Monterey Baptist Church's Student Ministry equips, supports, and facilitates parents in their responsibility to teach their children the Gospel, raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and prepare their children for adult membership at MBC or a church of like faith.
Our children are entrusted to us by God (Ps. 127:3-5). Therefore, we must take great pains to consider the giver if we are to know how best to steward the gift. We must both fear and trust God concerning our children. Fearing God is expressed in the taking up of our responsibilities and the hard work involved in raising children. Trusting God is about our confidence in his promises and his sovereign care knowing that he is at work in every situation to accomplish what is good.
God has delegated authority to parents for the training of their children, particularly fathers (Eph. 6:4). A parent’s responsibility is to train their children and to be the primary influence in their lives (Prov. 22:6). We should not delegate this authority, call, responsibility, and privilege to anyone.
God is seeking to accomplish something through our parenting (Deut. 6:4-9; Ps. 78:1-7). Specifically, God has called us as parents to lead (train, shepherd, nurture) our children into his ways and, ultimately, into a relationship with him. We do this by following four steps.
First, parenting toward conviction. Our goal is not behavior alone, it is the transformation of the character of the heart. Second, parenting toward conversion. We must make sure we are parenting our children with a biblical understanding of conversion. We must shepherd our children toward an awareness of their need for a Savior. Only God’s grace can change a child’s heart, but God involves us as parents to be the primary means of this grace. Third, parenting toward godliness. Fourth, parenting toward God’s glory. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, therefore, our objective in every context must be to set a biblical world-view before our children. God encourages us in this in Scripture. Because of the gospel there is grace available to us for our parenting! (2 Peter 1:3; Rom. 8:32; James 4:6)