Planning for Spiritual Growth

The ninth thing that parents miss is big to all of us, communication and problem-solving. The power of biblical communication results from five values. Communication works when we are honest, current, edifying, kind, and forgiving.

And these are all found in Ephesians 4, 21 through 32. And then the tenth thing that we miss is the importance of family. Enjoying the gift of family is not an extra. It is a God-designed part of success.

Casual fun times are vital to the training and disciplining process. The sense that being family is a positive thing is a platform for the ministry of parents. Just see Psalm 78 and Deuteronomy 6. The idea that a little quote-unquote quality time is enough is a myth.

In giving children the quantity of time that they crave, you find the quality of time will happen. It cannot be commanded to appear on cue. I'm thankful to Mark for writing this and many other great articles on parenting.

I'm looking forward to having Mark appear on the show later this year, and I would definitely encourage you to tune in and pay attention to that one because Mark brings with him a love for God and an experience of working here at Victory Academy for over 20 years.

I would encourage you to like TLP's Facebook page so you can have access to similar articles from Mark and many other authors. Obviously, if you need more specific help for your family, please email us at counselor at evermyanministries .com.

And don't forget to join us on Tuesday to learn the types of.

Advice you just need to avoid. Truth. Love. Parents is part of the Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you become an intentional premeditated parent. Join us next time as we search God's Word for the truth your family needs today.