Media from A Parenting Conference at Mars Hill In Seattle.
Session 1: The Call to Formative Instruction
Session 2: Giving Kids a Vision for God’s Glory
Session 3: Helping Kids Understand Authority
Session 4: Helping Kids Understand the Heart
Session 5: Overview of Corrective Discipline
Everyone wants to be a great parent—the biggest responsibility of parenthood is teaching your children to love Jesus with all of their heart, soul, and strength. For parents with children of any age, Dr. Tripp’s insightful, biblical teaching provides perspectives and procedures for shepherding your child’s heart into the paths of life.
“Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door-frames of your houses and on your gates.”
Deuteronomy 6:5-9
About Dr. Tripp
In writing Shepherding A Child’s Heart, Dr. Tripp drew on his 30+ years of experience as a pastor, counselor, school administrator, and father. He now also includes 10 years of insights from teaching this material in his conferences offered around the world. In addition to speaking at conferences, Dr. Tripp is the pastor of Grace Fellowship Church in Hazleton, PA.
The things your child does and says flow from the heart, and Dr. Tripp’s Shepherding A Child’s Heart conference is about how to speak to and engage with the heart of children.
“God is concerned with the heart – the well-spring of life”
Proverbs 4:23
“Parents tend to focus on the externals of behavior rather than the internal overflow of the heart. We tend to worry more about the “what” of behavior than the “why.” Accordingly, most of us spend an enormous amount of energy in controlling and constraining behavior. To the degree and extent to which our focus is on behavior, we miss the heart.”
Tedd Tripp, Senior Pastor
Grace Fellowship Church, Hazelton, PA
Many people call Christians “religious” people – i.e. “oh, you are one of those religious types”… Well technically speaking we are but not in the way most people define “religious” or “religion”. There is a big difference between religion and Christianity. I appreciate how Mark Driscoll presents the difference:
- Religion says, if I obey, God will love me. Gospel says, because God loves me, I can obey.
- Religion has good people & bad people. Gospel has only repentant and unrepentant people.
- Religion values a birth family. Gospel values a new birth.
- Religion depends on what I do. Gospel depends on what Jesus has done.
- Religion claims that sanctification justifies me. Gospel claims that justification enables sanctification.
- Religion has the goal to get from God. Gospel has the goal to get God.
- Religion sees hardships as punishment for sin. Gospel sees hardship as sanctified affliction.
- Religion is about me. Gospel is about Jesus.
- Religion believes appearing as a good person is the key. Gospel believes that being honest is the key.
- Religion has an uncertainty of standing before God. Gospel has certainty based upon Jesus’ work.
- Religion sees Jesus as the means. Gospel sees Jesus as the end.
- Religion ends in pride or despair. Gospel ends in humble joy.
They Like Jesus but Are Not Too Thrilled With Us
By Ed Stetzer
The church is full of hypocrites.
I’ve heard it, and you’ve heard it. It intimidates many Christians. Not just because people say it, but because we’ve seen it, too. It is hard to share Christ when they believe the church doesn’t show Christ.
After all, they don’t like us…right? A crowded bandwagon to jump on these days is the one that says the world is going to hell because of Christians. Our arrogance, legalism, and buffoonery is constantly written about – often by us.
And it’s true, at least partly. The unchurched aren’t real excited about church (more on that later). And they have concerns about Christians. But that shouldn’t deter us from showing and sharing Christ.
Jesus they like. Us…well…not so much.
In spite of their attitudes toward the church, unchurched Americans – especially younger ones – “like” Jesus and are surprisingly open to talking about the Christian faith.
LifeWay Research in partnership with the North American Mission Board’s Center for Missional Research, conducted two telephone surveys in 2007 with unchurched Americans. The survey included 1,402 people who hadn’t attended a religious service at a church, synagogue, or mosque in the previous six months. We discovered some interesting facts. (You can download the full study at www.lifewayresearch.com.)
For starters, younger people are less cynical about the church and Christian faith than older adults. When it comes to the “hypocrites in the church” mantra, 75 percent of unchurched adults 30 years and older agree. But that number drops to 67 percent among adults ages 18-29. That’s still a lot, and we should keep in mind that these are people who don’t go to church, but you might expect younger adults to be even more skeptical about organized Christianity than older adults.
Even more surprising:
- 66 percent of younger adults believe Jesus died and came back to life, compared to 54 percent of older adults.
- 74 percent of younger adults agree “the Christian religion is a relevant and viable religion for today,” compared to 63 percent of older adults.
- 89 percent of younger adults say they would be willing to listen if someone wanted to tell them about his or her Christian beliefs, compared to 75 percent of older adults.
And 71 percent of all respondents agreed that “believing in Jesus makes a positive difference in a person’s life.”
More sobering is the fact that 58 percent of younger adults and 67 percent of older adults think the God of the Bible is no different from the gods or spiritual beings depicted by world religions such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that people who don’t go to church don’t understand how completely different the God of the Bible is from Hinduism’s pantheon or Buddhism’s idea that ultimate reality is impersonal non-existence.
When you add those views to the Oprah-ization of American Christianity, you get a generic “big guy in the sky” view of God and a “you believe what you believe, I believe what I believe” viewpoint on theology. People are shocked when Christians say the Bible explains the truth about who God is, what He expects of people and what He has done to make it possible for us to be reconciled with Him. Shocked – but not closed to discussions.
Americans’ view of God is looking less and less like the God described in the Bible. A hundred years ago, Americans held more of a consensus about who God is. Today, the majority of the unchurched believe in God, but He/She/It is a generic God that fits into every imaginable religious system – even when the religions contradict each other.
Our syncretistic culture is a rebuke to us as Christians and, at the same time, a challenge. Is there something that causes our culture to like Jesus but reject the church?
Yes. It’s us.
Obviously, it’s more than that. And there is an important spiritual element here – only God can open people’s eyes. But we have been a big part of the problem.
One of the big mistakes Christians have been making is divorcing the explanation of the Gospel from the demonstration of the Gospel. For decades, Christians have been sharing presentations and not explaining how faith makes a difference in daily life. Maybe that’s what people have rejected. People don’t want to hear another presentation or be seen as a prospect. They want to be somebody’s friend, to see up close and personal the difference Jesus makes in a person’s life.
People want a faith that is not just “tell,” but “be” and “do.” All three matter – “be,” “do,” and “tell.”
Even though the unchurched have a confused view of God and a negative view of the church, the fact that they are overwhelmingly open to someone sharing about their Christian faith should make us stop and think. Or maybe I should say, it should make us go and tell. We believe religion is off-limits in polite conversation, but the vast majority of unchurched people say they would enjoy conversations about spiritual matters.
Even more important, our research showed 89 percent of unchurched Americans say they have at least one close friend who considers himself or herself a Christian, and 71 percent say they don’t think Christians talk too much about their beliefs.
In other words, we can stop searching for unchurched people to talk with about Christ. We already know them, and they are open to talking with us about Jesus. All we need to do is start the conversations about spiritual matters. Perhaps church leaders should begin teaching about basic hospitality and friendship as part of the biblical ethic in New Testament Christianity.
Christians don’t have the home field advantage we once had, but people are open to listening, and God is still at work, using people and churches to share the Good News in an increasingly confused world.
That should propel us to action and help us move beyond fear to share our faith.
Yep, lots of hypocrites in the church – at least that’s the way 72 percent of the unchurched see it. But only 44 percent of them say Christians get on their nerves.
We’ll have to work on the rest.
Ed Stetzer is director of research for LifeWay Research. For more details about the survey and a podcast that discusses the results, visit lifewayresearch.com and edstetzer.com. This data will be published in a forthcoming book, The Younger Unchurched and
Churches that Reach Them (co-authored with Richie Stanley).
- We are Catholic (“universal”), in that we believe regenerate disciples of Jesus are part of his Universal Church.
- We are Baptist, in that we baptise regenerate believers as a public profession of their faith in Jesus.
- We are Pentecostal, in that we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit and his indwelling of all regenerate disciples of Jesus.
- We are Charismatic (“spiritual gifts”), in that we joyfully accept the spiritual gifts bestowed by the Holy Spirit.
- We are Reformed, in that we continually ask Jesus to reform us into his image.
- We are Evangelical, in that we seek to convince others of their need for reconciliation with God through Jesus.
- We are Covenant, in that we have entered into the New Covenant with God through Jesus.