Teach Them to Read

Several days ago I came across a great article titled Defining Literacy Down–Do Your Kids Read Books?  The following is a portion of it. I would encourage you to read the entire article.

     Reading is an important Christian discipline. Further, growth as a Christian disciple is closely tied to the reading of the Bible, as well as worthy Christian books. This is why the Christian church has championed the cause of literacy. It is why the Reformers fought for the translation of the Scriptures into vernacular languages.

     A loss of literacy and respect for the book amounts to grave danger for the Christian church. The transmission of Christian truth has been closely tied to scrolls, codices, and books throughout the history of the Church — a legacy inherited from the Jews, who often protected the sacred scrolls with their lives.

     The electronic media have their places and uses, and I am thankful for the accessibility of so much worthy and important information through digital means. Nevertheless, the electronic screen is not the venue for lengthy, thoughtful, serious reading. The vehicle for serious reading is the book, and the Christian should be a serious reader.

Teenagers today live in a culture saturated by the electronic mass media. Many teens seem to live in their own little world. They have music with them all the time on there MP3 players, they can sit down and watch the world be saved in just 2 hours on the silver screen, they can get almost any information simply by googling it, they can be instantly connected to any friend by cell phone or instant message. They can do all of these things thanks to many great technological advances, but are they missing something? As the article says, reading is vital to the spiritual growth of our teens, of anyone for that matter. In a culture so saturated by the instant gratification of todays electronic gadgets, what can we do as parents to foster the very needed culture of reading in our teens? Here are a few suggestions:

• Kids imitate their parents. The questions is, do we as parents read? Do we show our teenagers that reading is important? If your child sees your passion for something, they are much more likely to be involved in that thing themselves.
• Reading is a learned art that can take time. Here are two practical ways my parents fostered the art of reading in our family. First, we had family devotions each night right after dinner, using a variety of books over the years. My dad always interacted with us during that time to help keep us engaged in the reading. Second, every time we travelled in our van for any longer distance, one of my parents would read us a book. The subject matter varied and changed as we grew older, but those times reading in the van are some of the most memorable moments we shared together.

We, as parents, have a great and daunting task — teaching our children to take time to read. God has chosen to reveal Himself to us through the written Word and we must take time to fill our lives and minds with the Word and then teach our children to do the same. Are you up for the task?

Compartment Rich, Discernment Poor

For the first installment of the “Parent’s Corner” I want to share an article that has been very helpful to me in my ministry life as a youth pastor, but also in my personal life as a parent. A month and a half ago Holly Stratton, the president’s wife from Clearwater Christian College, wrote an article on SharperIron.org. She presents excellent and thought provoking ideas on an area that needs our attention as parents — biblical discernment. As our children are in the process of becoming adults, we must lead them on a journey that teaches them to come to biblical conclusions of right and wrong so that as they leave the home they will not just do because it has always been done a certain way, but that they will do because they have become totally convinced in their own mind (through the study of the Word, the direction of the Spirit, the guidance of the local church and the tenderness of their conscience) that they should do so. Here is the beginning of Holly’s article.

“Mom, are you sure this is a Bible thing, or is it just an oldthing?” As I sat with my son downloading previews of music he was asking me to evaluate, I suddenly yearned for the days when the only song in his musical repertoire that even faintly raised my eyebrow was one that involved a rather raucous garden escape by Peter Rabbit. Everyone needs an inquisitive, status quo-examining teenager in his home. Teens are so adept at poking around in our neatly arranged boxes of rejection and asking those challenging questions about the items that interest them. It can be quite irritating at times, and I confess the inconvenience of it all has far too often driven me to seal the container shut and shoo away the grubby little paws that are daring to rummage through items I have proudly rejected for half a century.I am just lazy enough to engage in some hefty, white-knuckled clinging to the convenience that boxes and labels offer. I thrive on organization, but since I’m not naturally neat enough to achieve it on my own, I tend to rely heavily on baskets and bins…as long as things look neat and orderly, my conscience usually finds soothing just enough to enjoy a few good patronizing pats on the back from that annoyingly virtuous woman of my dreams.I find that I especially love containers that house those “gray matters” that, when left unconfined, require the expenditure of a painful amount of mental and spiritual exercise in discerning their individual worth. It’s much easier to simply clump the items together and then tuck them in a box and label it. Actually, the easiest thing to do is to just utilize those pre-labeled boxes. I’ve taken advantage of that benefit more than I care to admit. Not only is this nifty compartmentalization convenient, but also it looks incredibly neat when the boxes are neatly arranged on the shelf…

I would encourage you to read the rest of the article here. It is well worth the little time that it may take. May the Lord help us as we desire to lead our children to live God-honoring lives now and in the days to come.

FYI

In the coming days I hope to begin another category of posts. It will be the “Parent’s Corner” and obviously from the name, the posts will be geared to parents of our teens. We have a desire to come beside parents as you raise your teenagers and to do anything that we can help to see your children grow to spiritual maturity.