Little Jimmy comes home with a smile on his face. (It’s always little Jimmy, isn’t it?) He has spent the weekend at dad’s, as he has since the divorce, and he is pretty jazzed up about the church service that he went to. As a faithful mommy you are excited that he is excited about church. Trying to contain your grin you ask him what was so cool about church. Little Jimmy explains,
Mom it was so cool! We were singing songs, then the preacher said something about snakes and faith…I can’t really remember what…but then Pastor Jenkins hopped out of that place where people get babatized (cause little kids never pronounce it correctly), and he was holding this huge snake around his neck. It looked like one of those really mean snakes that we see on television. Then he started speaking in this really cool language. It was awesome how God saved these people and gave them His Spirit.
That’s probably an extreme case—but what do you do if your child is exposed to poor teaching? If it’s a television preacher then you can tell him that those guys are nutjobs and invite him to watch a cartoon. But if this poor teaching is coming from someone like his daddy, then that makes things a little more difficult.
One option is to tell little Jimmy that daddy is nuts and part of the reason for the divorce is that daddy lost his mind at that snake handling church. You can teach him what you believe and then you can tell him all the reasons that daddy’s theology is about as sound as that rattlesnake that he tries to handle.
I would not advise that approach. One of your chief goals in shepherding your child is to help him be dependent on the Lord and to be able to handle God’s Word for himself. If you pit your theology vs. daddy’s theology then he’ll determine what is correct based upon whether he believes mommy more than daddy. That won’t help him in the long run.
What little Jimmy really needs is to know what God says. Therefore, whenever your kid is exposed to bad teaching, take him straight to the Bible. Say, “let’s see what God says about this”. Then you can show him from the Scriptures why you believe what you believe. It’s difficult. You might still have questions. You likely won’t do it perfectly. But at least you are teaching him a valuable lesson; namely, that when he has a theological question he goes to God’s Word to find the answer.
You don’t have to spend a ton of time in polemics (showing why daddy and his snake handling is nuts). Just help your kid see the truth of the gospel and hold fast to Jesus. The Spirit will take care of guiding your son/daughter into all truth. And He does that through His Word. Help your kids be hungry for the Word and confident that God accurately and sufficiently reveals Himself in the Word—and I bet daddy’s whack theology will be shown for what it is.
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I’ve written this from the perspective of a mom trying to shepherd her little boy. But it could be just as likely that a little girl is being led astray by a crazy mama and daddy needs to step in. My advice would be the same. Take them to God’s Word no matter their gender or yours.
This is one of the reasons I hate divorce.
I know a godly Christian man whose wife left him. If I tell you how many kids they have together, anyone at my church will know who I’m talking about. They have some sort of joint custody, but I know he brings all the kids to church on Sundays and Wednesdays. Judging by the photos on Facebook, he has them most of the time otherwise as well. I know that he has made it a point not to show any disrespect for his ex for the sake of their children. But it also earns him capital with them for spiritual guidance.
Regardless of who left who, if you disrespect your children’s other parent who is estranged from you, you will lose their respect of you. They learn respect from you and if you are gracious to your ex, your children will quickly see through any goofiness from your ex. Beware, because they will also see through your goofiness. Be willing to acknowledge your own flaws and repent and your children will more readily follow your spiritual example and training.
so very important NOT to put children ‘in the middle’ of a disagreement between divorced or separated parents . . . the children can’t handle it, and it really hurts them in ways they may not be able to explain in words
out of love for the child, the parents need to be extremely protective of the child’s well-being emotionally because if they DO put the child ‘in the middle’ and harm is done, they both will bear the responsibility for this terrible sin