DISCIPLE

Dad & Mom:

I can't fully explain in accurate words the powerful role you have as a parent.

Every time you say to your son, "Hold the door for your sister," you're making a disciple.  You're saying, "This is what men do, son."

Every time you say something similar to your daughter you're making a disciple.  You're saying, 'Daughter, this is what a woman does.'  

You're giving them something to strive for - something to grow into - something to move toward.  You're making disciples.

According to a 1960 study, the vast majority of adults had, by the time they reached age 30, accomplished the five standard milestones used to measure adult status.  These five were:
Completing school, leaving home, getting married, having a child and achieving financial independence.  

In the year 2000, forty years later, less than half of all young women had reached these milestones by age 30.  Even more concerning, less than one-third of all young men had.

What we're seeing in our culture is an ever-expanding time period of adolescence, so that you literally have 30-year old boys and 28-year old girls.

This should not be.

I realize there are outside forces at play in some families -- situations -- medical -- financial -- other serious blocks.  So that isn't me trying to judge everything.

But parents need to say to their children:  'This is what it means to move toward adulthood.'  Not:  'Stay as long as you can and as long as you want.  We'll take care of anything that causes you pain.  We're going to make life as easy as possible for you.'

No.  Your role as a Dad and a Mom is to lay out some disciple-making - lay out a picture of what future life is supposed to be - and help move them that direction.

When our girls each turned 18, I wrote a letter of the future I pictured just for her -- not what her intended vocation should be -- but what I saw as her father that the God-future might be.  It was a forward blessing -- a launch into adulthood.  "You can do this - now soar.  Go!"  They each rewarded me years later with personalized, framed written letters to me.  They each hang today in my office.

The fact that we require our children to make their beds isn't because if they don't the house explodes.  The reason we're serious about their schoolwork isn't because we think if they make all A's they're going to have better lives.  We do those things because we know hard work and discipline and following others will be required regardless of where they go in life or what they're called to -- so we're making disciples in all of that.

And if we do this at age 6 and age 8 and age 12, watch what happens at age 16 and age 18 and age 22.

Go make a disciple today.

And be blessed.