As a parent, you feel a lot of pressure.

Who your kids hang out with, their grades, future, safety, good choices, the list goes on and on.

One of the things that parents fail to realize is the power they have in their kid’s lives for good or bad.

I’ve talked before about how we are all vision casters in people’s lives, but that is seen most clearly in the lives of our kids.

You’re a vision caster for your kids.
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Recently, I was reminded of this when I was preaching on Nehemiah chapter 3.

Nehemiah 3 is a list of names, but in those names, we learn some incredibly important things.

Nehemiah 3 lists the number of people who worked on rebuilding the city wall of Jerusalem.

What we know from the New Testament is that our work matters and that it is a reflection of our worship of God.

What does this have to do with parenting?

A lot.

Our kids learn things from us because we intentionally taught them or we passively taught them something.

In Nehemiah 3, we’re told that families worked together on the wall.

If work = worship, this is crucial for families.

Work = worship.
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We pass on to our kids how to work and how to worship Jesus.

In your family, do not miss the power of worshiping together.

Singing songs together, reading your bible with your kids, your spouse. Having them in church, in our kids and student ministries, serving, using their gifts, and sitting in the service.

Recently I’ve talked to a number of church planters of young churches and hear the same thing: Parents of teenagers dropping their kids off at the young church plant and then the parents go to an older established church. I do not understand parents and kids worshiping at two completely different churches.

Parents don’t miss this, you are teaching your kids an incredibly important lesson about what you think about worship, Jesus, church, and your selfishness when you worship at different churches. They aren’t missing it.

Another thing I’ll hear from parents is a different issue: but I don’t want to push God down my kid’s throat, they aren’t that interested. Which I get.

Think for a moment, do your kids love every vegetable you make them eat? If they’re like mine they don’t, but I make them eat them. I make them try food they don’t like or aren’t excited about because it’s healthy for them or I made it for them and I’m not making a bunch of different meals. You probably do the same thing and never once do you think, “I’ll bet they’ll never eat again because I’m forcing them to eat something they hate.”

Does your child love all the homework they have to do? Math? Reading? Science? Learning a language? Yet, you make them and you don’t think, “they’ll drop out of school because I made them do their homework when they were in middle school.”

Why do we treat worship and Jesus differently?

In your family, do not underestimate the power of your words and the vision you cast for those closest to you.

As a parent you have more influence on your kids than anyone, don’t waste it.
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You as the parent spend more time with your kids than anyone and every study says you have more influence on your kids than social media, friends, marketing, and TV shows. Stop wasting it. It’s not our kids and student ministries job to grow your child spiritually, it’s yours. We’re here to help. Just like it isn’t my job to grow you spiritually. If the only time you open your bible and feed on the truths of God is with me on Sunday morning, you’ll starve.

Leveraging your parenting.
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This is a guest post from my wife Katie Reich based off of questions we often get about resources for connecting with your kids.

My life basically smells of dried catsup, loose leaf paper, and essential oils. When you have five kids, even doing “nothing” is busier than the average busy. Thankfully I love my kids and my life.

“Passionate and intentional adventure toward God” is a huge part of our family mission statement. To be honest, that isn’t always easy. With the life of a family of seven, just feeding, schooling, and refereeing can take up most of our day.

Finding resources that fit our family values and schedule is not always easy. About two years ago our church switched over to the Orange Curriculum.

It seemed like a good choice with some great handouts to encourage parent involvement and tools to help kids of all ages take their next step with God.

During that time I read “It’s Just a Phase” and dog-eared so many pages, all the while wishing there was a way to disseminate the information for each of my kids in an orderly and timely way without having to cross reference post-its, highlights and dog-eared pages. Well, Kristen Ivey and Reggie Joiner have done just that plus more in the “Parenting Your ….” guides.

How @theparentcue guides are helping us as parents.
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These guides are road maps to helping take what you know about your child combined with others their age, while encouraging you/me to become a more thoughtful and engaged parent.

Do yourself a favor and buy it the week of your child’s birthday….

• if you don’t know what conversations to have with her.
• if each year you wish you knew your child better physically, socially, mentally and emotionally.
• if each year you want book, game and movie suggestions to create connections and a jumping point to help develop his emotional intelligence.
• if you need a reminder of how long you have until she turns 18 and it scares you just a little.
• if you want to create a plan to engage thoughtfully with him but don’t know where to start.
• if life is busy and you want to really notice her and help her to grow.

You can order your copies here.

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If you’re a parent, let me guess what your child’s first word was.

NO!

I know, you aren’t a bad parent.

You wish it was yes, Momma or Dadda. And maybe it was. But more than likely it was no, or maybe mine.

As your kids get older and they ask for things, a bike, a video game, to stay up, you get very good at saying no. It is easy. You just want some down time. You want your kids to stop bothering you.

I get it.

The same thing happens in leadership.

Someone walks into your office or grabs you after a service and says, “Why don’t we do ____?” Or, “What if we tried _____ as a church?”

And your first reaction is, “No.”

It might be a good answer. It might even be the right answer.

But what if you could find the easy, “Yes!”

How to find the easy ‘Yes!’ as a parent.
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I’ll give you an example.

What if your child comes to you and asks, “Can I have a piece of gum?”

You might be thinking, “Why? Why do you have to bother me?” You’re on your email, working on dinner, cleaning the bathroom, any number of things. So you reflexively say, “No, leave me alone.” Your child walks away mad or stomps or gets angry and cries.

What if you took the easy ‘yes’?

The same thing happens as a leader

How to find the easy ‘Yes!’ as a leader.
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Someone comes and says, “What if we tried _____?” Instead of shooting it down, what if you said, “Run with it”?

Do you need to guard the vision?

Yes.

Do you need to vet ideas?

Yes.

But more happens when we go for the easy ‘yes’.

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If you ask any parent, “What do you want for your kids?”, eventually you will hear, “I want them to have the life I never had.” They may not sound like that, but parents want their kids to have everything. Yes, we want them to be smart, courteous, have character, show kindness and generosity, but we want them to have it all.

Does every parent want that?

Almost.

If that’s not you, thanks for reading and you can scroll to the next blog.

But let me ask this question: Are you giving your kids the right life?

Are you giving your kids the right life?
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Many parents, in an effort to make sure their kids have every opportunity, get the best schooling, play on sports teams and have opportunities for future advancement, go to extreme measures. Parents work long hours or multiple jobs so that they can have the money to pay for all those activities. They run kids from one team, one program, one practice to the next. They push and push so that kids are getting less sleep and growing up faster.

Then you throw this in with what the parents think their kids want for the rest of their lives.

Let me give you an example.

I overheard someone recently talking about their kids and how much both parents were working. This parent said, “My kids are starting to complain that my wife and I aren’t around enough for them because we work too much.” Someone in the group asked, “What did you say?” The parent looked at the group and said, “I told them, ‘You want nice things, don’t you? You want to go on nice vacations and live in the house we have and do the things we do, don’t you?'”

If you can picture the scene, you can imagine the awkward silence that followed.

The answer to that question, if this child answered honestly, would probably be, “Not really.”

I walked away sad for this family but also convicted by this question: Am I giving my kids the life they want, the life they need or the life I think they should have?

Am I giving my kids the life they want, the life they need or the life I think they should have?
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It’s a convicting question.

Often I give my kids the life I want them to have. The life that reflects well on me. The life that feels easier or less stressful as a parent.

Not always, but it is easy to fall into.

This is one reason that Katie and I created a family mission statement a few years ago. I detailed the process we went through and what ours is in my book Breathing Room: Stressing Less and Living More.

The problem for parents is, in the hustle and bustle of life, we don’t know the kind of kids we are raising. We have never asked ourselves, “What is the goal of parenting? What will our kids be like when they leave our house?”

Without clarifying that, we end up giving our kids the life everyone else is going for.

But what if that isn’t the life you want for your kids or the life they need?

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There are a lot of ideas out there about how to best discipline your child. Some are good, some are not so good. I’ve shared before that one of the most important questions a parent needs to ask when they discipline their child is if they are accurately reflecting the heart of God in that moment.

6 things to remember when you discipline your child.
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Parents will often parent to something or for something. This could be getting your child to behave a certain way or do certain actions. Many Christian parents will feel like they are winning at parenting if their child goes to church, does certain things or doesn’t do certain things. The reality is, that doesn’t say anything in and of itself, only that your church does or doesn’t do things.

Some parents, especially pastors, will parent for their reputation. They’ll put pressure on their kids to act a certain way because of how it makes them look to those around them. This isn’t a win at all, but it is easy to fall into. If my child does ____, how will that make me look? If my child gets bad grades, a tattoo, parties, hangs out with the wrong crowd, how will that make me look? I understand the fear, but parenting for your reputation isn’t a healthy long term parenting strategy.

Instead, I would say to parent with the relationship in mind. Andy Stanley says, “I want to parent so when my kids leave the house one day, they want to come back.” There’s a lot of wisdom in that.

Parent for the relationship, not your reputation.
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One of the areas that many parents struggle in and has an enormous effect on what their children become is discipline. Remember, the goal of parenting is incredibly crucial not only to how you parent right now, but also to how your kids ultimately end up.

William Farley in his book Gospel-Powered Parenting: How the Gospel Shapes and Transforms Parenting lists how the gospel affects disciplining children:

1. The gospel convinces parents that indwelling sin is our children’s problem.

2. The gospel convinces parents that authority is a crucial parental issue.

3. The gospel instructs us to pursue our children’s hearts rather than their behavior.

4. The gospel motivates parents to discipline to preach the gospel to our children.

5. The gospel motivates parents to fear God.

6. The gospel helps parents to grow in humility and sincerity.

6 things to remember the next time you discipline your child.
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As today is Father’s Day, and now being a dad for over 10 years and a son for a lot longer than that, I thought I’d share some things about being a dad.

8 thoughts on Father’s Day.
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1. In our culture, being a man is difficult. I know that being a woman is incredibly difficult, and I’m not wading into a historical debate or sexism in our culture (which sadly still exists). The reason I say it is hard is because of a lack of clarity, which is also one reason why being a woman is hard (but that’s a different blog post).

Most people have no idea what a man actually is. Now with people choosing their gender identity, the lines are becoming even more blurry than they already are. This makes success as a father, husband, friend, brother and son that more difficult. Are men supposed to be tough or tender and cry a lot? Should they be hard workers and entrepreneurs or play video games until 4am? All of them at once? Which is it?

Being a man (and a woman) is difficult.
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2. Purity is really hard. I’m not just talking about sex here, but that’s part of it. Having a pure mind, a pure heart, pure motives as you pursue your dreams, those are all incredibly difficult. Sometimes this is because we are sinning, but other times it is because what we are pursuing is right, but it just doesn’t line up with what people around us think we should do.

3. Parenting is really hard. I know, parenting has always been hard. Throw in now raising kids with social media, exposure to porn at an early age, the gender conversation, and it is really hard. It is hard to keep kids focused on who they are, who God is while everything gets pulled in a different direction. On top of that, everyone has an opinion on every parenting topic: discipline, vaccines, schooling, sports, dating, and you often feel like a failure. I figure my kids will end up in a counselor’s office when they’re adults (I did). I just hope it isn’t that bad. Just writing that makes me feel like a failure of a dad, but you can judge.

4. Being a picture of God as a Father to my kids is scary. Going along with #3, I’m reminded on a daily basis that my kids are forming a picture of not only relationships with others but with God as they interact with me. Here’s a question every dad needs to keep in the front of his mind: What is it like on the other side of me? What emotions and feelings do people (my kids and spouse) have as they interact with me? As your kids grow up, that is what they will often feel from God.

Ask: What is it like on the other side of me?
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5. Dealing with your wounds is hard work. Depending on your upbringing, your wounds will be different than mine. But you have them, and they make an impact on your life today. I’ve talked before about mine, but if you don’t deal with yours, they will haunt your future. You have wounds, and they are impacting every relationship you have. They are impacting every interaction, everything you hear. But it is hard work. I want to leave what happened when I was 11 back in 1990 with Vanilla Ice. But I can’t, and neither can you.

If your past is not dealt with, it wreaks havoc on your life.
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6. Having friends is hard work. Let’s be honest, friends for most people are difficult. For men they seem to be a lot harder than I expected. In college hanging out was easy. In your 20’s, really easy. Now with jobs, mortgages, kids, marriage, moving across the country, being friends with people is hard. We expect people to keep up with our lives on social media but never really connect with them. I keep hearing from men in their 50’s and 60’s about how they have no close friends, and that is really scary to me. I asked a room full of young church planters recently how many of them had close friends, and in a room of a 100 just a few hands went up.

Having friends as a man is hard work.
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7. I’m astounded by my wife. Regularly when people hear we have five kids, the looks are often comical. Sometimes they say what is running through their heads, sometimes not. I always fill in the blanks if they don’t say it out loud, but they always stop in their tracks. They wonder how we ever sleep, have time for ourselves, not lose our minds, and it takes being intentional for all of that to happen. That’s why I’m simply blown away by Katie. Without her I wouldn’t be the father, husband, leader or man that I am. When church planters ask how Revolution got off the ground, my response is, “Besides God, my wife.” The way she rounds me out, holds our house together, pushes me, believes in me, deals with me, deals with our kids, it astounds me.

8. I’m hopeful about it all. We’re about to enter the teenage years in our house, and I’m hopeful. I love the relational beings my kids are becoming, the questions they are asking (even though we’re having the sex talks a lot earlier than I thought we would when I was a young parent), I love playing games with them and experiencing life. I also love that I have the privilege of raising five people who will make an impact on the world one day. That thought shapes my parenting every day. I get to be a part of the legacy they will leave.

As a parent, you’re part of the legacy your kids will leave.
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Recently I made a comment on Facebook about babywise and quickly learned that discussing parenting styles on Facebook is akin to talking about global warming and vaccines.

But I learned something in the process, something I didn’t expect.

I learned two things about Christian parents that day and I think it can be incredibly dangerous.

The first, when it comes to parenting, Christians are very relative.

In fact, let me make a bold statement. By and large, most Christian parents care very little about what the Bible says about parenting and what science says about parenting.

Most Christian parents care very little about what the Bible says about parenting.
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Parenting styles aside for a minute.

There were almost 50 comments on the thread (which I deleted because it hurt my heart and made too angry), but almost every comment started with, “Well for my kid…”

No one ever started a sentence with, “The Bible or scientific research says…” Or, “my goal as a Christian parent because of the Bible is…”

It largely boiled down to what is easiest as a parent.

Now, we couch that in language about how its working for our kids, but I know for years I fell into the parenting trap of what is easiest and most convenient for me.

No Christian would ever say they don’t care what the Bible says about parenting, but many of the ways we parent say otherwise. It doesn’t matter what your parenting style is, how you communicate with your child or how you discipline them. If you are a follower of Jesus, what the Bible says about those things is way more important than what you think works for your child. For the most part, you are guessing at what you think works for your child because you don’t know until it’s over and they’ve moved out. That’s why what the Bible says and what scientific research says is so important.

When it comes to scientific research, I realize some Christians can get weird about that and start to wonder if God was taken out of the picture. While that happens, at the same time, there are incredible discoveries being made about our brains, how we are created and wired and all of that comes from God, whether a Christian discovers that or not. While this might be another blog topic, I think Christians needs to stop fearing science and start seeing how it confirms our Creator and his great plan for us.

The second thing I learned about parents is, we don’t really want to learn anything new. 

Almost no one in the over 50 comments asked, “How did you come to that conclusion? What do you know that I don’t? What books have you read that led you to that?”

Not wanting to learn or be stretched is an incredibly dangerous place to live, but many Christians stay in that zone when it comes to a lot of issues.

Are there things that Christians should reject out of hand without researching? Yes. This is why it matters so much to know what the Bible says about parenting (stay tuned for another post on that).

Now, like the first, no Christian parent would ever say they don’t want to learn. In fact, most feel incredibly inadequate as a parent (I know I do more times than not), but I think in an effort to feel better about ourselves as parents and what we are doing as parents, we shut down anything that might be new because we don’t want to be told we may have been doing the wrong thing.

I know a couple of years ago when we were going through our adoption classes and reading The Connected Child: Bring Hope and Healing to Your Adoptive Family and The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind, all I could think of was “how did we mess this up as parents?” What I learned in those resources and classes had way more to do with how I and Katie parented all of our kids than just how to relate to the kids we adopted.

As a parent who claims to be a follower of Jesus, don’t settle for “this worked for me or my friend.” We have way more wisdom than that out there. What does the bible say about parenting? What are you called to be and do as a parent? That’s where we should start.

Next week I’ll share what I think is the most important question for any parent to answer as it relates to your child. It is the question that shapes our parenting style, the books we read, how we communicate, discipline and teach our kids. It is that big of a deal and most parents never even think about it.

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I have a confession: I have high expectations for everything. For myself, my church, what I do, my family, the things my family does.

Because of this, I work hard at what I do, but I also expect others to work hard at what they do.

Which leads to, higher stress.

Let me give you an example.

When I go on vacation with my family, we make plans on things to do just like every family. Places to go, places to eat, activities, etc.

When we do this, I’m hoping that our family will make some fun memories and have a good time together. When that activity or plan does not live up to my expectations, my stress and anxiety goes up.

When this happens, I actually miss the memory that is taking place.

The lesson: lighten up. Take the moment as it comes.

Your life won’t end if things don’t go as planned.

Your life won’t end if things don’t go as planned.
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Your kids won’t end up in counseling simply because a birthday party wasn’t perfect.

Your marriage won’t fall apart because of a failed date night.

These “failures” simply become part of the lore of your family and life. They become the stories you will tell one day and laugh about.

Remember that time…

So, lighten up and start creating the stories you’ll tell for years to come.

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Related articles

• Being a Pastor’s Wife: “Just” a Wife & a Mom
• How to Be Married and Stay in Ministry
• When You’ve Been Betrayed
• The Relational Soul: Moving from False Self to Deep Connection [Book]

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Sunday I talked about how to fail forward as adults and how many people live their lives like they are using a whiffle ball bat, where they take away every possibility of failure. If you missed it, you can listen to it here.

Sadly, many parents parent this way. They stack the deck to make sure their kids never experience a setback or failure. Here are a few examples:

• Your child announces at 8pm they have a project due tomorrow that they’ve known about for a week or two. What do you do? The whiffle ball bat parent jumps into action and gets it done, probably even finishing it after the child goes to bed.
• Your child gets a trophy for every single sports team they are on or competition they are part of.
• Your child never tries anything new, so the only activities they do are things they are good at (this is common among adults).

Think back to the parent and the 8pm project, what would happen if you didn’t finish the project and your child got an incomplete or F for that assignment? Would their life end? Probably not. A valuable lesson would be learned.

Because we as adults hate failure (and who doesn’t), we try to ensure that our kids don’t experience failure. The problem with that is failure is the best way to learn about something (besides learning from the failure of others). If we don’t allow our kids to experience failure of some kind, we don’t teach them how to bounce back from something, how to pick themselves up, how to react in a healthy way to life not turning out how they want (because that will happen as an adult).

In the end, we send them out of the house ill-prepared for life.

Sadly, I’ll hear from countless parents whose kids walk away from the church and one of the reasons has to do with failure and faith.

When it comes to faith, we don’t challenge and encourage our kids to have a God-sized faith. We don’t challenge them to pray impossible prayers, the ones that God will have to move for something to happen. In the end, they grow up seeing a God they don’t need, a God who seems less powerful than they are and they wonder, “Why have faith? Why have anything to do with God?” If you have a son, he sees the church as boring, not worth giving his life to and will find a mission that will drive his passion, but the world won’t be changed.

The dominos can be enormous.

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