Aspiration #2 - Parents Involvement

The chinese saying goes, "an adult would have eaten more salt than a young person would have eaten rice".... and I think that the real essence of youth ministry is not to take the position and responsibilities of the parents to educate the youth, especially not in the areas of spiritual development.

Parents must recognise the fact that they have the most influence on their child's life. They spent more time at home, with the family (or at least they should) then anywhere else..... but modern living has driven us away from building core values from within the families. We the adults, the parents have unknowingly passed on the responsibilities of education to other media... particularly the TELEVISION.

Nowadays, anyting to do with children is a thriving business - look at McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut.... all their advertisements are targeted towards the kid..... look at children boutiques and shops mushrooming at every mall and shopping centre ..... notice the growing populations of kindergartens, nurseries, and child education centres at EVERY residential areas!!!! No wonder that child education franchises is one of the fastest and most popular franchise business in Malaysia!

I think the modern living aspirations are slowly driving us towards measuring success in our life to be reflected in our child's life! Is it a kiasu mentality? Is it a matter of life and death? is it a matter of our child being able to, at the very least, be able to survive in a dog-eat-dog world?

Assuming that we did it for the love of our child..... If the kindergartens, and nurseries, and tuition centres, and education centres help take care of the education, who then takes care of their spiritual development? The Maid? The ChildMinder? The Babysitter? The TV? The Computer? The Internet?

Where is your child's spiritual role model? Who is your child's spiritual role model?

It is my prayer to see more parents and adults getting involved in the lives of their own child or in the life of a youth.

The youth ministry in a church is not a place to babysit a child. The youth ministry is not someone who can "take over" the education and role models for the spiritual development of a child. It is not the role of the youth ministry to be the education centre or school for the child. Spiritual development in a youth does not work that way.

The parents must recognise that the youth ministry is there to assist in the spiritual development of the youth. I read somehwere that the youth ministry is the "Robin" as to the parents being the Batman, the "spiritual" hero, for the child.

So parents, recognise your role and responsibility - make yourself count in your shild's life!