I would like to submit to our parents that two of the greatest things you can do for your children sound extremely strange. I want to mention each of them and give a little guidance! I am advising this not because I am an expert, but because the Lord gave us a burden to do this for our boys and we initially struggled finding material to carry these two tasks out. I would suggest to you that the two greatest things you can do for your children are: (1) Catechize them (2) Introduce them to dead people. In our culture both of these thoughts seem rather foreign, so I want to take a couple of steps to not only explain to you what I mean, but link you to some resources that may help you. I will deal with the catechism in this posting, and we’ll discuss “dead people” later.
What does it mean to catechize your child? You may have thought of euthanizing them at certain times, but not catechizing them. If you know what this term means you probably think of it as a Catholic term, but it is not. To catechize comes from the Greek word "katecheo" which means “to sound aloud”, it also has as a connotation “to teach”: therefore, all we are doing when we catechize our children is allowing them to sound aloud biblical doctrine. This is done in a form of questions. This is so important in a day when doctrine is downplayed-we must make sure we are instructing our children to true doctrine of the Word of God. For the last several years we have taken a couple of questions a week and taught our boys to explain such words as: justification, sanctification, regeneration, etc. I must say that at 9 and 10 years old I had no idea what these words meant and I would further guess that the average Baptist would not be able to clearly define these terms. Catechizing your child means they will not have to hide when Mormons or people with false doctrine come to their door, because they know what the truth looks like. Below you will find some links that will help you to allow your children to learn real doctrine.
Christian book.com
This book “Big Truths For Little Kids” is a fantastic introduction to a catechism. It is written in a story format to keep their attention and the characters are kids that they can identify with. When you get to the section on baptism, you will need to explain the differences between Baptist and Presbyterians. But outside of that it is outstanding!
Doorposts.com
This is just a page that sells some resources for families. It includes catechisms and family worship guides.
Keepersofthefaith.com
This is a new found website that has some great resources, especially for boys.
Grace.org.uk
This is Spurgeon’s catechism. I love anything by Spurgeon.
Reformed.org/documents/cat_for_young_children.html
This is what we are doing with our boys right now. They know all the way down to question 60 thus far. It is incredible to watch your children learn these truths and be able to explain what they believe.
I know you may be thinking this is a daunting task but I am telling you that even young children can do this - but only if your reaction to this learning is the same as if they hit the game winning home run and if you put the same energy into teaching them these truths as we do teaching them to read. By the way this is more important than a game winning homerun or touchdown catch. Our children get their cues from us as to what is important…make this fun and watch God plant great truths in them!
Stay Tuned to see what "Introducing your children to dead people" is really all about!
Bro. Chad Everson
