Page 65 - Sarah's Children

Father then revealed to me some other tragic results. He told me that when He gives
someone a responsibility, He also gives them the authority to carry it out. Because
the church was not given the responsibility to train up children, they lacked the
authority to achieve lasting results. They were endeavoring to do something without
the authority to carry it out.

He also showed me that with responsibility goes honor. When parents train their
children they receive the honor that goes with their position of instruction. When
they give away the responsibility they also give away the honor that attends it. The
children instead give the honor to their teachers, and in times of conflict between a
parent’s advice and a teacher’s, the child will often side with the teacher for they
honor them more in the realm of instruction and insight than they do their own
parents.

As Father began to show me all of these things I was appalled. I saw how the church
had developed a tradition that began with good intent, and how it had developed into
something that had far reaching negative repercussions in the body of Christ. Many
of the parents in the church I was in spent no time at all instructing their children.
The results were very evident.

As the Father finished speaking to me of these things I had to tear up the paper I had
formerly prepared and write a new paper. Whereas I was confident the church
leadership would have received the first paper well, I was very guarded in my
optimism of how they would receive the revelations Father had given me. I knew
that, although the elders of this church said they wanted to be a New Testament body
of believers, they actually only wanted to do so in so far as they did not have to give
up any traditions that they found to be to their liking.

I shared my findings with the church leadership, and it was totally rejected. I shared
with the elders that according to scripture, the chief focus of the church in making
disciples of its children should be in encouraging, equipping, and releasing parents
to fulfill their divinely given responsibilities. I shared with them that this is where
the efforts of leadership should be focused, and that the Sunday School should be
phased out, as it existed in its current forms.

Everything I shared was resolutely rejected. Some of the elders refused to even
consider that such a sacred cow as Sunday School should actually be done away with,
or that it could be having a detrimental impact upon families. My tenure as Sunday
School Superintendent was very short lived, and the bad fruit of our traditions was
seen in the breakdowns in the families of the church.

This is but one example of a conflict I found myself in due to my zeal to walk in the