Who's accountable?

A scary title! But knowing that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and that there are things God will hold us accountable for should cause us, at the very least, to carefully consider our choices.

Considering children and instruction (and you could, conceivably, have one without the other) who's responsible for what? We're accountable to God as individuals, as parents, as families, as church communities. Even nations are ultimately accountable to God whether we believe it or not.

Individuals become families that grow into communities and communities into nations. God examines our work. Eventually He burns off the dross and we all hope that when it's finished He'll see Jesus. That's the telephoto shot. You can't see the detail...

What are we accountable for? As individuals we're responsible to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, strength and to love our neighbor as our self. We create the detail.

As parents, we're responsible to love our kids, to deliberately train them up in the way they should go, to teach them to obey so they can inherit the promises that go with it, to tell them stories of what God has done, to teach them what God has said when we rise up, when we sit down, when we walk along the way...Again, we create the detail.

"The church": the people of God ie. a living growing body of people who are following the way of Jesus. There was probably a time when people thought they could better meet needs through an institution with more organization and government, a well- oiled system with strong leaders. When, where, and how did a community become an institution? . . . another discussion. . . The institution may become a bit calcified, but across time where people are hearing His words, doing what He says, responding to His Spirit and the people around them, there's life beyond the walls. And again, we create the detail.

Over the years, church and school have taken on the responsibility of formal instruction so we hold them accountable. There are probably a lot of good historical reasons for that. Yet having the mind of Christ, being formed in the image of Christ, being imitatiors of Christ and members of His Body are more than knowing the right answers. Does it just happen? How do you measure it? Do we need to? God is the only one who knows the heart of a person. Surely Father, Son (Living Word) and Holy Spirit have a huge role to play instructing and forming as we make our choices in families and communities.

For His three years of ministry Jesus was very deliberate about what He was doing, yet He said to His disciples, "Follow me..." He created and equipped a community of believers. They would have to continue the work when He was gone. His teaching/forming process wasn't unlike the passage in Deut. 11: 19. There were a lot of relational things going on.

Parents carried responsibility for training their children but families were part of multi-generational communities. My experience with aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents around all the time was quite different from that of my children who saw their extended family 3-4 times a year. But 2500 years ago, life probably wasn't changing at the pace it is today.

Paul says the church is responsible to equip the saints for the work of service and to display the wisdom of God to the nations ... Jesus said "Go...teaching them to obey all that I've commanded you..." and Jesus told us to make sure we don't cause one of these little people to stumble... to keep the debris off the path.

Who's job is it to train and trim the branches of a vine that's graced with its own will, so it will be bearing lots of fruit when the Vinedresser comes to inspect it? Who initiates our children into a friendship, a relationship with their creator? Who trains them and inspires them to keep running after God to know Him because they're being driven from the inside, not the outside? (a process not unlike what we hope will happen with new believers.)

Who is responsible to fullfill the mandate to teach our children to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength? Do we really have any control over that process except to pray, share our own life, share what our own eyes have seen, be ambassadors of the listening love of God?

If we believe the influence of community matters to God we, as parents, have a responsibility to raise our children in a community of caring believers who will also make meaningful contributions to their lives. What role does leadership play?

What role does the church play in the lives of children? Does instruction need to be deliberate or will formation happen if we're living the way God wants us to live? Does the church have a role to specifically equip parents? To specifically equip children? Or will it just happen if we're equipping the saints for the work of service? Does it matter?

(c) 2005 Margie Hillenbrand