Sid: You know something that is bothering me no end Mishpocha, and I’m sure many of you are bother by it we’re losing a generation of children. I mean I’ve never seen such deterioration so rapidly before our very eyes. I have on the telephone Dr. Tedd Tripp he’s pastor of Grace Fellowship Church in Hazelton, Pennsylvania and he’s got long list of degrees. But the reason I have him on the show is that he wrote a book called “Shepherding a Child’s Heart.” And what age range would you say this is for Tedd?
Tedd: Well the book is written for parents at any age and those periods where parents are nurturing children it’s not really about the adult children but it’s for parents that are in the process of nurturing children that are pre-schoolers, school age kids, teenagers, all of the way through where they leave home.
Sid: And I’ll tell you some that really speaks reams to me and that is teenagers when parents start practicing these principals in your book they actually like being home. I don’t know too many teenagers that want to be with the old folks, their parents.
Tedd: Well I think that I think that that’s a matter of vision and we can perhaps talk about that even yet this week. But there’s a matter of having a good visions for engaging our teenagers and I think that there’s some exciting things to think about.
Sid: But comment on this statement I made, we, and I’m talking about the church we are losing a generation of young people why?
Tedd: Well I think that there are a lot of reasons and one is certainly parents are very busy and I think that because they are very busy and I think that because they’re very busy parents are failing to do the job of nurturing their children. And the whole task of formative instruction really doing what Deuteronomy 6 calls parents to do; instructing their kids in the ways of the Lord, parents are not doing that.
Sid: Wait a second a lot of parents are sending their children to Christian school they have them in Sunday School every Sunday but it’s still not working why?
Tedd: All of those things are supplementary I think to the task of the parent to be shepherding their children at home and to be opening the word of God with their children and teaching the children God’s ways in the family. And that’s not taking place in many many churches. I talk in seminars about family worship and the importance of family worship and people again and again come up to me and say “What exactly is family worship I don’t have any idea about going about doing that.” And I think that Deuteronomy 6 says “These things shall be upon your heart and you shall impress them upon your children.” There’s a whole paradigm there for providing for what I call “Formative instruction” where you’re giving your children a biblical culture a biblical way of thinking that is rooted in the scriptures…
Sid: And you know excuse me for interrupting you but I’m thinking about a church service that I was in the other night and I was watching the young people and I’ve seen these young people in church since they were little babies and they’re not paying one bit of attention they’re coloring they’re drawing they’re not even involved they have they’ve literally learned how to detach themself from the service. And I said “It’s almost until those parents realize what’s happening to those children?”
Tedd: Yeah you keep raising these issues and that’s another whole saw of mind I think that one of the things that we’ve done in the church and this maybe controversial in some circles but I’ll put it out there and people can agree or disagree. But I think one of the things I think we’ve done is we created this junior church phenomenal where we absent all the children from the service and they go and they have their little entertaining worship light service that is focused for them…
Sid: And in most cases it’s a shade better than secular just a shade.
Tedd: Yes and I’m persuaded that what we need to be doing is we need to be training children to worship with their families in church and pastors need to be recognizing the fact that as I speak I have children in my audience and I want to speak in ways that the children can understand as well as the adults I want to bring in illustrations and application where I’m speaking to children and drawing the children into the service. I want to use illustration that will engage children so that I’m cooperating with parents that are endeavoring to teach children this is for you too and they’re trying to train their children and I want to cooperate that training process by speaking in a way that engages children and draws children in.
Sid: You know I’m speaking by theory but I’m speaking though my heart right now and knowing the history of the early church there’s something so significant about coming from a Jewish background the Sabbath, or the Shabbat, at home with the family together and praying together and talking together and eating together and we seem to have lost that.
Tedd: Yes we’ve lost that sense of a culture that Christianity is about a culture it is a…it’s about helping kids to understand the whole world through the lens of the word of God. I think that the Shabbat practice of family really preparing themselves on the…at sundown on Friday for the Sabbath day and the whole notion that we’re setting this day aside we’re going to call this day a delight we’re going to focus our thought and our whole focus for this whole day for the worship and the glory of God and enjoying what God has given us freely to enjoy. I think that whole notion has been lost there’s no sense of Sabbath in the church at large at all today.
Sid: So tell me you hit a nerve when you said “Most families don’t know how to worship together.” So how do we do it?
Tedd: Well I think that Deuteronomy 6 provides the excellent paradigm it’s very interesting what the vision of Deuteronomy 6 is. God says to them “I’m give to them these commands so that you and your children and your children’s children may walk in the ways of the Lord.” There’s this 3 generation vision.
Sid: Promise.
Tedd: That’s right.
Sid: It’s a promise!
Tedd: That’s right and you know what I tell parents when I teach in a seminar is when your training your child when you’re addressing the heart of this child this heart whose heart has strayed into some false path and you’re addressing his heart and you’re drawing along side of this child you’re not just thinking about how to survive this moment you’re thinking kingdom of God you’re thinking “Where will my grandchildren be 50 years from now?” And so my training of my child has this long range vision that not just for my child but even for his children as well I’m training. And so Deuteronomy 6 says that we have this 3 generation vision and then it says “These things shall be upon your heart and you shall impress them on your children.” Let’s face if children…if parents are not dazzled by God themselves if parents are not overwhelmed with the glory and the goodness of God the greatness of the salvation that has been given to us in Yeshua; if they are not dazzled by those things and overwhelmed with the glory and the goodness and the greatness of God then they’re not going to transmit that to their children. You can’t give away what you don’t have.
Sid: So tell me about how we worship.
Tedd: And I…so I think that we gather our family together every day and we worship God together as a family. Our practice when our children were young I read the Proverbs to my children were at the breakfast table every morning.
Sid: Why Proverbs?
Tedd: Because the Proverbs are filled with God’s wisdom there’s 31 chapters and a chapter for every day of the month they confront all the issues of life everything from sexual or moral purity to honesty to integrity to diligence to stealing to companionship to what it means to a man what it means to be a woman all of those topics of daily living are addressed in the proverbs. And I would read the Proverbs every day while the kids were eating their cornflakes. By the time…
Sid: But wait a second what if they’re real young I mean what age were you reading proverbs?
Tedd: I was reading the Proverbs to them you know; I was reading the Proverbs in the presence of a toddler in a high chair when I had children that were 4 and 6.
Sid: It penetrates the spirit even though if the mind may not comprehend.
Tedd: It does and what you do you know one of my sons said something to me very wise recently he said “I want to give my children large truths to grow into not like airy truths to outgrow but large truths to grow into; I want to give them a vision of the greatness, the grandness of God that is as toddlers they can’t even possible fully grasp but they will grow into the understanding of what those things are.”
Sid: So you’re a grandfather do your children read Proverbs to their children now?
Tedd: Yeah they do and they read and pray with their kid’s everyday. And you know we were…what we did we read Proverbs in the morning and in the evening we had a time at the dinner table that’s as soon as the meal was over before you even cleared the table because if anyone gets up their all gone each one goes their separate ways. You want to gather them while they’re all there and we would sing, I learned to play a half a dozen chords on the guitar so we would sing with the kids and we would sing Bible passages and even hymns and chorus so we would sing together, we would work on memorizing Bible passages together, we would read a little section from the Bible and we would discuss it. And you know you have to be sensitive to the ages of your kids if you have young children read the narratives the Bibles full of stories; the kids are fascinated by the stories of the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Sid: And you know another thing that really intrigued me is when they get to be teenagers you really read to them the prophets why the prophets?
Tedd: Because the prophets, the prophets for one thing is 1/3 of our Bible if we’re going to say we’re Bible believing Christians we can’t ignore the prophets. And the message of the prophets is judgment; the message of the prophets is the severity of God it’s a God who was willing even to cast his covenant people out of the land of promise and preserve only a remnant.
Sid: Yeah but wouldn’t that scare the children?
Tedd: Hey listen “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Step number one square 1 in wisdom’s pathway is the fear of the Lord and I want my children to have a healthy sense of awe and reference of a God that is sovereign and holy and glorious and marvelous beyond description.
Sid: I’ll tell you Tedd it sure beats the teenager bobbing in for breakfast running late with purple hair earrings all over their body and not paying one bit of attention to their family for a teenager like that is their hope?
Tedd: Well I think there’s always hope because God is full of grace and mercy.
Sid: And we’re out of time.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth