Introducing your Children to God

So, we've had, so far, four answers to the question I posed last time: "What is the most important thing for a parent to ensure his or her child learns?"

The consensus seems to be, from what I can tell, that the one most important thing that a parent can teach his or her child is about God.  Specifically, to introduce one's child to God is the first and most important responsibility of a parent.  To mix what Orlinda, Juliana and Cameron said together, parents should teach their children who God is, that He loves them, and teach them to love Him back.

So, here's Question #3:

What is the second-most important thing for a parent to teach his or her child?

Third Time's the Charm, or Three Strikes and Yer Out…

So, obviously, my attempt to keep this blog going stumbled, again.  That means that this will be the third time that I'm trying to keep writing on a somewhat regular basis.  It I don't succeed this time, I'll be done with the whole thing and stop bothering everyone.  Hopefully, that won't be the case.

So, the consensus from everyone who answered my last question, both here and on Facebook, seems to be that, basically, the responsibility to educate a child belongs to the parents, especially in the area of ethics.  One commenter on Facebook pointed out Deuteronomy 6, the famous passage in which God commands the Israelites to teach their children about God and their history.

I definitely agree.  Children are given to parents, not to the State or to the community at large.  The responsibility to educate them falls totally to the parents.  That said, as a good number of those who commented pointed out, the possibility exists for parents to in some way arrange for others be involved in their child's education.  As besiderself pointed out, even when this occurs, the parent is not delegating ultimate responsibility for the child's education to the other people who are involved.  So, while Gilligan and James (through support) have a good point about how parents aren't always (or usually) equipped to totally execute their child's education alone, and how parents should let, say, someone who know's Calculus be the one to teach your child Calculus, most of the responsibility to have your child taught Calculus remains with the parent; I think we can probably all agree that some responsibility does, though, go to the person who has agreed to teach the child Calculus.

So, Question #2:

What is the most important thing for a parent to ensure his or her child learns?

Apologies, Reboot, Question

Hmm.

It's becoming increasingly clear to me that I started this off the wrong way.  I'm sorry.

I should have realized this sooner, but then I've never been known to my friends as someone who is terribly good at seeing how what I say is being received.

Here's where I think I went wrong:

1. I invited my readers to a conversation and then presented a multi-part story as the first part of the conversation.  There really wasn't any place for comment until the end of the story.  That makes for a lousy conversation.

2. I didn't realize just how different some of my starting assumptions are from some other people's and I just jumped right into where my thought processes are now instead of going back to the beginning of my thought processes so we could iron out assumptions and see if we end up back where I am right now or if we end up someplace completely different.

Here's what I'm going to do about it:

1. Reboot.  I'm starting the conversation over.  This time, no multi-part stories- which are, to one degree or another, me monologuing.  This time, more questions.

2. This time, I'm going to endeavor to "start at the very beginning, a very good place to start." (Sorry, one of my mom's favorite movies is Sound of Music, so I grew up watching it.)

So, let's try this again, shall we?

Question #1:

Who's responsibility is it to educate children?

Saltshakers and Bubbles, Part 1

So, maybe it was a strange way to start off this discussion in my head, with a fairy tale… but I think it shows a lot of my concerns about the current state of the Church in the States today.

But this is supposed to be a conversation- both sides of the issue battling it out in my head, in this blog (including the comments- I really do need other people's input to figure this out)- so that means we need some arguments for Christian Education as well as against it.  I'm planning on trying to dig some more up, but here's what I have so far, and I think that it will at least be a good start:

As Christians, we're to be the Salt of the Earth.  Salt is used to preserve and flavor food by being sprinkled or rubbed on food (or, as I learned yesterday, dissolved in water which the meat is then soaked in, called "brining"); for our purposes, the basic principle here is that the salt is everywhere- it permeates the meat.

The salt isn't concentrated- it permeates the meat evenly.


We should be doing that as well, as the Church.  We should be everywhere.

At first glance, then, it would seem that Christian Education is the exact opposite of this; it's a concentration of Christian kids and Christian teachers in certain schools, resulting in lowered concentrations of Christians in other schools- a dilution, if you will.  Christian Education seems just like a bubble from my fairy tale.

Here's an alternate theory: what if Christian schools aren't bubbles at all, but are actually saltshakers?  Saltshakers are concentrations of salt even higher than that found in meat which is treated with salt, but they are also far from unproductive.  They store salt until it is time for it to be used.

This alternate theory, then, is that Christian schools are saltshakers; they are for training and preparing Christian students to go out into the world and be the Salt of the Earth.

More on this in posts to come, but what do you think?  Are Christian schools, by nature, bubbles or saltshakers? Or does it depend of execution?  Can a Christian school choose whether to be a bubble or a saltshaker?  Do you have stories about one or the other kind of experience, or about being in a public school "diluted" by the existence of Christian schools?

A Fairy Tale, Part 3

And the Bubbleheads started to forget what it was that made them Bubbleheads in the first place.  They forgot that "Bubblehead" just meant that you were friends with the King of Everything and His Son.  Some of them started making rules for how Bubbleheads should act, and they cared more about that than about being friends with the King of Everything and His Son.  Others decided that being a Bubblehead was all about the experience of air all around you and cared more about the experience of the air than about the King of Everything and His Son.  Some people decided to live in the bubbles without becoming friends with the King of Everything and His Son.  They fit in because they followed the rules and they enjoyed the air.

And some of the Bubblehead's kids didn't became friends with the King of Everything and His Son, but lived in the bubbles anyway, because they were nice and safe and because they knew the rules to follow to make everyone think that they were Bubbleheads, but most of all because, when they were inside the bubbles, no one could tell whether they would have air around their heads if they left the big bubble.

But a sad thing began to happen.  Slowly, the bubbles the Bubbleheads lived in began to change.  The hot air that they used to keep others out began to mix with the cool air they lived in.  The people who weren't Bubbleheads that lived in the bubbles brought in the sea water.  The hot air and the sea water mixed and frothed and became a hot, salty foam that began to choke the people in the bubbles.

This happened so slowly that the people in the bubbles didn't notice it happening, but the people outside the bubble did.  When they came to see what the bubbles were about, they stopped wanting to go in and become Bubbleheads.  When they got a whiff of the air in the bubbles, they recoiled in disgust at the hot, salty froth inside.

And slowly, slowly the people inside the bubble that were there for the air and the safety started to leave.  And the Bubbleheads' children decided that the sea water was nicer than the froth inside the bubbles and that they didn't have as many rules outside the bubbles and so, when they grew up, they left.

And, as sad as this was, the saddest thing was that the Bubbleheads living in their bubbles barely realized what was going on and didn't know what to do about it at all, because they had forgotten that what was important was that you were a friend of the King of Everything and His Son, not that you were living in a bubble, or that you followed all the right rules, or that you felt air all around you, or that you were safe.

And, one by one, as the people left and the Bubbleheads died away, all the bubbles in that country shrunk away and disappeared.

So, what do you think?  Is this fairy tale "true?"  And how might it apply to Christian Education?