Doing Things We Have To Do

Jim Davis

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Sometimes I would like to have this kind of answering service for the church office. If you live in the real world you realize--our children are not the only ones responsible, but parents are responsible.

Parenting is the most important job on earth. It has the most far-reaching possibilities for good or bad. It is so sobering for me each time we have a new grandchild born. The foremost question in my mind is this---it is really the only question that matters in that child's life. Where will this child spend his or her eternity? This is when the day of one's birth is more important than the day of one's death.

The Good Old Days

Do you know the most common excuse for a family not attending church that I have heard over the last 28 years of preaching? "They don't have anything for the children." "They" means the church doesn't have anything for the children. This is an ineffective way of placing the responsibility for our children on others. Do you know what the saddest part of all this is? Those people and those children, for the most part, never went to church anywhere else and aren't going to church anywhere today. Over the years I have seen those kids virtually grow up without Christ.

I know how kids are. I used to be one. I grew up going to little country churches. We only had preaching every other Sunday. In those days preaching twice a month was more than most wanted. On the Sundays we didn't have preaching we would have Sunday school and the Lord's Supper and go home EARLY.

The church claimed they couldn't afford to pay a preacher four times a month. Looking back I can only wonder if that was a convenient excuse not to have to listen to another long boring sermon. There was something unique about the Sundays we didn't have preaching. The kids loved it. It meant we went home earlier. When we visited other churches, we were always excited if it was a Sunday they didn't have preaching.

In those days church was really boring. None of the kids had their Sunday school lesson. I remember the church buying Sunday school lesson books in mass numbers for the kids and the adults. They always purchased more books than needed, because many would forget and leave their Sunday school books at home. So they would pass out a new batch each Sunday. (The reason we forgot our books was because we didn't study our Sunday school lesson and answer the questions before coming to class. We couldn't be expected to answer any questions in class if we forgot our books. This was especially true at the end of each quarter when there were no other books to hand out.)

Youth fellowship in those days amounted to most of the kids sitting on the same pew toward the back of the church building. Those kids who had to sit by their parents weren't cool. I remember sitting through those long sermons. We had this one kid that was always getting the rest of us in trouble. He was always thinking up something cute to get our attention. There were always a lot of dirty looks from the parents as they looked back to see what was going on. The parent's lips were moving in silence. You didn't have to read their lips to know what they were saying. It was plain to see that you were in trouble when you got home.

We never took notes during class or preaching. There was no need to take notes. The lessons were always simple two point lessons that you couldn't forget. Here are some of the points: TURN OR BURN; another one was, IF YOU MAKE YOUR BED HARD YOU WILL HAVE TO SLEEP IN IT, the two point lesson in this was about REAPING and SOWING. There was another theme that revolved around "WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH SIN?" The second point to that lesson was "YOU NIP IT IN THE BUD." Those were in the days when you woke up in a nightmare about going to hell. Today we don't have shocking nightmares about hell. We have pleasant dreams about a light at the end of the tunnel and a peaceful presence. In those childhood days the tunnels were filled with smoke and heat.

Many of those small churches had a gas furnace built in the floor. In many of those churches the furnace was placed beneath the floor right in front of the front pew. Those furnaces had a large metal louver covering that allowed the heat to radiate up into the auditorium. When you walked across those metal grates, the sound could be heard all over the auditorium. There was this one fellow that always sat on the front pew right in front of that metal grated gas heater. He usually went to sleep during the long sermons. He would sit there and nod. Sometimes his body would nod forward -- then he would catch his balance and nod backwards.

It was exciting watching to see if he was going to fall out of his pew. One Sunday after everyone got tired of watching him, he literally lost his balance as he was sitting there nodding. He jumped to his feet to keep from falling to the floor. He landed right in the middle of that metal grate--making a terrible sound it woke everybody in the church up.

The town doctor had two kids who weren't cool. They weren't allowed to sit on the back and fellowship with the rest of us kids. He thought the kids on the back row were too rowdy. He had a daughter born that was much younger than his other children. He couldn't keep her still in church. He used to hit her on the back of the head with a songbook to make her behave. The other two kids became doctors, but this one wasn't into studying. She wasn't concerned about being as smart as the other two. People used to say, well she's not too smart. I remember my mother saying, "It's no wonder, the way Dr. __________ hits her on the head with a song book in church. He has probably damaged her brain." Our parents also hit us when we misbehaved, but it wasn't on the head. (By the way I am not using the names of any of these individuals to protect the guilty.)

Kids were the only ones who had visions in the churches I grew up in. They only had them when they were thumped on the head or hit on the head with a songbook.

I want to assure you that those churches seem more exciting in hindsight than they were back then in real life in the real world.

Those Were Astonishing Times

In hindsight, there were some astonishing things about those times. With a few exceptions, most of those kids cutting up on the back row who were made to go to church eventually walked down the aisle to be baptized into Christ. All those years the preachers thought those kids didn't know what was going on. Do you know the most amazing thing about growing up in those days in West Tennessee? Those small country churches in Tennessee turned out more gospel preachers than any churches in the Bible belt?

Most of those kids grew up to be respectable. One became sheriff of our home county. One is a Highway Patrol officer. Another became a judge. A couple of them are doctors. Many are going to church today. Some of them are preachers. Others have done missionary work. Some are deacons and elders in the church in our home county. It is simply amazing how God can work in the lives of children.

This lesson is for those parents that may be thinking that it is a waste of time to bring your kids to another boring church service. This lesson is for the church to understand her responsibility of providing educational programs for the children whether the children seem that interested or not.

The amazing thing about those days was that the parents took the responsibility to get the kids to church whether the kids wanted to go or not. Most of those kids were made to go to church. Today many of those children are glad their moms and dads made them. Many of them are Christians today because they were made to go to church. How many of our children would go to school if they weren't made to go. When most of those kids back then got old enough to drive and date, they would not be allowed to stay up so late that they couldn't go to church on Sunday. Many times they were told, "If you can't get up and go to church on Sunday morning after a Saturday night spree, you can't go out on Saturday night."

Those parents were paving the road to their children's future. I had an uncle that was downright legalistic about church attendance. If he had family visit him on Sunday before church time, he would leave them sitting at his house while he took his family to church. His son attends church today. His grandchildren attended church today. One of his grandsons died last year. He was ten days older than I was when he died. He went to church all his life. Don't you know that today he is grateful that he had a grandfather that was downright legalistic about his responsibility of taking his children to church?

I had another uncle that took another approach to raising his children. He didn’t think it was possible to overcome the pull the world had on his children. He relinquished any hope of salvation for his children because he didn’t think that it was possible to overcome the influence of the world upon his children. His son died last year also. He died without Christ.

Initially, we usually have to make our children do what they don’t want to do. We do this because those things are important. They learn the importance of doing those as we make them do them. Most of the things we do in life, we do because we have to do them. Do you know why we do things that we have to do? We do them because they are important. How many of us would get up and go to work if we didn't have to? But it is important that we do so. Our children learn early on that there are things they have to do because they are important. Should it be any different about going to church? Is this not important? Where will your child spend eternity?

This ought to say something to those teachers in these classrooms that may think they are wasting their time. We had a Sunday School teacher, sister Trout, who taught several generations of children in a small town where we attended church. Several of those who passed through her class became gospel preachers. I don't remember much about what she taught. I do remember the animal crackers that she would bring to class each Sunday for all the children. She would always divide them evenly among us.

I held a meeting in that church a few years after I graduated from college. That church building was the first one in my memory. Sister Trout was still alive at that time. I went back with her and looked in the same classroom she taught us in. It was a scanty little room behind the pulpit. As a child I didn't know it was so small. I told her that I remembered those years she taught us. You could see her beaming, as we were reminiscing.

That little old lady impacted a lot of lives with children who were made to go to church. Her influence is reaching thousands today through those who are preaching and those who became leaders in the church.

Conclusion:

Parents remember, if it isn't something the child has to do, it is probably not going to ever be important to the child.

Teachers, it is not easy teaching children who don't want to go to church, but it is important. Someday they will be grateful that you had the opportunity.

We are starting our Lads to Leaders classes next week. Make it a priority on your list for your child to be there---even if you have to make them.