Family Discipleship
by Jalen Gardner
I have been a part of New City for over a year, but before working here, most of my experience has been working with teenagers and young adults. I do not have kids of my own, so I have always loved the opportunity to walk alongside parents as they raise their kids. (As a full disclaimer, even though I don't have kids, I will use inclusive language like "our kids" because I truly do see it as an honor to walk alongside parents.) I have always loved hanging out with middle schoolers as they figured out their identity, high schoolers as they figured out how to balance school, their social life, and extracurriculars, and young adults figuring out how to navigate life independently. By the time I'm introduced to their lives, most of them have had some experience with the church.
Some of the youth I've worked with have had beautiful experiences within the church. They were immersed in truth and love, growing up in families that spent time in the word of God. This early exposure allowed them to know the gospel well and hold it close to their hearts. They didn't just know the answers to biblical questions, they understood what it meant to follow Jesus and make Him Lord over their lives. The key difference I've observed is that those with a strong faith were repeatedly exposed to the gospel in their formative years. They didn't just learn Bible stories and facts, but they grasped the profound meaning of why Jesus came to earth and died for our sins. From my experience, the two have often been one and the same.
More Bible, More Gospel
We sometimes talk about learning bible stories and learning the gospel as though they are mutually exclusive. We put “Bible stories” in one category and teach moral examples, rights and wrongs, or interesting stories, and then put “gospel teaching” in another category and teach sin, repentance, and grace. For many years, the church prioritized the first category and missed the beautiful reality that the whole Bible tells the story of the gospel, inadvertently teaching moralism without the gospel. But some of us, in a desire to pursue the gospel as the center of everything we do, mistakenly throw out the good news of the whole Bible because we’ve accidentally set up this same distinction in our minds. The story of the Bible is the story of the gospel.
There is no other way to tell the story of God’s redeeming love in Christ than through His perfect word. Every story, law, genealogy, and instruction tells the true story of the whole world: That the one true God of the universe created a good world, that it has been tragically broken by sin and rebellion, and that same God sent His own son to rescue and restore a wayward people to Himself.
The trouble is when we do separate the two.
While learning bible stories is not bad by any means, if it doesn't point us to Jesus, we miss its beauty. We miss the opportunity to see why those stories are truly meaningful. We miss stories pointing us to Jesus in the Old Testament because we come to the table with the wrong lens. We miss the reason that Paul wrote so many letters and lived with so much passion. Paul did not have passion because He learned more information about Jesus. It was because He encountered Him and was transformed. We must teach the Bible to our kids, and we must teach them how it all reveals the God who loved them and gave Himself for them.
I am always encouraged and inspired by youth and kids who live out their faith authentically because they were able to make a heart connection to the truth of the gospel. With so many distractions and influences trying to tell youth where their identity should be, I love to see those who have found security in their Creator. While God can reveal Himself to anyone anytime, I am grateful that we can play a role when kids are young. We do not have to wait until they are older; we can show them Christ now.
Discipling Kids
I would be doing everyone a disservice if I did not offer practical ways and encouragement on how we can all play a role in submerging kids' lives in the Gospel. I will not share anything revolutionary, but the simple practices of making disciples are often easy to overlook.
Pray with your kids, but not just before meals and bed. Pray with them throughout the day. Pray with them when they are upset, or you are upset. Pray for things that matter to them and to you. Allow them to see, from a young age, that you take prayer seriously. Even if they can't process it, they will know that you believe who you pray to if you pray often.
Show them Jesus in the Bible. I've mentioned this a few times, but it is so easy to read the Bible and miss Scripture pointing us to Jesus; resources like The Jesus Storybook Bible and The Gospel Project, which we use on Sunday mornings, help us with this. As we disciple our kids, I pray that we begin to come to Scripture, asking God to show us how it points to Jesus so that we can do the same as we study. If kids see us taking reading the Word seriously as they grow, they will do the same.
Discuss with children how Jesus relates to their everyday life. Often, we unintentionally separate our spiritual life from our daily experiences. We go to church on Sundays, and the rest of the week feels disconnected. But the truth is, Jesus can speak into every aspect of our lives. If we allow Him, He can shape how we see and interact with the world. Talking with our kids about this helps them see the relevance of the Gospel in their daily lives.
I have had many friends I grew up with in high school, get to college, and struggle to make the transition with their faith. Their faith was challenged when hard times hit. Their faith was challenged when something did not go their way, or someone said something that made more sense than what they thought they knew about the Bible. The two worlds had always been separated for many of them, so Jesus had no space to speak into reality. I would love for the kids we can pour into to skip that phase of life and grow deeper in their relationship with Jesus.
As I work with students and kids, I want them to live in light of the gospel. I want them to have an authentic personal relationship with Jesus that influences every part of their lives. While Jesus does the work of bringing them to Himself, I rejoice that we have an opportunity to show Jesus to the next generation. In no way do I have all of the answers, but I know that I want to find them as we grow together.