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TranscriptIntroduction
Welcome to Part 5 of this 7-part series. You’ve probably heard all of your life that it takes a village to raise a family. Well, that’s not biblically true, but that doesn’t mean some spiritually mature villagers aren’t very helpful and refreshing within the process.
Today we are going to discuss creating a community of like-minded believers who want to help you parent your children to adulthood. As always, today’s resources include free episode notes, a transcript, and links to a ton of related podcast episodes and online courses that will help you take your maturity to the next level. As an example, we have a podcast episode entitled Creating Community that is a unique type of show. In that episode I reflect on a number of lessons the Lord impressed on me while I was speaking in Texas. I learned or was reminded about a lot from the people there, and the importance and process of building community was one of the big ones. I hope you’ll check out that episode. Now, I’ve been telling you about one of our series sponsors called the Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference which will be held in 2025 from May 22nd through 24th. I’ve told you that I will be speaking twice that week, and you’ll also be able to hear a panoply of other speakers including Renton Rathbun, the director of the Center for Biblical Worldview, and Michael P. Farris, the founding president of the Home School Legal Defense Association. But if you just can’t wait until May and/or you can easily get to Greenville, SC, then you should definitely join me at another homeschooling conference called the Great Homeschooling Convention from March 13th through the 15th. “Wow, Aaron, what’s with all the homeschooling conferences.” Well, unless you’re new to the show, you probably know that I was homeschooled by my mom, I homeschooled my own children, and I developed an educational philosophy that works beautifully in a homeschool setting. I will be teaching on that philosophy called Expectational Education at both of these conferences. And there may be some other speakers you’ll recognize joining me at the Great Homeschooling Convention in Greenville. Many of you may be familiar with the social media influencer Nick Freitas, the operator of Polyface Farms, Joel Salatin, and one of my very own podcast guests and homeschooling treasures, Dr. Becky Aniol. I’ll include a link in the description to Becky’s and my interview with her husband Scott. Thank you both, Thrive and the Great Homeschooling Convention, for allowing me to speak and exhibit my ministry and for sponsoring this series. Be sure to check out those conferences and see if they might be able to equip you to educate your children better. And, with that longer than usual intro, let’s dive into today’s content. Topic
When I say that it doesn’t necessarily take a village to raise a family, I mean that what the world is trying to communicate with that sentence is largely inaccurate. I also mean that the Bible is clear that in whatever situation a child finds themselves, that’s God’s will for their lives, and He will provide for them in it. The Scriptures are filled with anecdotes of young people who matured greatly for God who had terrible villages. The Bible is also clear that those whose village should have set them up for the most success sometimes turned out terribly wicked.
Therefore, biblically speaking, the village is not inherently necessary, but the quality of the community is very valuable. Now, the Scriptures are clear that we are supposed to be engaging in discipleship relationships with other believers. We’re sharpening them, they’re discipling us. That is an expectation from the Scriptures. So, in that sense, God does set forth the expectation that the church should be intimately involved in the raising of you kids. Therefore, there’s great value in leaning into that expectation when it comes to parenting your kids to adulthood. So, today we’re going to talk about the purpose of this community, the members that make up the community, the creation of the community, the progression of the community, and the maintenance of the community. And then we’ll be done. 1. The Purpose of the Community Ephesians 4:15-16 (a passage with which we should be very familiar by now) reads, “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” This body, the church, is intended to speak truth in love to each other so that they build each other up in love into their head which is Christ. That is the purpose of this community. Now, the local community of believers should already exist in your church, but that doesn’t mean that it does or that its functioning properly. That’s why it’s important for many people to take the necessary step to actually create their community—because it’s not already present and functioning. In addition—please heed my words carefully—this community does not exist solely to influence your kids. We talked last time about the best way to help your kids mature spiritually is for you to be maturing spiritually. That means that some of these people in your parenting community will be equipped to benefit the spiritual maturity of your whole family. Some will be equipped to benefit the spiritual maturity of you and/or your spouse. And some may only be equipped to benefit the spiritual maturity of your kids. Do not lean just into your kids’ maturity. Create community for you as well. Prioritize your own spiritual maturity. So, that’s the purpose. This group of individuals is being invited into your life to help you and the rest of your family members either come to know the Lord and/or grow in Christlikeness. Before we talk about the type of people who should comprise this group, I do want to tell you about our second sponsor. This one will be faster though. MyPillow wants to extend to you some amazing discounts. All you have to do is go to MyPillow.com and use the coupon code EVERMIND at checkout. You can receive discounts on pillows, mattress toppers, robes, slippers, towels, and even coffee. That’s right MyCoffee is a real brand, and the coffee drinkers in my home really enjoy it. MyPillow has so many more products than just pillows. If you haven’t seen what they have to offer, you should check it out, but be sure to use the code EVERMIND to get the discounts. Now, let’s talk about . . . 2. The Members of the Community Follow along or listen carefully as I read Titus 2:2-8, “Older men are to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, in love, in perseverance. 3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, 4 so that they may instruct the young women in sensibility: to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be slandered. 6 Likewise urge the younger men to be sensible; 7 in all things show yourself to be a model of good works, with purity in doctrine, dignified, 8 sound in word which is irreproachable, so that the opponent will be put to shame, having nothing bad to say about us.” There is so much here we could unpack that would absolutely revolutionize your home, church, and community, but—for now—we simply need to recognize that God expects two important things of your community. A. They need to be mature. Listen again to those descriptors: temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, sound in love, sound in perseverance, and sound in the word, reverent, teaching what is good, submissive, the model of good works, and pure in doctrine. We also should note the expectation that older people should be more spiritually mature than people younger than they. We acknowledged that this is unfortunately not always the case, but this is the expectation. If you’re thinking, “Wow, I don’t think that describes anyone in my church,” please find a new church as soon as possible. No, there are no perfect churches or perfect people in the church, but these are God’s expectations for His people, and if your church isn’t filled with individuals pursuing His expectations for their lives, there is a problem in that church. So, they need to be mature, but . . . B. They need to be active in your life. Even though this passage only describes the older women as actively teaching the younger women, the New Testament’s expectations that we all be daily involved in the One Anothers is clear. It’s no good to be surrounded by Godly men and women who aren’t actively involved in our lives in informal and formal ways. Now, let’s take a moment to take stock of the most biblically mature and loving people we know. We’ve already talked about the Church. This can include spiritually mature pastors, ministry workers, or simply mature men and women in your congregation. Don’t avoid those people just because they don’t have a title. How about your family? This is a touchy one for most people, and I wish we had the time to address all of the bad reasons we have for not pursuing deep, redemptive relationships in our family. But we don’t have that time, so—suffice it to say—you should have the mature individuals in your family in your community. Are there spiritually mature grandparents, uncles, aunts, and/or siblings who should be playing an active part in helping you be who you’re supposed to be and your kids to mature into adulthood? What about your friend group? Are there other families who are pursuing biblical adulthood with their kids? If so, then you should have a lot in common, and those parents can have a beneficial influence on your kids just as much as you can benefit theirs. This is why I encourage you every week to share these episodes and series with your friends. As you are sharpening each other in your parenting, you’re creating a rich community of maturing believers. But there are three other categories to consider. Have you considered if there are adults in your children’s school who can be part of this process? Now, it doesn’t matter how nice or knowledgeable the individual is in their field of study. We’re looking for spiritually mature teachers, aides, coaches, and the like. I would hope these individuals would abound in a Christian school or Christian homeschool co-op. But that doesn’t mean they’re not in the public school as well. God’s people should be shining the light of the Gospel everywhere they go, and I know of many mature believers who are working or volunteering in the public school system in order to do so. Find those people and connect them with your kids. And the same would be true for your family’s work situation. A spiritually mature boss can help a lot with daily encouragement, the setting of biblical expectations for work, and accountability for both the parents and the kids. And then there’s another group that many people don’t consider until they’re in a lot of trouble, biblical counselors. Listen, it’s so much better to be discipled in order to avoid future crises than to skip the discipleship and find yourself repeatedly in crisis. You don’t have to be falling apart at the seams to seek out a biblical counselor. When I do premarital counseling, I encourage the young couple to continue having sessions for the next year after they’re married . . . not because anything is “wrong,” but because they don’t want anything to go wrong. So, hopefully, you’ve been making a mental list of individuals in each of these categories with whom you could partner in the parenting of your kids. But now you might be asking, so what does it look like to invite these people to take a more involved role in your family’s life than they already do? Good question, but before we answer it, I want to tell you about our final sponsor for the day. I am so happy to announce that my first book, Quit: how to stop family strife for good, is available to purchase. You can read the digital version in the Evermind App, and you can purchase a softcover edition. All of those links will be in the description of today’s episode. This book identifies the creators, consequences, and causes of strife in your home so that you can apply God’s cure for strife. The book is only about 100 pages long and would be a great resource to use with your family-community as you all pursue Christlikeness. Remember, the question is not whether or not there is strife in your family, it’s a question of what you’re doing about it. So, please order Quit today. Alright, so how does one go about creating this community? 3. The Creation of the Community I don’t really have a specific verse that commands or illustrates this principle. I believe this idea is an accumulation of Christ-honoring communication techniques. Basically, they just work. As an example, God clearly wants us thinking and speaking truth, so what does that look like in a conversation with a potential member of your parenting community? It looks like an honest invitation. Here are a couple examples. This first one might come from a family that’s struggling. They might say something like, “I’m not sure whether you’ve noticed or not, but we’re having trouble with our daughter.” They may go on to describe some of the things that may or may not have been observed by this individual. Then they might consider, “We respect your spiritual maturity and believe we could all have something to learn from you as we help our daughter submit to the Lord. Would you be interested in partnering with our family to help us parent her to spiritual maturity?” Pretty straightforward, I know. Pretty honest, I know. This takes humility and transparency. This is one big reason I believe that too few people are doing this. Even though the Bible is abundantly clear we should be in these discipleship relationships, we’re simply not doing it either because we think we don’t need it or we’re too proud to ask. Also taking the step to present it as an invitation is incredibly freeing. It can be like kicking down a door that was barring a deeper relationship. And what you’ll sometimes find is that these people probably already noticed the problem and would love to have gotten involved but felt awkward approaching you about offering to help with your daughter. Now, they probably should have done it anyway, but my point is that offering the invitation makes it a lot easier for them to get on board. But—like I said before—we shouldn’t wait for there to be a problem. So some of you should be having a conversation that sounds something like this: “We’ve been learning recently about how important it is to start preparing our kids for adulthood now. Even though they’re sweet, we know we all have so much spiritual growth we all need, and we were wondering if you would partner with us to help our family mature and please the Lord?” Now, at some point, the question will be asked, “What does this entail?” What does it look like to have a community of believers helping you parent your kids to adulthood? Good question! 4. The Progression of the Community These interactions will be very diverse depending on the individual and what they bring to the community, but the most important nonnegotiable is that these relationships not be merely indirect. Yes, your kids should be surrounded with believers whose lives are an example, but the people in your parenting community need to be directly speaking into your family’s lives. Here are a bunch of examples: Your small group leader and his family come over to your house every week to participate in your family game night, but they’re not just having fun, they’re relating and talking and actively speaking truth into your kids lives, discipling while doing life together. Your daughter’s Christian basketball coach knows that your daughter struggles with being controlling and getting mad when things don’t go her way. So, you and your daughter and your coach have put together a plan for how the coach can provide accountability and guidance in the moment when your daughter is tempted to respond incorrectly. The coach can be preemptive to set your daughter up for success, but she can also be active to address an issue when you the parent aren’t there. The same thing might work with your son’s mature Christian employer. Now, that’s not to say that your basketball coach or your kid’s boss should never be invited over. They definitely should! They are participating in one of the most important jobs you will ever have; definitely build a deeper relationship with them. But the functional part of their influence is different from the people who are coming into the home to disciple. And then you might have a pastor, biblical counselor, or mature mentor who is meeting with you on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to counsel and disciple you as a follower of Christ and godly parent. Your child may also meet with a biblical counselor on a regular basis for discipleship or crisis counseling. Perhaps there is a book club type of group in your co-op or church youth group where they study one of the adulthood training books we mentioned last time. Maybe your daughter visits an elderly saint in your church every other weekend to help her in the house, but everyone is on the same page that your daughter isn’t there just to help clean the kitchen, they’re also engaging in conversations. Your daughter is asking this woman questions, sharing her life, and receiving wise counsel concerning how she should respond. Your son’s Sunday School teacher or youth worker can be on board to address some of the struggles with which he’s currently dealing. And I could keep going. I hope you see that the dynamic of the relationship is going to depend on the best kind of influence that person is equipped to offer, but I also hope you see that we’re not just connecting our kids with these people and hoping the adult is a good influence on them while they’re with your child. You are creating intentional opportunities that you, your child, and the other person all understand are part of helping them become the mature adult God is creating them to be. And, in the same way we don’t assume this person hopefully with be a good influence, we shouldn’t simply assume that because we have an intentional plan, it’s working the way it should. That’s why our final point is . . . 5. The Maintenance of the Community In the same way you have to have deliberate, honest conversations in order to create this community, you also have to have deliberate, honest conversations to maintain it. Don’t invite your daughters basketball coach to be an integral part of her overcoming anger issues and then never connect with the coach to see how things are going and how you can support the coach. Naturally, we hope the coach will communicate with us if there’s a problem, so when they don’t communicate with us . . . we assume there isn’t a problem. But that’s lazy. If we understand the importance of rearing our kids to adulthood by the time they turn 13, and then helping them transition from a young adult to a more mature adult from there on out, then we should take this seriously. If I’m inviting someone to pour into my family, this should be something about which we’re regularly talking and catching up on. That’s why I want my daughter’s basketball coach coming over to our house for dinner. We can deepen our relationship, and we can openly talk around the table about how things are going. Your daughter can give updates about how the coach has helped her, the coach can encourage your daughter right there in front of you, her parents, and you can discuss areas of struggle that still need attention. These conversations don’t have to be all formal. In fact, if you think that kind of a conversation would be weird and awkward, and you don’t ever participate in conversations like that, may I respectfully and lovingly say that you’re not involved in enough biblical, Christ-honoring conversations. We need this. This is why James 5 reads, “Is anyone among you spiritually weak? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will save the one who is spiritually weak, and the Lord will mature him, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be strengthened.” We need to have regular times of teaching and reproof in our lives. We need to lean into those and be humble enough to talk about our temptations and sins and get real, biblical help. Having a Christ-honoring parenting community does take time. We’re all sinners. We get lazy, we despair when we don’t see change, sometimes someone we thought was mature proves to be otherwise, life get’s busy, we change and grow and need help in new areas, and that’s why this is a continual project. Discipleship always is. When we’re not intentional, they will always fall apart, so we need to maintain these relationships with the same intentionality, honesty, and love with which we created them. Conclusion
Now, I hope the picture of such a community excites you, but I can understand if you’re uncertain or even a little anxious about really starting one or maintaining it. Therefore, please don’t hesitate to email us at [email protected] or leave a voicemail at (828) 423-0894 so we can help you every step of the way. You may even find that the TLP Counselors have so much more to offer you than you realized. In addition to that, we’re offering a special discount through the end of February. Any and all counseling will receive a 50% discount from our normal session fee. That’s a lot of biblical counseling for a very accessible cost.
And remember to share this episode with your parenting community so you can all be on the same page about the expectations and joys. On our next episode we’re going to talk about the exciting day that your son or daughter gets to experience their Adulthood Ceremony and officially transition from childhood to young adulthood. This is an important event to look forward to, to experience in the moment, and to repeatedly look back on. We’re going to give you some great resources and set you up for success for graduating your 13 year olds into God’s will for their maturity. Until then, be sure to parent your kids in that direction.
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