How can someone who did not grow up in a Christian home become a godly parent?

Did you grow up in a godly home?

Did your parents love Jesus, one another and you?

Was the Bible opened in your home growing up?

Did your family pray together and worship together at home and church growing up?

The odds are that your answer to these questions is no. If your answer is yes, then you are very blessed with a rare family.

For everyone else, we often do not realize how messed up our family is until we become a Christian, start reading the Bible, and begin attending church. As we hear what the Bible says about marriage, parenting, families and relationships we suddenly have a framework through which to evaluate the health of our family. As we get to know families in the church and see how they relate to one another and raise their children, we start to more clearly see the faults, flaws, and failures of our families.

Hopefully, this kind of insight does not cause us to become bitter but instead strive to do better. Rather than nursing the pain of the family we grew up in, we can nurture a plan for the family our children will grow up in. As a parent, we have an opportunity to take the best from our upbringing and give it to our children while also leaving the worst of our upbringing in the past and replacing it with something better for our kids. This is the blessing of parenting.

My wife Grace and I have five children—three boys and two girls—who are all thankfully walking with Jesus and serving at our church. While teaching a series called Parenting on Point at our church, Grace and I took questions and did our best to provide answers on the spot off the cuff. One of the questions we received was, “How can someone who did not grow up in a Christian home become a godly parent?”. This is a very common question that parents and even grandparents often wrestle with. My wife and I did our best to provide some practical and biblical advice that we hope is helpful in this video.

Lastly, if you have a question I might be able to answer in a future Ask Pastor Mark video clip, send it in to [email protected]. If your question is chosen, we hope to be helpful to you and the many other people who are likely wrestling with the same question that you are. Everyone has questions, and thankfully the Bible has answers.