Your Mission is Raising Great Adults - Not Kids
By Willie Batson
On a lovely summer day, our younger daughter built what I called a tent city on the front lawn. She had gathered every blanket available and draped them over chairs spread out across the yard. Crawling in and out with her friends, they played their imaginative games.
I stood at the door, reciting to my wife all the reasons why this was not a good idea. The grass would suffocate and turn brown. There would be holes all over the front yard. “Why couldn’t they build this thing in the backyard?” I said. “I don’t spend as much time working on it.”
Cindy looked me squarely in the face and emblazoned these words in my memory forever: “Willie, we’re not raising a lawn. We’re raising a family.”
A fundamental missional parenting principle is this: You are raising adults — not children.
Those words stung as I reflected on my priorities as a parent. Was I as intentional in raising a family as I was in raising a lawn? Or was I simply hoping that everything would turn out right? In that one conversation, my wife clarified for me clearly that we were on a mission.
A fundamental missional parenting principle is this: You are raising adults — not children. They are children without any help from you. If you want them to become emotionally and spiritually healthy adults, it takes intentional work on your part as a parent. The child is the raw material. The adult is the finished product.
What will your children be like when they are adults? What you do with them today — when they are 2, 5, or 16 years old — will influence what they do at age 24, 34, or 44. I once told a young couple that they needed to get control of their kids before they turned them loose on the rest of us. It got their attention.
Before I go any further, let me offer this disclaimer: You are not responsible for all of their decisions or actions, either good or bad. They will make choices and should be accountable for those choices. Your task is to focus on leading them in the right direction. We used to tell our kids, “Make choices you can live with.”
From that clarifying declaration of my wife, I realized I needed to be intentional and purposeful about the kind of adults I wanted our daughters to be. I became a missional dad.
Psalm 127:4 says: “Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth.” Arrows were made to fly, not to sit safely in the quiver or rest on the bow forever. They must be released!
Where do you begin? Start with a long-term, forward-focused approach to your mission by asking what kind of strengths you want your kids to have when they become adults.
What kind of strengths do you want your kids to have when they become adults?
- Emotional strengths
- Spiritual strengths
- Character strengths
- Relational strengths
You can then begin to develop a day-by-day strategy of involvement that confronts the myriad forces pulling you away from your primary task. Remember, your mission is not about raising kids — it’s all about raising emotionally strong and spiritually vibrant adults.
Willie Batson, “Your Mission is Raising Great Adults-Not Kids,” The Advent Christian Witness, Summer 2021
Willie Batson is the father of two married daughters and “Papa” to six grandchildren. He loves equipping individuals and couples with tools for building healthy relationships. Feel free to contact him for more help on developing your parenting strategy. He is a retired pastor, a published author, and the Lead Coach at W.C.Batson Coaching. Visit his website for more information about his ministry: www.williebatson.com