Redeeming God

Liberating you from bad ideas about God

Learn the MOST ESSENTIAL truths for following Jesus.

Get FREE articles and audio teachings in my discipleship emails!


  • Join Us!
  • Scripture
  • Theology
  • My Books
  • About
  • Discipleship
  • Courses
    • What is Hell?
    • Skeleton Church
    • The Gospel According to Scripture
    • The Gospel Dictionary
    • The Re-Justification of God
    • What is Prayer?
    • Adventures in Fishing for Men
    • What are the Spiritual Gifts?
    • How to Study the Bible
    • Courses FAQ
  • Forum
    • Introduce Yourself
    • Old Testament
    • New Testament
    • Theology Questions
    • Life & Ministry

How to Raise Children When Not “Attending” Church

By Jeremy Myers
18 Comments

How to Raise Children When Not “Attending” Church

When parents seek to follow Jesus by being the church in their communities (rather than by simply attending church), one of the questions that often comes up is “What about our children? How will they learn about the Bible? How will they discover Jesus? How will they learn to worship God?”

First of all, here is what it DOES NOT look like. Ever. At least, not in any family I have ever seen:

parenting outside of the church

So how do we raise children if we don’t “attend church”?

I don’t have all the answers to these questions, but note, first of all, that the prevalence of such questions reveals how broken “church” has become. I mean, according to Scripture, it is the parent’s responsibility to raise up their children and teach them about God, but our modern way of doing church relinquishes these things to 45 minutes on Sunday morning and Wednesday night, in a building with a (generally) controlled environment, and to a person we don’t really know.

Isn’t that crazy?

How did we go from “Train up a child in the way he should go” (Prov 22:6) and “Teach these things to your children … ” (Deut 6:7; 11:19) to asking, “So what did you learn in Sunday school today?” on the drive home from church?

I sometimes think that the simple act of sitting in a pew on Sunday morning gives our children a terrible misconception about what it means to worship God and follow Jesus. The activity of “attending church” rather than being the church in our day-to-day lives can give the impression to our children that loving God and following Jesus is a “Sunday morning in the pew” activity, rather than a minute-by-minute awareness throughout the day.

Anyway, again, I don’t have all the answers … in fact, I don’t have ANY answers.

But here is my basic approach: We teach and train our children by loving them. Your children will not learn about God if you “go to church” but then treat them like crap the rest of the week.

Children learn to imitate what we do; not by what we say or what we tell them to do.

raise children outside the church

Remember that raising children to follow Jesus “outside the institutional church” is not at all the same thing as raising them to follow “outside the church.” If you are seeking to follow Jesus with your life, you are still raising your children within the church, and may be doing a better job of it than if you sat in a pew on Sunday morning and hoped that your children were learning something downstairs.

Over at the “All About Eve” blog which I am writing for, Eve asked these questions about parenting, and I proposed a bit of an answer. Here is an excerpt from what I said:

So while parenting might be the “good” you focus on right now, this does not mean you cannot get a job, write a book, care for the needy in your community, or do any of the other “good” things available for you to do right now. You might do any or all of them. But if you do, and if you have chosen to focus on loving your children, then these other things can be done in light of loving and training them. Take a job, for instance. You could show your children love through a part-time job by showing up for work on time, not bad-mouthing your boss or coworkers at home, and wisely using the money that you earn. This is just an example, but you probably get the point.

Go read Eve’s question here, and the rest of my response here.

Recently, I also heard a pretty good podcast about this. It was called “The Wild Ones.” You can listen to it here: The Wild Ones by Darrin Hufford.

Certainly, as we follow Jesus into the world, other people speak into the lives of our children, but raising and loving our children in the ways of God is not something we pass off to the youth pastor or the Sunday school teacher. It is a day-in and day-out way of living life before our children with Jesus by our side.

Do you have children? Are you seeking to teach them to follow Jesus outside of the “four walls” of institutional Christianity, and into a moment-by-moment relationship with God and others? If so, what ideas can you share? What challenges have you faced? What are your fears and how have you dealt with them?

God is Uncategorized Bible & Theology Topics: All About Eve, being the church, Discipleship, institutional church, parenting

Advertisement

Do We Suffer from the Illusion of Control?

By Jeremy Myers
16 Comments

Do We Suffer from the Illusion of Control?

Illusion of ControlI wrote the second post for the “All About Eve” blog, and as I was writing it, I was pretty sure that most of what I was writing was … well … not quite what I wanted to say. But I published the post late last night anway, and went to bed.

When I woke up this morning, I knew where I had gone wrong, and am now writing this post…

It is not that what I wrote was wrong; it just was not helpful. “Eve” was grappling with issues of control, and I basically told her that she needed to get in control of her desire to control.

That doesn’t make any sense does it?

When we try to control our desire to control, all we do is amplify our sense of control.

We often call it “letting go of control” but really, all we are doing is trying to gain more control over our life.

Here is the vicious cycle that happens: A person recognizes that they are trying to control others. They see this as bad and feel guilty about this control. So they try to “let go of control,” but when they fail at this also, they now feel guilty about the control AND feel guilty about failing to let go of control. Now they have a double whammy of guilt, which only exacerbates the problem.

You see? When we try to let go of control, we are trying to control control, and since we can neither control people and events, nor let go of control, we walk around in an ever-increasing state of guilt about how we are always trying to control others and how we wish we wouldn’t do this.

What is the fix for our issues with control?

Well, this is where I don’t have many answers. I know for a fact that I am still trying to exert great control in my own life, and I become quite fearful when I see that I cannot.

However, these wise words from Master Oogway to Shifu were helpful:

But here is what is interesting … If you have seen the movie, you know that when Shifu trained Thai Lang, he did exactly as Master Oogway has suggested. He believed in Thai Lang. But Thai Lang’s lust for power led him down a path toward darkness that Shifu never wanted nor intended. This is partly why Shifu is now trying to control the situation. But he cannot.

And I think that this is my problem as well. In the past, when I have believed in God for my future, and believed in the best of others, it has only led to great heartache and pain. Since I do not want to experience that pain and heartache again, I try to exert control over others in my life, and over life itself.

And lest we think we can disregard Master Oogway because he is only speaking some sort of Eastern mysticism crap, the Bible pretty much says the same thing. Passages like James 4;13-17, Proverbs 16:9, and Proverbs 19:21 all reveal that when it comes to control of what happens in our life, control is an illusion. Sure, as Shifu points out in the video clip above, there are a few things we can control, but in the grand scheme of our life, these few things are so insignificant, they amount to having hardly any control at all.

Illusion of control Calvin

controlling othersAs Perry Noble has written:

It is amazing when we sit back and begin to understand how little control we actually have in the world.

  • I did not control the day I was born! /li>
  • I did not control who my parents were!
  • I did not control where I was born!
  • I did not control the color of my skin, eyes and hair.
  • I will not control when and where I step into eternity.
  • I cannot control other drivers on the road.
  • I cannot control what other people think about me.
  • I cannot control my daughter’s future. (I can try to direct it…but I can’t control it!)
  • I cannot control the weather.
  • I cannot control how fast (or slow) my food gets to me in a restaurant.
  • I cannot control how fast (or slow) the person in front of me is driving.
  • I cannot control whether or not someone I know and loves prays to receive Christ.
  • I cannot control the fact that my body is breaking down (I heal/repair MUCH slower at 40 than I did at 20!)
  • I cannot control God by my religious performance.

Freedom, TRUE freedom, is understanding how out of control we are and then placing our faith in a God who has NEVER ceased to maintain control over what He has created.

So… to everyone who feels like you are out of control…it’s because YOU ARE!!! And, the more we try to control the more likely we are to live in complete rebellion to the one who is in control, who has all things in His hands and who constantly calls us to surrender to Him so that we can experience the joy of living under HIS Sovereignty rather than having to constantly discover that we have none of our own!

So If Control is an Illusion, How Can We Live Without Fear?

I don’t have all the answers on this, and as I stated above, this is all new to me as well. But I am learning, to the best of my ability, to just “enjoy the ride.” Life, it seems, is little more than a wild roller-coaster ride and nothing we can do will control the twists and turns of the track, the slow climbs up the hills or the terrifying plummets into the valleys. We may scream. We may cry. We may even throw up.

But after a couple time around the track, you begin to just enjoy it. Throw up your hands and laugh every time your stomach jumps into your chest.

How can we learn to do this? Because we know a few things:

  1. God is the builder of this roller coaster called life. No matter what, we won’t fall off the track.
  2. God loves us, our children, and our spouses MORE than we ever can.
  3. Jesus is riding in the seat next to us, and He’s hootin’ and hollerin’ with hands raised to the sky.

Based on these three things, we can KNOW that God will guide us and take care of us, and He will do the same for our children as well. Our life (and theirs) may not look the way we wanted or last as long as we think it should, but trying to control life or even trying to control our sense of control only causes us to lose all the enjoyment of life with God.

So don’t simply try to stop controlling people. Also stop trying to control your sense of control. Simply recognize that there is no control, and then sit back and enjoy the ride.

Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior … Fear not, for I am with you (Isaiah 43:1).

God is Redeeming Theology Bible & Theology Topics: All About Eve, children, control, Discipleship, faith, fear, life, marriage, parenting

Advertisement

What a Day in the Life of the Church Looks Like for me

By Jeremy Myers
3 Comments

What a Day in the Life of the Church Looks Like for me

all about eveI am participating with several other authors and bloggers in a preparation for a conference in Portland called “All About Eve.” The other contributors are:

  • Wm. Paul Young, author of the The Shack
  • Deidre Havrelock, author of The Starving Church (and other books)
  • Skye McKenzie, author of Forty Days to Breakthrough
  • “Eve,” a follower of Jesus who has recently stopped “attending church”

The situation is that “Eve” has numerous questions about how to follow Jesus outside of the four walls of institutional Christianity. Go read her introduction here. I will be writing as her “pastor” to provide input and suggestions about how she and her family can do this. I put my introductory post up here.

All About Eve

I will be writing my post for the All About Eve blog on Thursdays for the next 40 weeks. I will be posting an excerpt of my blog post here, and then inviting you to go over to the other blog to read the rest of the post.

Here is an excerpt from today’s post:

Eve,

You have asked what it looks like for my family to go to church.

Let me try to describe it.

It all begins in the morning when my wife and I roll out of bed. While my wife wakes up our three girls and then makes breakfast, I stumble into the kitchen to make some coffee. Usually, my wife is several steps ahead of me, and the pot of black magic (aka “The Elixir of Life”) is ready to drink.

After breakfast, we all hop into the car and drive over to a local brick building. We go in and say “Hello” to the greeter at the front door. He sometimes gives us a little piece of paper that will help us know what is going on there that day. We then walk around a little bit, occasionally talking to people we meet. At one point in the morning, we give some money to a person standing behind a counter, and we often chat a little bit with them as well.

Then we leave Walmart with the things we just bought and go back out to our car.

The items we just bought are for a small gathering that will take place later that day at our neighbor’s house. We met him when we first moved into the neighborhood, and we quickly learned that he too is a follower of Jesus. So every so often, we gather at his house. Usually, before we begin, he shows us a project he is working on in his back yard, or a picture he painted when he was younger. His wife is also there, and she talks about their health concerns. Sometimes there is food involved, but not always. Then we get down to business.

On this day, we go outside into his front yard and start raking leaves. You see, he just recently had heart surgery, and is not able to rake all the leaves that have fallen. He also cannot run errands yet. We went to Walmart to buy them some food and household items, and are now at his house raking up the leaves in his front yard. When we are done, he thanks us profusely, and we chat a bit more before going home for lunch.

To read the rest of what a day in the life of the church looks like for me, go read the article here.

God is Redeeming Books Bible & Theology Topics: All About Eve, attending church, be the church, being the church, church, going to church, Theology of the Church

Advertisement

Join the discipleship group
Learn about the gospel and how to share it

Take my new course:

The Gospel According to Scripture
Best Books Every Christian Should Read
Study Scripture with me
Subscribe to my Podcast on iTunes
Subscribe to my Podcast on Amazon

Do you like my blog?
Try one of my books:

Click the image below to see what books are available.

Books by Jeremy Myers

Theological Study Archives

  • Theology – General
  • Theology Introduction
  • Theology of the Bible
  • Theology of God
  • Theology of Man
  • Theology of Sin
  • Theology of Jesus
  • Theology of Salvation
  • Theology of the Holy Spirit
  • Theology of the Church
  • Theology of Angels
  • Theology of the End Times
  • Theology Q&A

Bible Study Archives

  • Bible Studies on Genesis
  • Bible Studies on Esther
  • Bible Studies on Psalms
  • Bible Studies on Jonah
  • Bible Studies on Matthew
  • Bible Studies on Luke
  • Bible Studies on Romans
  • Bible Studies on Ephesians
  • Miscellaneous Bible Studies

Advertise or Donate

  • Advertise on RedeemingGod.com
  • Donate to Jeremy Myers

Search (and you Shall Find)

Get Books by Jeremy Myers

Books by Jeremy Myers

Schedule Jeremy for an interview

Click here to Contact Me!

© 2025 Redeeming God · All Rights Reserved · Powered by Knownhost and the Genesis Framework