If you run into someone you haven’t seen in a while today, you’ll likely begin catching up and asking how things are going. There’s a strong chance one, or both of you, may respond with a one-word answer:
“Busy.”
Busy is our badge of honor, a sign our lives matter and that what’s happening is significant.
As the seasons change and school begins, our schedules get even busier. Many of us seek to establish (or re-establish) rhythms and routines. We look to determine where the elements of our lives will fit together - what we have room for and what we don’t.
The Importance of Big Rocks
Thirty years ago, productivity expert Stephen Covey released his mega-bestselling book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In that book, he introduced a metaphor which illustrated the challenge many of us face today.
The metaphor Covey popularized includes a speaker (Covey), rocks, and a jar. As the story goes, Covey begins by filling the jar with big rocks and then he pauses and asks his audience, “Is the jar full?” The crowd responds, “Yes!” But then Covey adds a bunch of gravel that makes its way around the bigger rocks. He repeats his question, only to show how there is still room for sand. And then he demonstrates that there is even room for water.
One audience member thought the point of the illustration was to communicate that there’s always room to add more to your schedule. Covey said, “No. That’s not the point. The truth this illustration teaches us is: if you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all."
As we think about our schedule this fall, if we don’t put the big rocks in first, there may not be room to do so later. Yet, many of us aren’t nearly thoughtful or proactive enough to do this. We tend to go with the flow and allow life to happen to us.
Being Intentional with the Big Rock Known as Church
For the rest of the year, what if we get serious and intentional about things that really matter? What “big rocks” would we start with? I believe one we should consider is our involvement in a local church.
There are plenty of opportunities vying for the time we spend in church. A weekend camping trip, tickets to a big game, a sports tournament our kids are invited to play in, or a trip to see relatives.
Prioritizing our faith and expressing that faith through engaging with our local church matters because our kids are watching and listening.
Every parent has the epiphany one day when they realize, “Oh my goodness, my children are listening and picking up far more than I realize.” This revelation often leads to a habit of trying to talk around or explain a gap between professed values and tangible actions, between what is said and what is done.
Nearly everyone can finish this line: “Do as I say not as __ ____.”
We have a word for the concept behind “Do as I say, not as I do.”
Hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy doesn’t just affect the person who lacks integrity; everyone around them is impacted, too. No one is more affected than their family.
The Greatest Danger to Our Kids’ Faith
When I was in college, my friend was in our school’s honors program with me. To graduate from this program, each honors student had to finish a research-based thesis. My friend, who was also interning in the student ministry of a nearby church, focused his research on a subject he faced daily - spiritual apathy in teenagers.
He gained the permission of two local Christian high schools, along with his church’s student ministry, to survey their students. The results of his study were stark. After surveying hundreds of students whose families identified as church-attending Christians, he concluded that the most consistent cause of spiritual apathy in teenagers was the hypocrisy they witnessed in their parents.
In survey after survey, my friend heard from students who described the difference between who their parents were at church and who they were away from church. The study drew a connection between the perceived hypocrisy in parents and the problem of apathy in their children.
Jesus didn’t need a research paper to show him the power of hypocrisy. He knew it and rebuked it whenever he saw it.
Hypocrisy was the subject of Jesus’ most blistering rebuke in all of his teaching. In Matthew 23:2-3, Jesus unleashes a takedown of the Pharisees which would make even Twitter blush today.
Jesus begins his warning regarding these people by saying, “The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses.So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach.”
While we might say, "do as I say, not as I do," we all know that in parenting, more is caught than taught. We can teach that something is important, but our actions will show if it truly is or not.
The famous writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, once said, “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you are saying.”
If we want our kids to experience a rich, vibrant relationship with Jesus, then we need to attend closely to our words and our actions. If we want our kids to love the local church, then we need to treat our involvement there as a big rock in our life, not some gravel that fits in if there is room.
Practical Ideas for Rearranging the Items in Your Jar
This fall, here’s 3 things we can do to make our faith and church life a big rock in the jar of our life:
- Get involved in a church you’re excited to attend. If we attend a local church our children hear us constantly criticize, led by people we constantly attack, our words about the importance of loving the church will fall flat.
- Attend weekend services as a family every weekend possible. Our kids will remember those times when we said ‘no’ to a great opportunity because we valued our commitments to our local church more.
- Model spiritual practices. My parents taught me more about prayer as I observed their daily and weekly spiritual habits than they did through formal teaching. I knew what mattered to them by what they did, not just what they said. Whether it was Dad’s care for families in crisis or my mom’s 5 am prayer habit in our living room, I learned what faith looked like from living testimonies, not written ones.
A lot of opportunities will compete for our families’ hearts and calendars this fall. Before the calendar fills up and our energy wanes, let’s seize the opportunity to narrow the gap between our words and our actions, the values we profess and ones we embody.
The writer of Hebrews summarized this opportunity with these famous words in Hebrews 10:24-25, “Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another...”
Scott Savage is a pastor and a writer. He leads Cornerstone Church in Prescott, Arizona. Scott is married to Dani and they are the parents of three “little savages.” He is the creator of the Free to Forgive Course and you can read more of his writing at scottsavagelive.com.
