Families and Discipleship - Clayton Shenk | KFW 2016

We greet you in Jesus' name. Proverbs 22:6 says, "Tramp a child in the ways you go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." I was speaking out in Minnesota at a youth conference, and one of the topics that I had was if I had my teenage years to live over again and some of the things that I wish I could have done different if I would do it over again. And on the way home from that speaking assignment, my wife asked the question, "Will you someday give a topic if I had my children to raise over again and all the things you wish you had done differently?" And so that started me thinking what can I do to make sure that I live with no regrets.

Well, I've come to the conclusion that you can do it. You're going to get to the end of your life and say, "If only I could do it over again." But I want to make sure that I do it very, very clearly and as best I can by God's direction. And so I began to ponder and think through some questions. And one of the questions I had and I don't see my notes there. Uh-oh.

Okay. One of the questions I asked—I was a preacher. I don't know who the preacher was. I can't tell you his name—was, "If you want to know what a man believes, don't look at his children. Look at his grandchildren. What will my grandchildren believe?" And so I began to ponder. I want my grandchildren to be singers. I want my grandchildren to be debt-free. I want my grandchildren—a number of things I wanted of my grandchildren. But I wanted to form this, and I used that question a number of times. What do I want for my grandchildren? As a matter of fact, when Curtis came to ask if he could date Kelly, I said, "Could you tell me what's your vision for your grandchildren?"

And I gave him 15 areas that I would like to think through because before I let you date my daughter, I want to know what your children are going to look like. And so we ought to think that through. He never thought of that before. Kevin, next.

One of the things I want to say—I'm not sure if it's this slide or not—I am not chosen here because I'm the perfect dad. I've made many, many mistakes. There's lots and lots of things I should have done differently, and I could have done differently, and lots of things I could tell you. My hall of shame is huge, right? But by God's grace, he has given some benefit, and I want to share those things with you and encourage you along the way. Spend more time with your children.

One of the things I asked the older ministers in life, and I said, "Okay. So if you had your ministry to do over again, what would you do differently?" And every one of the ministers I talked to said the same thing: spend more time with your children. And so I said, "Okay. The next question then is, how do you do it? I'm a minister. I'm a pastor. I have all these evening meetings. I have assignments. How do you spend more time with your children?" They all had the exact same answer: I don't know.

And so therefore, I said, "I have to figure it out. I'm going to make sure that I do the next thing." Okay. Spend more family night. We decided Monday night is our family night, and we're going to make sure that that's guarded. Somebody asked me this past week whether I can come speak for their PTF, and it's on Monday night. I said, "No. I'm not available Monday evening. That's family time. I'm going to spend more time with my family. I want to make sure that they know that they are a very high priority in my life."

The next thing I—okay. We have Teen Encounter. And what I do is, my wife and I, once a month—it's scheduled. It doesn't always happen. This is not nearly as regular as family night. Family night comes around every Monday night. But once a month, we aim to take our teenagers out for supper, and we just have a good time and allow them to share what's on their hearts. We share what's on our hearts. Sometimes they're jealous. Sometimes it's not. But they enjoy Teen Encounter, and I encourage every family that has teenagers to get a set-aside time where you can have open dialogue and open discussion. And sometimes they say, "Dad, we think there's an inconsistency in your life."

Another thing I want to do with my children, to spend more time with them, is they go along with me. If somebody comes and says, "Hey, can you come out for a week to preach?" I say, "Only if you let my family come along. If you have provisions for the whole family, then I'll come and preach for you." But I'm not going to be like my grandfather who would go out and preach for a week or two and left his family at home on the farm to do all that work. I'm going to take my family along with me. The other thing we do is, on their 12th birthday, Mom and I take them out for breakfast.

We welcome them to the adult world. We explain what happens as an adult. We explain the changing of your body from a child body to an adult body and why God did that and the whole purpose of that and the design of that. And then we say, "Now, anytime you have a question, you ask us. An adult question." And it's an excellent thing. Spend more time with your family.

Hike the trail. I took my three sons when Kevin was 18, Austin 16, Trevor 14, and I took a six-month sabbatical, and I hiked the Appalachian Trail. I would spend five months out there on the trail. I remember sitting up on Poppet Rock overlooking '81, traffic going back and forth and all this, just rush, rush, rush. And I said, "Pity the man who can't take six months off to spend time with his children." And it's just an important time. Later, I took my girls on a five-week trip out to California. But it's very, very important that we make a high priority for our children and let them know that they are important to us.

Principal versus standards. I asked Donnie Weaver one time. I said, "Donnie, I'd like to know a secret of your family." There were eight siblings in his family, eight children, and all of those children left the church that they were brought up in and went to a more conservative church, whatever conservative means. You understand what I'm talking about, right? And they left, and I said, "That's not the experience of my parents. It's not the experience of my grandparents. I would like to know how you did it. What did your parents do?" And he said, "They taught the principle versus standards. The principles never change, right? Standards change, but principles never change. And so preach that." So one of the things I taught my children is you yield your preference.

We all have preferences, and the Bible tells us in honor to prefer one another. We surrender our preferences to the preferences of the brotherhood. And when my daughter Kelly married into the Beach Yamash Church, she said, "Dad, if you had not taught us that we yield our personal preferences to the preference of the broader brotherhood, I would have never been able to make that change." And so it's very, very important. That's one of the principles. Another principle is you avoid the concept of a preacher's kid mindset where you have to do this because I'm the pastor and you have to model it for the rest of the church. I never asked my children to do anything simply because I'm the pastor.

I asked my children to do things because it's the right thing to do. Whether you're the preacher or not the preacher, this is the way you do things, and so we have to do that. Another was, "Was that kind?" I ask that question often to my children. There's behavior, and some behavior you don't have rules about everything in life, right? And children come up with things you never thought they could think of before. But ask the question, "Was that kind? Were you kind?" And rivet that in their minds. It's a principle that throughout life we need to have that.

John Drescher and his books about marriage and parenting emphasize the fact if you want to love your children, the best way to love your children is to love their mother. Now, I have the advantage of having the very nicest woman in the whole wide world, and so that's my advantage. But I let my children know that. I tell my sons often, "If you can find a wife half as good as your mother, you'll be very, very blessed." I tell my girls, "If you can grow up half as good as your mother, you'll be very, very blessed." And sometimes I'll be blessed. But you love your wife. Love the children's mother. It's the very best thing you can do for your children, according to John Drescher.

And I tried to apply that. Bill Gossard in his seminars say, "Whoever laughs with your children will have their heart." And so is the home a fun place to be? Is it a place where we're having happy memories? And so laugh with your children. Make sure that life is not just work, work, work, work, but there's lots of joy and lots of laughter, lots of fun in the home.

Three questions that you ought to ask. Now, I don't remember again which preacher. I heard this from, but there was a preacher who said, "If you want to know if you have the heart of your children, ask these three questions to your children. Do you know that I love you? Do you know that I love your mother? And do you want to be what I am when you're my age?" And so when I heard that, I thought, "That's a good question." So we had two very young children at that time, and I asked them. We went out to the coffee shop, their spouses, and I said, "Do you know I love you?" "Absolutely." "Do you know I love your mother?" "Absolutely." "Do you want to be what I am?"

And they said, "No." And so next night we had Teen Encounter, and I asked the teenagers, "Do you know I love you?" "Yes." "Do you know I love your mother?" "Yes." "Do you want to be what I am?" They said, "No." And so I had two little girls at home, and I said, "Yes." And they said, "Yes, yes, and yes." Thank the Lord for innocence.

But we talked about it. Okay. So what don't you want to be? I don't want to be overweight. I don't want to be in debt. I don't want to have a messy garage. I don't want to" and so but we talked about those. We discussed that and I purposed to work on it, right, and acknowledge that fact.

We've got to tell our children, "Forgive the bad and build on the good." I told my children one time, I said, "It isn't so nice. All these families are grown up in homes that have so much inconsistency. It's so nice that you don't have a home. You don't have to grow up that way." And about a half hour later, they were done rolling on the floor laughing.

But talk about it. Be open and honest with that. And if you're not honest about your failures and what they don't want to be like in you, you're going to fail. You're going to miss them. I asked my father one time. I said, "Dad, you had eight children. The oldest four have abandoned the way of life that you were trying to impart to your children. The youngest four have walked in that way to some degree or another. But the four, your youngest four made it. Your oldest four did not. I'd like to know what's your perspective on that." And Dad said, "I loved all my children, but I liked my youngest four. We decided we're going to like them."

You see, when they first have children and every parent, I think, falls into this trap. We've got to have the perfect everybody's watching us. Sit up straight. Make sure you do this. And we just were so particular and so overzealous that these would turn out. And the last four, we just relaxed and just liked them. We liked being around them. And so like your children. That's one of the things I want to communicate to my children. I like you, not just love you. Get rid of anger. When my wife and I were memorizing James, I said, "James says, 'That ever made me slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God.'" And as I was meditating on that and memorizing that, God said, "You know, Clayton, you're not going to win the city of York for Jesus or your children if you're angry."

And I could tell you all kinds of

all kinds of shameful things with anger, but you've got to get rid of it. We've got to confess it as sin. God said, "Get rid of all anger, all wrath, all mouths. Don't let it once be named among you. There's no justification for anger. We've got to rid our lives of anger. We want our children to walk in our ways."

Proverbs 22:6. I started off with that, and I'll end with that. Proverbs 22:6 says, "A train up a child in the ways you go, and when he's old, you will not depart from it." Now, as I've been observing over the years, I acknowledge that most of the young families who have children who are not yet teenagers believe this verse means if I train them, that's how they're going to turn out.

Those who are a little older, who have teenagers or maybe one or two adults, they come to the conclusion that this verse really means if you train them, generally speaking, that's how they're going to turn out. Might have one or two that choose another path, but they all have free will.

Then when you get older, you talk to the older man whose children have all raised and all left the home, they say, "Well, what this really means is that it's still going to be with them. Even if they've chosen a different path, they'll never depart from it. It's in their heads. It's in their brains that they're going to have it."

I look at this as a different way, and this different way is be careful because your children are catching more than what you say, and the way you train them is how you're going to they will not depart from that. I had a man at church who told me, "That verse can't mean that, what?" "It just can't mean that because my wife wore a covering and caped dress, and all of my children have abandoned the way of life, the way of the Bible." And yet that brother was never under authority, never under authority. He sold advertising signs, and one of the signs said he had a helium balloon attached to his sign. It said, "Our helium balloons defy all zoning ordinances."

I contend that his children did not depart from what they were taught. My siblings were talking one day, and I told you the oldest four departed from what they were trained, and the youngest four sort of kept it at the varying degrees. And so they said, "It can't mean that. I mean, we all had the same parents. We all had the same training. So how can it be that some of us departed?" And I said, "Well, we know that Mom embraced every person, Dad too. Every person is a Christian. If you say, 'Name the name of Christ,' you're a Christian. And we grew up. We went to Baptist Church, Methodist Church. We visited everybody. And if they had communion, we took communion.

Now, I want you to hear me very, very clearly. Mennonites are not the only ones going to heaven. You understand that? I don't believe we're the only ones going to heaven. But we had to be very, very careful because we were taught that everybody's equal. It's all okay. And we didn't depart from that. My mother was a house food not before it was fashionable. I was raised without white flour, white sugar. And she wrote all those books. You men have to suffer through them. Sorry for that, but all those recipes. But our family reunions now have lots of sugar, lots of white flour. We have all kinds. So how comes that?

My siblings said, "How come we didn't depart? We didn't hold that?" Saturday, I said, "We all knew that when Dad came home from work, we'd look in his lunch pail and see what tasty cakes he had that day." And so the message was when you're with Mom, this is how you eat. When you're away from Mom, you can eat any way you want. And we have not departed from that. When I think about

anger and your children and how fast they grow, how soon you're gone, be careful because the way you teach your children, your actions, your attitudes, what happens at home when your preacher's not watching, when the brothers in our church aren't watching, your children are catching that.

Train up a child in the ways you go and when he's old, do not depart from it. God bless us.