Raising children who know they are 'in Christ' when the world around looks for identity elsewhere

Premier NexGen: What did you have in mind when you wrote the book?

Ed Drew: The goal is that parents feel less intimidated, less nervous and less on the backfoot. I think to be a Christian parent is to usually feel tired, worried and a bit guilty! To be a Christian parent normally means we know what we believe, but we find it very difficult first of all, to hand that on to our children. And secondly, we feel nervous, because our children’s world is more normally more hostile than ours.

PNG: You use the term ‘confident kids’ – that can mean all sorts of things.

ED: The rate of change of our children’s world is extraordinary. And I guess in one or two areas, we’re more aware of that. So for instance, in the realm of sexuality, in the realm of mental health, in the realm of gender, our children are being asked to give themselves labels to define themselves.

What gender are you? What sex are you? What sexuality are you? Where do you belong? What do you ascribe to? Who is your favourite? All these are labels where increasingly our children and young people are being asked to put themselves into boxes. Although this is painted as a good story, it is actually an unsettling story. Everyone who has grown up knows we have changed our affiliations and our labels as we have grown up. To be a Christian is to know our Creator has given us a label. If we understand we belong to him, and we have come home to our Heavenly Father, then everything else is secondary.

PNG: Sadly the label ‘Christian’, which was positive or neutral in a previous generation, has baggage connected to it. Your subtitle has the words ‘grounding identity in Christ’, which is a wonderful thing, but may not be deemed wonderful by a child who doesn’t fancy the label of being part of a ‘Christian home’. What does ‘grounded in Christ’ mean?

ED: I was with five teenagers last night from my church. I know that for them and for many of our young people, Christianity feels like limitation. It feels like baggage, it feels like rules and it feels antiquated and old. None of that is the picture that Jesus Christ gives us. The pictures that Jesus Christ uses are about being lost and being found; being far away from home, desperate and being at home and being loved. It is about the longing, and it is about life to the full.

So Jesus was much more about identity. Who are we? Who do we belong to? Where is our home? This is all identity language. Jesus was much less concerned about what you must do. He clearly taught how the Christian should live but it was always in terms of ‘living life to the full’. The story of the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount is this seeking after perfection. So my book is a plea to parents to say: “Let’s spend more of our time talking to our children about who they are, who their creator says they are, who their saviour says they are and who they belong to.”

“If we understand we belong to him, and we have come home to our Heavenly Father, then everything else is secondary”

PNG: When it comes to parenting of children, parents will be thinking, ‘I want behavioural change.’ Your approach clearly would lead to behavioural change eventually, but actually starts somewhere very different?

ED: I am a parent. When I talk about these things with parents, they first of all want to know: do you pray whenever you put shoes on?! Does anyone raise their voice in your home? Do your children all live perfectly?

And the honest answer is in my house, we have to shout: “Shoes!” eight times every day. The picture I show most often of my own family’s Bible time is one where two of my children are hanging off the side of the sofa and the only child who seems to be listening is because my arm is around him and he can’t move and I’ve got a vice like grip! So the Christian home is still marked by chaos and difficulty and confusion and some shouting.

But I think it can be helpful to think about our response to our children’s tears. In those moments of real difficulty and real heartache, what is it we say? Do we say it will be OK in the morning? Do we say that we’ll talk to their teacher about this? Do we say they should stop it? Think about something else? Do we just run outside and buy them a hotdog? These are all things that you can do, and they’re helpful. But in the tears, the Christian has the best answer.

The Christian gets to say, tears are not a surprise. Jesus cried. Jesus was around people who cried, those were the people he went to first, and Jesus Christ is alive. And he stands over your life and he cares. Let’s look at how trusting him changes the tears.

Now I have children who cry, who in their time have cried every night about an issue. I can think of the time when the tears were about having no friends. Having no friends is a problem I cannot fix as a parent, I cannot make other children want to spend time with my children. I cannot be in a playground. I could have a conversation with a teacher. I could give my children some advice about making friends. But I cannot fix that problem.

This is the sort of moment when being a Christian transformed the conversation. We have something far better to say about someone who is with my child all the time, and has loved them so much they have died for them. And that was a moment in history. We can pray to the one we hope for, saying: “Lord, turn up tomorrow, give my child comfort in loneliness.”

PNG: Parents are busy, what sort of a book is this?

ED: Well my editor was very clear that no chapter should take longer than ten minutes to read. So it’s ten chapters, ten minutes each!

Premier NexGen: What did you have in mind when you wrote the book?

Ed Drew: The goal is that parents feel less intimidated, less nervous and less on the backfoot. I think to be a Christian parent is to usually feel tired, worried and a bit guilty! To be a Christian parent normally means we know what we believe, but we find it very difficult first of all, to hand that on to our children. And secondly, we feel nervous, because our children’s world is more normally more hostile than ours.

PNG: You use the term ‘confident kids’ – that can mean all sorts of things.

ED: The rate of change of our children’s world is extraordinary. And I guess in one or two areas, we’re more aware of that. So for instance, in the realm of sexuality, in the realm of mental health, in the realm of gender, our children are being asked to give themselves labels to define themselves.

What gender are you? What sex are you? What sexuality are you? Where do you belong? What do you ascribe to? Who is your favourite? All these are labels where increasingly our children and young people are being asked to put themselves into boxes. Although this is painted as a good story, it is actually an unsettling story. Everyone who has grown up knows we have changed our affiliations and our labels as we have grown up. To be a Christian is to know our Creator has given us a label. If we understand we belong to him, and we have come home to our Heavenly Father, then everything else is secondary.