Making Disciples

Today our pastor spoke about making disciples. One of the Scriptural texts he referred to was Matthew 28:19-20:
^19"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

If you've been around an American church very long, you too have probably heard one (or many) sermons regarding this passage. But today, Wes said something different...probably still not new information...but Holy Spirit used it to open my eyes to a blessing I have that I don't always view as a blessing.

I won't be able to remember verbatim what Wes said, but it went something like this, 'The idea of a teacher in our culture is much different from what it meant in the Middle East during the time of Jesus. We think of teachers as someone who you have for a year or a semester in a class that teaches you things that you study and try to remember in order to pass a test to move on to the next level and then you don't see them anymore. But a teacher in Jesus' time was someone who entered into your life. You lived with them, they taught you every day, you shared meals with them, you taught them all of your knowledge and how to live..."

And right there...that's when Holy Spirit said, "That sort of sounds like home schooling." Honestly, I don't remember the rest of the sermon because I was too preoccupied with playing out just exactly what this means in our family...more specifically for me.

I've always said that I home schooled because I didn't want our children learning their character and morals from someone I didn't know. When they were young, I didn't want someone else having more influence on them than we did. And yes, that means they've learned some bad habits and inappropriate attitudes from us too. But my responsibility has always been when Holy Spirit reveals to me where I've messed up or what needs to change in me, I am honest with my kids about it. I apologize when needed, I tell them when I've been wrong and as much as I allow Holy Spirit to help me, I obey Him to change the behaviors that need changing.

But today, a light bulb went off. Our children are the first four disciples that we have been given the opportunity to teach the ways of God. While we have been doing this, it seems like the pressure to conform to the expected norms of math, writing, reading, history, science, etc often have made me push Bible lessons to the back burner. I've previously shared about how God has laid on my heart through David Platt's book Radical, that we should start Praying For the World. While we haven't been doing this everyday, we have gone through all of the A and B countries of the world. The great thing is the kids are learning World Geography too!

And each day that we do this, we read a portion of Scripture and discuss it. As much as possible, we go to our home school co-op's nursing home service days that are scheduled once a month. And I've shared on here repeatedly how we are learning to minister together as a family. Boundless Ministries is our family's ministry to other families.

If our children leave our home and don't understand the Way of God, then I have not been a very good teacher. Right now, there's a lesson on forgiveness from the Beth Moore study that I wanted to sit down and do with them (at least the older ones) because it's appropriate to some things that have happened to them. One great thing about home schooling (and there are many!) is that when Holy Spirit says, "Teach them this lesson on forgiveness today." I can set aside the math, the spelling, the literature and do it. After all, if my kids become math whizzes, can win national spelling bees, can read Shakespeare in fourth grade...but don't learn to live a life of sacrifice for others so that people and themselves can know the love of Jesus...then I will feel that I have failed.

I think I now see just one more great lesson that God has been teaching me through His Spirit...these children are our disciples. We are to "teach them to observe all (Jesus) commanded (us)." Even better, Dale and I don't have to do this alone or in our own strength...in fact, we can't. We're human...we will mess up...but the best part of all is that "I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:20)

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