Outsourcing Parenting
Nick Reddin, who is a youth pastor posting at Fide-O, excoriates parents for outsourcing their parental responsibilities. Here’s an excerpt:
Some of the things parents are having outsourced are teaching their children to ride a bike, play sports, birthday parties, potty-training and on and on. Their goal is to create a “specialized child”, one that excels in subjects through specialized coaching and guidance, absent of the parent.
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The scariest part is I am sure a lot of parents are outsourcing their children’s spiritual development to the church and only the church. The problem with that is, while we do minister to the best of our ability we are not surrogate parents. Parents have the God given responsibility to raise and shepherd the hearts of their children (Proverbs 22:6, Proverbs 4:23) and most importantly to teach them God’s Word. As ministers we are limited to the time that we can spend with the children, our goal has always been to come alongside the parent because the parent has the ability and opportunity to make the real impact for the glory of God (Proverbs 1:8-9).
He’s got a point.
