Don't Brainwash Your Children

I used to hope to GOD I could successfully brainwash my children.

I've seen other cultures do it, and in my opinion, those lead straight to hell. I would use the same training tactics and achieve an opposite, more fruitful success. I was going to brainwash my children to be Christians.

Maybe I didn't use that term then, but I knew what I was doing. Their first words were usually faith centered. I used to light a candle and when one of my toddlers would fumble around their words and make it sound something like a scripture we had rehearsed a billion times, I would let them pretend it was their birthday and blow the candle out. Yippee! Perhaps what fueled my attempts even more was that my husband's parents were devout lovers of Christ, the kind that get down and dirty with the impoverished and drug addicts alike. And yet, they somehow ended up with a couple of rebellious children.

They weren't the only ones. Time and time again I found myself in relationship with mentors who had taught their children scripture (like me), drug them to church every Wednesday and Sunday of the year (like me), hosted family worship (like me), and prayed morning and bedtime prayers like the salvation of those tiny souls depended upon it (like me). These well versed {literally} children are still no where to be found in the church. Their praying parents clinging faithfully to the promises of God their prodigal will return. I am praying with them, with all of my heart.

Somewhere along the way, as I accepted that my children's salvation was not my responsibility, I was able to change the way I parented. Am I ever glad I did.

Just minutes ago two teenage boys stood at my door like statues. "Good evening, Ma'am. It is our pleasure to be here today. To tell you a life giving, encouraging message."

I cut him off, "I'm a Christian. I love Jesus."

He continued in a monotone delivery, "That is great. I am encouraged that your family loves Christ. Our culture is turning away from Christ. I am encouraged. Can I share with you a lifestyle-"

"Seriously. We're really Christians." [Whatever that means.]

"Thank you for your time. Do you know of anyone nearby who could use an encouraging, uplifting message?"

"Those guys." *Points to people down the street* [Don't judge me. You've done it!]

I was homeschooling when they stopped by, and as I shut the door on them I thought, Dear Jesus, don't let me brainwash my children. 

I sat at the table and dropped my head into my hands. My kids caught on.

"What's wrong?"

"Guys," I said, "Mommy needs to pray for those guys." I explained the works-based theology of the kids who came to our door. To which my son asked, "Why didn't we tell them what we believe?"

Good question.

Anyway, we proceeded to pray. We talked to God. We pushed our papers to the side and had a chat with Father.

I do not want to brainwash my kids. I want to lay a foundation for them to walk in, and experience a living faith in our living God. Here are some tips I've figured out along the way:

1) We don't memorize scripture. Why? Because it takes too much time and my kids don't know what they are saying. Don't get me wrong, the Bible has a place in our house. While my kids are young, my goal is that they understand the principle of what is being said. I still read from the Bible while they color or eat a snack, but I don't rehearse the word puzzle with them. Instead of "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." I will tell them, "Just thank God when you pray, you guys. He will give you peace."  I wrote a blog on this, here. We also love Seeds Family Worship on Youtube. Check it out, here.

2) Leave some questions unanswered. Basically, God wants to speak to your children. Give them a chance to go to Him. When my kids lose their socks, I tell them, "Why don't you ask God?" I just don't think it is beyond God to help them find lost crap I don't have time to look for. This is the same God who cleaned feet. One of my kid's asked today, "Where is Heaven?" I told him, "I don't know, ask God." He came back to me with this answer, "God took me to a place that was outside of the universe." That sounds pretty close to how I would have answered the question, had I tried. The children's pastor at Bethel tells the story of how God taught him to tie his shoes as a little boy. Make "Ask God" something you say every day.

3) We cannot put God in a Box. This was one of the most difficult lessons I've had to learn, and am still learning. One of my children is very "spiritual." He sees God and hears God speak-- sometimes audibly. He has come into my room and asked, "You call me?" Uh, no. Then a light bulb goes on, and he says matter-of-fact, "Oh, it must be Jesus."

Yet, I have another child that doesn't experience God like this. She is my artist. She is an intense feeler. I thought I was doing a good thing by teaching my kids to soak, except child #1 is spouting off visions of the third realm and child #2 is crying, "I just can't hear God."

Oh, yes you can, baby. She, like me, is a talker and God is just a built-in listener for her. I think He gets out of the way a lot, and she waits for Him to say something. I tell her to get it all out. He hears her. I draw out the God in her by encouraging her not to just listen, but look. I'll say to child #1, "Ask God to tell you how He protects our family." I'll tell child #2, "Ask God to show you how He protects our family." We all can experience God, and we all should.

4) We confess our mess. I have never pretended for a day that I'm perfect. The good news for aspiring good parents is that I have good kids, and I am not a perfect parent. Yeah! However, God is a perfect God, and we'll only raise good kids if we're pointing them to Him. The number of times I get on my knees and apologize to God and my children is whenever I can. There is a lesson in your mess: it's GRACE. It's His goodness. His mercy. His strength. Your mess is where all the goodest God stuff exists. The message of grace is not an excuse to sin, it's the tool you need to overcome your sin. In your process, let them see that grace culturing fruit in your heart. It's beautiful, and they learn to do it too.

5) Teach them to discern good and evil. I know who you are, and I know how you feel. You want to wrap your children up in a giant bubble and let nothing unclean touch them. You want to scare the crap out of them that sin leads to death. THAT GOD HIMSELF WILL SEND THEM TO HELL. That's in the Bible, true. I prefer to teach my children that evil sends people to Hell. Evil is the absence of God. I try, with the help of Holy Spirit, to prick that bubble on their lives, layer by layer, and let them know that while darkness exists, there is a light inside of them SO BRIGHT- NO JOKE- and it's inside of them. Their light drives out darkness. Their love drives out hate. Hell and Heaven are opposite spectrum, and a good Father with good plans and good gifts is on one side, and a thief is on the other. That is not a scary gospel. That is a good gospel. We have a responsibility to teach our kids about the goodness of the gospel. How can you do that without presenting the truth about the mess that sin creates?

The other day I was telling my kids about my birth father, someone I've hardly known because of addiction. I straight up told my 4 and 7 year old, "Drugs suck. God made a way out of addiction, but its a painful process. There's no way around digging up our brokenness and giving it to God if we want our broken pieces fixed!"

Deep stuff. Real life good versus evil. One time, pro-lifers were picketing. My kids asked what they were doing, and I told them the truth.

"Some mommies get babies in their tummy and they don't think they can take care of them. They pay a doctor to take the baby out before baby is old enough to live on its own. What do you think about that?"

"Is the baby alive?"

"Yup. How does that make you feel?"

"That's so sad."

A friend challenged me once, "Why burden a child with the reality of abortion?"

Because, I want discernment to burn in the heart of a 4 year old. I want her to learn that all of the world's problems have a simple answer: the love of Jesus.

My 7 year old knows what sex trafficking is. We pray expectantly for a solution to this problem. He had a dream of police putting hundreds of orphans in the back of a truck, and finding these kids families. He said they were slaves being rescued. Within a week, the news headlined several hundred trafficked children being rescued, their captors in police custody. God wants to use the prayers of our children to change the world. Like scripture, you don't have to be literal to translate honest principal.

The great commission starts "Go into the world." That's a scary, broken place if you've grown up in a bubble.



Can you believe that the pharisees, the very people TRAINED in the law, which predicted the savior, did not recognize Him. They knew EVERYTHING there was to know about God, and they didn't recognize Him.

I figured it out though. They were brainwashed. Religion is good at that. God created the law to measure our need for Him, and yet, so many saw the law and missed what it pointed to, God Himself. All of the well-meaning checklists we follow to aid in our children's salvation are not bad. We need discipline in the Lord. We need worship. We need the foundation of scripture. But we have to remember {here comes my favorite faith saying} to keep the main thing the main thing.

That's Jesus. 


In that way, if our children don't choose God, they are rejecting Him and He will be in an endless pursuit of their heart. If they reject religion, they're actually just searching for identity. The good news is, God pursues them in that place, too.

This is not a formula. Religious people always want a formula.....now, how would I know that? My kids will still have to make their own decision about God. I just want them to recognize Him. In all of this, that's my goal.