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Kiokee Baptist Church

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Apr 06 2021

Raising Godly Children in an Ungodly World

Raising Godly Children in an Ungodly World

Taking Your Children to the Mountaintop so They can Live in the Valley

Raising Godly children is a human impossibility; however, if you are a Christian parent, you have been called to this impossible task. The good news is that God does not call you to a job without providing the tools to do that job. This content is designed to give support as you join in the God-sized task of raising children who love God in a world that doesn’t.  


About 30 years ago, as a young mother with both elementary and preschool age children, I participated in a course called “Experiencing God.” One of the premises of the course is that as God-followers, we are called to “God-sized tasks.” When we look at a job and say, “Yeah, I’ve got that. I am equipped and fully capable of doing that job,” then we operate in our own power. Operating in our own power opens us up to both self-doubt and self-pride. Self-doubt when things don’t go well and self-pride when they do.  

Being a stay at home mom and child care provider at the time, I started asking what God-sized task could possibly be open to me in the midst of my circumstances. True to Himself and His Word in Psalm 37:4, “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart,” God showed me that parenting children who grew to fully commit their lives to Him was impossible, directly in line with his call on my life, and my heart’s desire.

Today I want to share with you four principles God has shown me, then look at some nuts and bolts realities of family life. 

The 4 principles are 

  1. This is a God-sized task.
  2. You can’t give what you don’t have.
  3. God intends us to live in community.
  4. Parents are a child’s first teachers.

This is a God-Sized Task

The first principle is the one I’ve already mentioned. Raising children who love God in a world that doesn’t is a God-sized task. Raising godly children is impossible. As a matter of fact, being a person who loves God is impossible, as Jesus told his followers in Matthew 19:26.  After explaining that it was harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, Jesus looked at his incredulous disciples and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”  It is only through the power of the  Holy Spirit that any of us are called to a saving relationship with Jesus, and that is how it is with our children as well. Let God do HIS part through the power of the Holy Spirit, trust Him to show you how to do your part, and obey what He shows you! (If this first principle sounds foreign to you, please, talk to me or one of the others on the women’s ministry team before you leave today!)

You Can't Give What You Don't Have

Principle 2 is that YOU CAN’T GIVE WHAT YOU DON’T HAVE. Before you make a commitment to raising your children with Christian values, you first have to commit yourself. Start your journey to the impossible with humble prayer. God does not give you a job and then expect you to figure it out on your own. James 1:5 says, ‘If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.’ On the path to raising Christ-followers, first, seek wisdom from the Author. Ask God for wisdom often and always. Conventional wisdom tells us that as women and mothers, we have to take care of ourselves first. Godly wisdom says that we put our relationship with Jesus first. Susannah Wesley, mother of 10, including John & Charles Wesley who are associated with starting the Methodist church, was said to daily pull her apron over her head and spend time in prayer and bible study while her children worked on school tasks all around her. 

Make an intentional decision to grow in your own spiritual life. If you exercise once a month, don’t expect to become physically fit. If you have a healthy meal once a week, you can’t be adequately nourished. Your own spiritual growth has far more eternal and practical consequences than either of those physical disciplines. You can grow spiritually in different ways, but having a consistent daily time to read scripture and pray tops the list both for your own growth and as an example to your children.  

As important as it is to know what you believe, I want you to hear this clearly, YOU DO NOT NEED ALL THE ANSWERS! Children come to us as infants so that we can grow with them.  As the questions get harder, don’t make up answers. Let your preteens and teenagers hear you say the words, “Let’s see what the Bible says about that.” Go to the source. There has never been a time when answers to biblical questions have been more accessible. Use technology, but find what the Bible says about the hard topics rather than what someone says about the Bible. One of the most important things we can teach our children is that God is big enough for our questions and that answers are not automatic.  Let your children know it is okay to ask hard questions and to struggle through to the answers.  

God Intends Us to Live in Community

The thought of tough questions leads us to the third principle: GOD INTENDS FOR US TO LIVE IN COMMUNITY. There are two institutions established by God. The first is the family.  The second is the church. 

In Luke 2, our only record of Jesus’ childhood, we get the great story of Jesus being left at church. “After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.” A 12 year old did not get that understanding and those answers only from his parents. Mary and Joseph raised Jesus in a culture that depended on the local synagogue to support family in religious training. 

Many of my earliest Christian experiences happened in a sanctuary. Ms. Evelyn Anderson on the piano and Ms. Jinx Pollard leading children’s choir before Sunday School, Ms. Edith Collins teaching GAs and pushing us to memorize scripture, year after year of Vacation Bible School until I finally got old enough to help lead, and best of all, the safety and security of sitting between my parents and hearing sermons that always started with scripture reading and prayer.

Every family needs the support of a church that loves their children.

Especially if your spouse is not a believer or if you are raising children as a single parent, you NEED a family of faith that supports you and supports your children. 

I have heard mothers say something like, “I think Satan must camp on my front porch on Saturday night, because getting out the door to church on Sunday morning is the hardest time of the week.”  Of course, he does, because the last thing Satan wants is families committing their time to coming together to worship God. 

My daughter, Jessie described it this way, “For us church was never a chore, but it was also never a choice.”  God intends us to live in community.  If raising godly children is your priority, then being in and regularly attending a church that glorifies God is not a choice. 

Parents Are a Child's First Teachers

For better or worse, parents are a child’s first teachers. In fact, I have read that a parent’s face is a child’s first image of God. Before she hears a bible story, a whispered prayer, or a praise chorus your child looks into your face with absolute dependence and relies on her parents the way we are called to rely on God.

Discipling your children is not optional, and you are doing it whether you made the choice or not. Discipling the people who are in your care happens every day.  If you love art, you are teaching your children to love art. If your passion is cleaning, you are sending messages about a spotless house every time you lift a mop. If sports, or science, or math, or cooking or storytelling is your passion, you disciple your children in that vein either consciously or subconsciously from the moment they are born.  

In the same way, your spiritual belief system is transmitted to your children.  The Bible gives several direct injunctions about a parents’ responsibilities. In the book of Deuteronomy, right after the Ten Commandments are stated in chapter 5 and the Greatest Commandment to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength” in chapter 6 verse 5, we get this direct commandment:   “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)

The Best "How To"

If you involve your children in what you love, and what you love is God’s word, service to others, or corporate worship that is what they will love, too. My daughter’s boyfriend said that his dad’s enthusiasm for reciting scripture and applying it to daily situations has had a great impact on his spiritual development. My oldest daughter and her husband both love music and have made it a practice to sing a hymn at bedtime every night since their eldest was a baby. The lyrics and theology of those songs have been woven into their children’s preschool years. 

I love storytelling and drama, so my girls made up stories and acted out plays from the time they could talk.  A regular part of our Christmas tradition was the Christmas play they would make up and then act out for us during Christmas break.  Sometimes it was a Christmas legend, sometimes an invented story, but always involved the true meaning of Christmas because that was the focus of Christmas in our home. 

The best “how to” advice on raising children who love God comes straight from scripture. Look again at Deuteronomy 6. “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”  We live in a world that wants to divorce the spiritual realm from daily life.  It is time to live in opposition to culture. If we want our children to learn to love God we have got to practice the spiritual in the daily!  And for that to happen we have to talk about God and his word at home, in the school and workplace, at meals, at playtime, and at bedtime. When we have to make a decision, our children have to see us praying about it. When they have a problem, we have to lead them to do the same thing.  

Guest Post written by Ellen Farrow

Written by admin · Categorized: Kids Ministry

Jul 01 2020

Sunday Service Update

A slight adjustment to our plans for worship has been made. Our 9am Worship Service will remain at the Pavilion on White Oak Road. Our 10:30am Worship Service will be as planned at the Main Campus in the Sanctuary.


What You Need To Know For July 5th in the Sanctuary, 10:30 Service

Maintain Social Distancing (at least 6 feet)

  • Enter from the main front doors. Please follow instructions from the greeters and ushers.
  • Please move towards the middle of the pew in order to make sure there is room for all.

Dynamics Are Different

  • Masks are strongly recommended, but not required. Masks will be available in the foyer.
  • Please do not stop to talk in the middle of the walkways.

Be Wise in Decision Making

  • If you feel unwell, have a fever, or believe you may have been exposed to the COVID virus, please stay home and join us for the online worship service.

Written by admin · Categorized: General

Jun 23 2020

Change to Grow

It is easier to act your way into feeling that it is to feel your way into acting.

That is one of my favorite sayings and it is so true.  I have been trying to get back into shape by exercising and watching what I eat.  I love to eat and I really hated to exercise, so something had to change.  I went to the doctor for a checkup and the PA told me that she wanted to put me on more medication.  I looked at her and said that is not going to happen and asked what I needed to do to avoid that.  She simply looked at me and said to adjust your diet and exercise.  Something clicked and I said that I could do that.  I started immediately changing my diet, and then started exercising.  I didn’t feel like doing either one, but something remarkable happened.  As I continued each week, I started to feel better and I actually missed it when I didn’t exercise.  Sometimes when I walk, the feeling to exercise is just not there, but as I go further, the right feelings just take over. 

I had to CHANGE in order to grow.

One of my favorite stories is from England and is as follows:
[blockquote name=”Anonymous”]
When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits, I dreamed of changing the world.  As I grew older and wiser, I discovered the world would not change, so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country.  But it, too, seemed immovable.  As I grew into my twilight years, in one las desperate attempt, I settled for changing only my family, those closest to me, but alas, they would have none of it.  And now as I lie on my deathbed, I suddenly realize:  If I had only changed myself first, then by example, I would have changed my family.  From their inspiration and encouragement, I would have been able to better my country, and who knows, I may have even changed the world. 
[/blockquote]

So a question that we all have to answer is: do I really want to experience personal growth in my life?  That is followed by a second question which is: what am I willing to change in order to grow?

We will discuss in the next blog the different areas that we all need to grow in.

Thanks for taking time to read this.

Written by admin · Categorized: Leadership, Personal Growth

May 22 2020

Family Worship Sundays

If you have attended Kiokee for any length of time now, you have most likely heard us refer to certain Sundays as Family Worship days.  What is a Family Worship day?  These are Sundays that we purposefully schedule and set aside throughout the year for our families to attend the worship of the Lord together.  On a Family Worship Sunday, children ages 4 and up attend the main Worship Service in the sanctuary with their parents.  Upon hearing this, the first question for some of you is most likely, “Can a 4-year-old really get anything out of an adult worship service?”  My answer would depend on what is meant by the word get.  If it means, “Will young children get what the pastor is talking about during the service?”; the answer is most likely not always.  In fact, young children may not get or understand much of what takes place in an adult worship service; hence the reason for designated Family Worship Sundays.  These Sundays provide parents the opportunity to not only teach their children about the worship of the Lord, but to also model what worship looks like.  Although a child might not get why something is taking place in a worship service, they see everything that is happening.  They see their parents stand and sing.  They see them bow their head and pray.  They see them open their bible and read scripture.  They see money being placed in the offering plate.  And all of this seeing = children getting or understanding over time that the worship of the Lord matters.   Children who see their parents in love with the worship of the Lord can’t help but fall in love with worship too.

As a church, we believe it is essential for us to have a healthy balance between the times our families participate in worship together and the times we offer a Children’s Worship.  By doing this, we allow ample opportunity for the Family + Church to work together to ensure that our children know that the worship of the Lord is important and of great value to us.  So, we begin by asking parents to model worship for their children in an adult Worship Service and then on other designated Sundays throughout the year, we offer a Children’s Worship for 4 year old – 2nd graders to learn about worship in an environment that is relevant to their age and stage of life.  Our Children’s Worship is designed to parallel what happens in the adult Worship Service therefore it will always have similar elements such as a welcome, praise and worship songs, prayer, bible teaching, and a time of offering.  In addition, Children’s Worship offers a Small Group time when children review what they have learned and discuss how they can apply that knowledge to their life. 

At Kiokee, Children’s Worship meets the 2nd – 5th Sundays during the school year months (Aug – May).  The first Sunday of each month, along with the summer months and certain designated holidays, are Family Worship Sundays. 

The two greatest influences in a child’s life are the Family + the Church.  They are two combined influences that make a greater impact in the life of a child than one single influence working alone.  As we work together, may we all be found faithful in passing the faith to the next generation.

Written by admin · Categorized: Children's Featured, Kids Ministry

May 19 2020

Leadership & Personal Growth

What comes to your mind when you think of leadership?  There are many definitions of leadership out there.  My favorite definition of leadership is from a man who has been a big influence in my life through his conferences, books, videos, blogs, etc.  That man is John Maxwell, and his definition of leadership is very simple.

Leadership is influence.

The reason that I like that definition is that it makes everyone a leader because everyone has influence.  The only difference is that great leaders have a lot of influence and lesser leaders have less influence.  Leaders are both born as well as made.  Since we are all leaders and we obviously were born, that just leaves the made part.  All leaders can become better leaders because we can improve our level of influence.

As we look down through history to the present day, there have been a lot of great leaders, but one stands out.  Jesus was the ultimate leader.  He was God in human flesh, one hundred percent God (Deity) and one hundred percent man (Humanity).  That is hard to comprehend but it is biblically true.  Jesus really is a model for us to follow as leaders.  One of the amazing things about Jesus’ leadership was that he was a great follower.   We read over and over in scripture that Jesus went out sometimes in the morning and sometimes in the evening to communicate with the Father.  Matthew 14:23 is an example of Jesus going away by himself to pray.  He did what his Father asked him to do.

He followed and was obedient. 

This is one of the greatest keys for all leaders.  You have to be able to discipline and lead yourself.  Without this, you can never really advance as a leader.  Jesus was a great model for us.  Self discipline is essential to our growth as a leader. 

A final thought to this blog.  Successful leaders simply do the things that unsuccessful leaders refuse to do.  The secret to your success or failure as a leader can be found in what you do daily. 

A question for you to think about.  What does my daily routine look like as I try to develop as a Christ-like leader?

Let me know what you think.

Written by admin · Categorized: Leadership, Personal Growth

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PO Box 430
2520 Ray Owens Rd.
Appling, GA 30802

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