Comments on: Discipleship Parenting

By: Mrs. Harrod

Mrs. Harrod — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 22:57:04 +0000

There’s also the important lessons we learn from children in corporate worship situations. How are we to have the faith of a child and strive for it if we never see the faithful children? For those who maybe don’t have children for whatever reason, seeing other people’s children in the meetings is often a tremendous blessing (so long as the little ones have been trained )

By: Mr. Parunak

Mr. Parunak — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:41:17 +0000

Dear Linda,

We thought it would be best for me (Mr. P.) to respond to your husband’s question earlier question about Sunday school and at the same time to respond to your last comment. Could I trouble you to pass this response on to him? Many thanks in advance, and many thanks for all your good thoughts and comments! Keep them coming!

There’s nothing in scripture that forbids Sunday School. Period. To the contrary, many people have gotten their first exposure to God’s word from a Sunday school class. My own mother received the Lord under the leadership of a Sunday School teacher – her parents would send her to Sunday School, but they wouldn’t go to church themselves. My Mom’s new-found testimony had an effect on my grandparents, and the whole family eventually came to Christ. My grandfather was soon on fire for the Lord, and before his untimely passing from a heart attack, was a fervent evangelist, a veritable hound-of-heaven, doggedly pursuing the lost. All this from the work of a Sunday School teacher.

So, here’s a quiz:

Is Sunday School:

A. Good
B. Bad
C. Redeemed

Paul noted that “all things are lawful, but not all things are expedient”. We praise God when he uses anything to His glory, and we praise God without reservation and without exception for all the Sunday School teachers who are out there laboring to bring kids and families to Christ. Sunday School was certainly “expedient” for my mother and is a God-send for many other kids whose parents don’t know the Lord.

But what if my grandparents had known the Lord? What if they were the ones who had led my mother to Him? What if they were in the driver’s seat for her early spiritual education? Which would have been a greater opportunity, the ability to send their kid to Sunday School, or their ability to directly guide and affect her spiritual growth as she learned with them in the meetings?

For those of us today that already know the Lord and desperately want to raise our kids for Him, the idea of farming out the spiritual education of our kids can be abhorrent. Our five-year old is perfectly capable of understanding the same spiritual lessons Mrs. P and I need to ponder, and the younger kids need the discipline of learning how to learn with their family. If our kids are capable of growing and learning WITH US (and even sometimes of helping us to learn) then that’s right where we want them.

By: Linda

Linda — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 04:01:32 +0000

My husband and I have a lot of respect for Vision forum but we just can’t seem to see why Sunday School is wrong my husband loved it and I went to a church with no Sunday School and it was boring at church (catholic).Even creche can be good, my husband and I just love listening to the sermon together.However there seems to be a real movement away from this, is it just because things have gone too far with so many trendy Sunday school programmes that it just got overboard?From Linda.

By: Mrs. R

Mrs. R — Tue, 06 May 2008 18:10:30 +0000

Did I write this post? You have expressed so clearly (in a way that I’m usually unable to) the desires that my husband and I have regarding our children. We keep our children with us in chuch, too – choosing not to have them participating in Sunday School, children’s choir, or special Wednesday night classes just for children. We homeschool, and we take our children with us wherever we go (except doctor’s appointments and similar situations – if at all possible either my husband or I will stay with our children.). All of this is fairly easy for us, because it is important to us to live our lives in this way. However, what is difficult for me is that NO ONE around us lives this way. We are considered weird, sheltering, over the top, etc. People especially do not understand why we don’t allow our children to do the children’s activities at church. I know that, if we are doing what God wants us to do, I shouldn’t care what others think. BUT it’s still hard to be misunderstood. Hmmm… that kind of sounds like my pride, doesn’t it?

By: Carleen

Carleen — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:26:40 +0000

Guess I never thought about it as an expressly Christian principle and called it “Discipleship” but, this is sure how I tend to think. We do leave the kids w/ a sitter about once a week as long as we have a baby who is over 6 weeks old but, other than that…we’re pretty much always together. I have started letting Reuben go to Sunday School sometimes if he requests to play during the sermon but I try to get him to sit in the service for as long as he will and when the sermon is done and we have a break to greet one another I go get him again so that he can greet other people with us, be there for communion and sing the final songs. Our friends quite often comment that they think its impressive and cool that we take our kids everywhere. I just think its a happier way to live.