The Crash Course Every Mom Needs

Posted on Aug 31, 2021 Topic : Women's Christian Living
Posted by : Hillary Morgan Ferrer

Several years ago, my husband and I were asked to be helpers at an apologetics class at my parents’ church. It was here that we met a woman named Jody. One day, Jody stood up to give her story. She had raised two sons in the church. They attended Awana, youth group, and church every week. One of them even asked to be rebaptized after his first year in college. After her son got his first job post-college, her world was turned upside down. On a weekend visit, he declared that he no longer believed in God. He was following in the footsteps of his atheist boss, who had convinced him that “Jesus was just like Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.”

Jody listened to her son, asked him questions, and tried to see what had caused such a seismic shift in his life. When he left to return home, Jody—a fitness instructor—dove into the unfamiliar world of academia and Christian scholarship, frantically searching for evidence that would refute her son’s objections. Shocked that the church had not prepared her (or her son) for culture’s antagonism toward Christianity, Jody spent the next several years attempting to help answer her son’s questions and walking with other parents who had experienced the same thing with their children.

I would like to say that Jody’s story is unique, but it is not. Kids are being introduced to challenges to Christianity at younger and younger ages. In response, we can either focus on the questions themselves, or we can take a closer look at the worldly philosophies behind the questions. What if we could prime our children to think biblically before they are presented with the questions that challenge the faith?

Think of ideas as seeds. Whether or not a seed grows is determined by the kind of soil it is placed in (and whether we water it). We want to nurture our children’s intellectual soil so that when (not if!) bad ideas are planted there, they won’t grow. We don’t want our children to feel like they have to choose between God and science because we have already made an effort to till their intellectual soil so they know that science and faith are not at odds. We don’t want our kids to look to the government as their savior because they know that the battle has already been won by Christ. We want them to know what constitutes trustworthy evidence so that they can never claim that “there is no evidence for God.” We want them to understand that truth is exclusive—it excludes falsehood.

These principles are foundational to everything Scripture teaches. Allow the foundation to erode, and we leave our kids prey to doubt and worldly thinking. Culture’s lies are like weeds that want to take over the garden of our children’s minds. The lies need to be stopped, and they stop with you, Mama Bear!

Our job as Mama Bears is to protect our children no matter where the threats may come from. Protection may mean sheltering our kids for a time, but that’s a short-term solution. We need to prepare our children so they aren’t left unprotected for the future. The greatest protection we can give our kids is to equip them to face the cultural lies head-on while remaining gracious, loving, and winsome. It is not enough to simply tell them which ideas are raised against the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:5). We must train them to understand why those ideas are flawed. We want to train them to use their critical thinking skills during every lecture, every movie, every song, and—yes—even every sermon!

We don’t want our children to see everything around them as black and white, because, frankly, we don’t live in a comic-book world. We want them to realize that biblical truths and cultural lies can appear anywhere at any time. We don’t want our children to live in fear, but with discernment. We want our kids to be able to see Christ in art, movies, science, history, music—in all things because He is Lord over all. Yet we don’t want them to assume that everything they encounter in art, movies, science, history, or music is speaking His truth.

With enough practice, our children won’t even have to think about the way they receive or reject the various ideas or views espoused in our world. It’s like breathing. We don’t inhale 100% oxygen. We inhale a combination of oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and atmosphere. Our bodies were designed to take in the oxygen and exhale everything else. If we as Mama Bears do our jobs well, and we hope this book will help you on that journey, then our little bears will be able to interact with this culture with grace, love, and critical thinking—inhaling the spiritual oxygen and exhaling everything else—in a way that is as natural as breathing. This skill doesn’t come overnight, and we need it to teach ourselves first.

So get ready, Mama Bears! It’s time to learn about culture’s lies and #RoarLikeAMother.