Revolutionary Parenting

My Mom and Dad gave my sisters and I a book for Christmas entitled Revolutionary Parenting by George Barna. (Click on the title to jump to the Barna site where you can purchase the book.) The subtitle is Want to Raise a Spiritual Champion?  What the Research Shows Really Works.  I just finished reading it today, and I highly recommend it to you Moms and Dads out there.  He's quick to explain that this book is not a step by step plan that he has come up with that will supposedly help your kids become "spiritual champions".  Instead, he has done significant research by conducting national surveys, exploring existing literature thought to be of significance in raising faith Revolutionaries as he calls them, and they did more than 10,000 personal interviews to identify people in their 20s who were leading "transformed" lives (much more than just being religious or active in a church).  Through these 10,000 interviews he sought to discover what happened during their growing up years that led them to become irrepressible followers of Christ.  Then he in got permission to speak to these 20somethings' parents, and he asked the parents what they thought they had done that helped their child grow into a mature follower of Christ.  

I was immediately hooked by this new approach of a parenting book being based truly on research.  I'm going to read it a second time with Stan, and I am very eager to have someone to discuss the chapters with, because it's the kind of book that really makes you eager to analyze yourself as parents and work on some new game plans, so to speak.  You may be intrigued to know that when they surveyed young adults and asked them what they felt the most significant mistakes that America's parents have made, the second highest ranked mistake was not spending enough time with their children.  The failure to provide appropriate discipline was the top-ranked deficiency.  

The back of the book reads like this, "If you're like most parents, you think you're doing an okay job--and you probably believe you're doing better than most.  But if your goal is to raise kids with a life-impacting faith, that may not be good enough."

He has an ability to kind of whack you upside your head and really make you say to yourself, "Yeah, you're right.  If I'm honest I do sometimes think like that." But man, I really want to raise Olivia and Benjamin to be spiritual champions.  His definition of a spiritual champion is: an irrepressable follower of Jesus Christ who accepts the Bible as truth, lives by its principles, and seeks ways to impact the world and continually deepen his/her relationship with God. He goes into greater detail in one passage in the first chapter.  

...they possess a biblical world view that shapes their decision-making process because they accept scriptural principles as true and significant.  As an integral part of that world view, they contend that there are moral absolutes that are relevant to our lives and have dramatic consequences if compromised.  They believed that they have been created by God to serve Him in specific ways; acknowledge the continual spiritual war between God and Satan in which both of those supernatural powers can influence their choices; and believe that our lives should reflect the character of God.  Spiritual champions donate unusually generous amounts of time and money to spiritually driven causes.  They carefully screen the media they ingest and have a deep and intense commitment to their relationship with God and other Christians.  On a daily basis they strive to change the world in small but life-impacting ways, whether it is done through feeding the hungry, counseling the bereaved, encouraging the confused, protecting the environment, or other means.  In the context of current American life, spiritual champions lead a Revolutionary existence.  Their life perspectives are uncommon, their relationships are unique, and their emphasis on the centrality of their faith in God is stunning.  Without a doubt, their lives are the product of unusual but intentional preparation.

Isn't that inspiring???  It is also daunting and challenging--that last line about how spiritual champions are "the product of unusual but intentional preparation"--yeah, that's the hard part.  We've got to figure out, with the Lord's help, what that unusual but intentional preparation looks like within each of our own families.  

Anyway, I've really enjoyed the book, and I hope maybe you'll consider reading it yourself.  Abby, Carrie Beth, I'd love to hear what you're thinking of it if you've had a chance to read it yet.  It is challenging.