Michigan Camp Meeting 2019: As a Witness, Matthew 24:14

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Teach Them Diligently

Cinda Osterman

Teach Them Diligently - Part 1: Morning Time with Jesus

Father in heaven, we want to thank you so much for this another day of life and this opportunity to be here together.

Lord, we know that parenting and grandparenting, children in general, are such a blessing, but it's a huge responsibility, and we're not up to that responsibility.

We aren't capable of raising children or grandchildren the way that they need to be raised without your help.

And, Lord, we have come here this morning to hear a word from you.

We have humans that will be speaking, but we know that you are the 1 that will actually be speaking.

And so today we ask that our hearts will be opened, that our ears will be in tune to hear your spirit speaking.

And Lord, I pray for Cinda and Amy and Megan as they share.

They're sharing from their experience and their walk with you and their chance that they've worked with their children, Lord.

And we just ask that you will speak through them to us today.

So for those of you who have come, Cinda Osterman, I imagine that most of you know who she is.

But she will actually be introducing the rest of the ladies here.

So I'm just going to turn it over to her.

I have been doing parenting seminars here at Camp Meeting Off and On since 2007, so it's been 12 years.

This year, I asked Megan, Alan, and Amy Austin to join me.

I'm at the end of my parenting and what I'm sharing works, but they're in the middle of it and you still need to know it keeps working.

So, Megan is going to be sharing from 0 to 9.

I'm going to do the principal and she's going to share how to apply it for 0, 9.

And then Amy's going to be sharing 10 plus.

Kaylee, who is 15, Dylan, 13, and Elijah, 10.

So we're going to do about 20 minutes here, 20 minutes of each of us, because we were cut down to 1 hour, so we're going to talk fast.

So right after I get done, they're going to come on.

Now, when we started putting this together, we sat down and we wanted to talk about what we felt was the most essential parts of child training.

Now, of course, there's a lot more stuff we do than what we're sharing here, but we have 5 days to share, so we're sharing what we felt was the most important for those 5 days.

And that's what we're going to be covering.

Now, there's other principles that we have applied to this to make these principles that we're sharing work.

And 1 is that we feel like godly parenting needs to be intentional.

That you have to put a lot of effort into it and just a lot of time spending with the Lord to make it happen.

And the second 1 is to guard the avenues to the soul, that we have to guard everything our children put through their mouths, through their sights, through their hearing, through their touch, their associations, their dress, their diets.

And the other was our screen time, and if any of you want to go to Scott Ritzema's, that would help you this afternoon to listen to his seminars.

When we were, our children were little, it was very simple for us.

All we had to do was get rid of a TV because computers weren't around and cell phones weren't around.

So we just had to get rid of our TV and the Lord blessed us and gave us a piano instead.

So we made a trade with my husband's sister and she wanted our TV and a gun and we wanted the family piano.

That's the only thing we had to worry about.

For Megan and Amy, it's very different, because we live in a different world and a different technology.

So both of them got rid of their TVs and they're very limited on screen time because we're trying to save our children.

Like I said, it's very intentional for what we do.

Now all the things that I've done in my life and I've done a lot of fun things.

I'm an older, I'm a grandma, only I don't have grandchildren.

So when I want grandbabies, I call her and ask if she'd bring the boys for the weekend.

So it's good for them and it's good for us so we get to have some grandparenting time.

And so, and I'm sure they're happy to bring them to us.

But right now I work with adults and children on dyslexia, ADD, autism, and any learning issues.

But the greatest reward that I have ever had in my life was parenting my own children.

In Child Guidance 163, it says, no higher work was ever committed to mortals than the shaping of character.

Children are not only to be educated, but trained as well.

And who can tell the future of a growing child or youth.

Let the greatest care be bestowed upon the culture of your children.

1 child properly disciplined in the principles of truth, who has the love and fear of God woven through the character, will possess the power for good in the world that cannot be estimated.

Now with this child training, it's not just important for our children, but it's also important for you.

Godly parenting brings about transformation.

I had to set a godly example for my children.

I had to stay on my knees praying for wisdom and guidance because I have none in myself.

I had to keep in the Word because I need to find answers on how to work with their hearts.

It kept me close to Jesus because I needed to know His character so I could teach my children that same character.

I need to be listening to the Holy Spirit who reveals my un-Christlike character often to me and convicted my heart of sin and the things that I needed to change.

And I think that was the main point for me, is that I was unrighteous and I need to be righteous and I saw myself through my children.

And I just ran across this quote the other day and I thought, this is amazing.

Fathers and mothers may study their own character in their children.

They may often read humiliating lessons as they see their own imperfections reproduced in their sons and daughters.

When a child reveals the wrong traits which it has inherited from its parents, Shall they, the parents, storm over this reproductions of their own defects?

No, no, she says, let parents keep careful watch over themselves, guarding against all coarseness and roughness, lest these defects be seen once more in their children.

And that's when I realized that this child training was not just for them, but it was for me.

And then she goes on to say, always bear in mind that they, the children, have received their perversity as an inheritance from the father or mother.

Lord, have mercy that we pass these on to our children.

Then bear with the children who have inherited your own traits of character." So like I said, I knew that my children's struggles were my struggles.

So when they started struggling with authority, I had to go on my knees and ask the Lord, am I struggling with authority?

And he said, yes, you don't accept your husband's authority over you.

Matter of fact, I was 1 of those motorcycle mamas.

But the Lord delivered me from that lifestyle, but I still had a rebellious spirit when I got married.

So the Lord had to deal with my rebellion.

And then there was times I was looking at dishonesty, disrespect, and like I said, kept soul-searching.

If it was my husband I didn't feel like God called me to work with his, I knew God wanted me to work with his character but there was a right way and a wrong way.

Teach Them Diligently - Part 2: Learning the Joy of Obedience

Lord, please give us a, just encourage us and inspire us to be diligent to do your work and to go where you command us to go.

And Lord, as speakers, help us to speak the things that you want us to say that would light a fire in the homes of our of our friends and our family here.

And I pray, Father, that you would be glorified, not only now, but in our children as the years go by, that we would see the fruit and that we would have all of our family in the kingdom.

Now, as parents, we all have experienced what we call the joy of obedience.

It usually comes after 1 of those intense struggles that we had.

The Lord has called us to surrender, and we know we should, but we just are having a hard time.

At the end of the battle, when we surrender to Him, we always have that joy of obedience.

And that's the type of joy we want our children to have, and it's always going to be experienced with battles.

So you have to know that for them to have that joy of obedience, there's going to be a battle first.

But once they experience it, they will understand the joy of it as well.

Many parents are not seeing this type of obedience.

Instead, they're seeing a lot of disobedience, defiance, and they're wondering why.

I watch other people and their children seem to obey.

For me, I felt like it was because I did not really understand Proverbs 22, 6, when it says, train up a child.

I understood the way that the child should go, and that was in the character of Christ, but the training I was lacking.

So I always look for mentors in my church and when I didn't see them I got on my knees and I just said, Lord train me, teach me.

I want to have righteous girls, so just show me what it is I need to do.

And that's what I'm sharing with you is what God has showed me and each 1 of us are sharing that we're the same people.

We get on our knees and we just ask God to show us we are not better than any of you.

We have our same struggles that you have, but we just know and all of you have the same thing.

We have a God that's mighty and powerful and he's able to change us and change our children.

In Fundamentals of Education, there's a statement that talks about the 2 phases of child training.

It says there's a time for training children and a time for educating youth.

The training which Solomon enjoins is to direct or instruct.

And I color-coded this so it would be a little bit easier to follow.

So directing and instructing happens during the time that we're training our children.

Educate and teach, this is happening at the time that we're going to be educating our youth.

And we want development, the cultivation of God's character in the lives of our children.

And this can happen during the child training stage and in the educating our youth stage.

So what age is considered a child or youth?

Among the Jews, the 12th year was the dividing line between childhood and youth, desire of age of 75.

So training children is the ages of 0 to 12, So the intensity of your child training is going to be the strongest at 0 to 12.

You're still going to have some training as they move into the teens, but not like you're going to have in those child ages 0 to 12.

And then we move into the intensity of education, and that's going to be between those 13 and 20-year-olds.

And that's where we still have some of the training, but a lot of education has taken place here.

So what does training and educating phases really look like?

1 of the first lessons a child needs to learn is the lesson of obedience.

Before he's old enough to reason, he may be taught to obey by gentle, persistent effort the habit should be established.

So this training session time is for obedience until it becomes a habit.

And the educating youth part, it says as soon as he's capable of understanding, his reason should be enlisted on the side of obedience.

So in education, we want to enlist the child's will that they choose obedience and because it's right.

And if you want to go into depth, but I don't have time here, I'm actually on Vimeo.

You can just type in my name, and I have several videos on there you can watch on how to enlist the child's will.

There's 3 ways that I use when I was working with my children.

But we are, I am there so you can find me if you want to go into, because this is a little beyond our scope here.

So in the training session at this stage, the child is learning obedience.

Not the whys of obedience, just obedience.

So we're going to be directing and regulating the child, telling the child what to do, and it's going to be by gentle, persistent effort and earnest effort to teach them to obey, obey, obey, like I said, until it becomes a habit.

So in this stage, lots and lots of parenting control.

So we're helping the child to learn to obey.

Once we have obedience, we can move into the stage of educating our youth, and this is where we're going to start bringing the reason of that child into our child training.

And that's why I had children that would come to me and say, I have sinned, would you discipline me?

It's because I have brought them to that point where I have enlisted their will into this obedience.

So it's explained the why's, it's obedience is developed by educating.

Now we can start education if a child has not first learned to obey.

Education is for the purpose of knowledge, how those cause and effects work so our child can apply this information in other areas of their life.

And if you train them right, and they have these principles, they will use them all their lives.

And as we go through, and we give those practical illustrations of how to do these things, you'll see how that actually works.

Now in the education phase, our children are starting having their own self-control.

We're supposed to be self-controlled Christians, that we can come to the Lord and make changes in our heart because of the way the Lord works through us.

And that's what we're going to take our children through.

1 day they leave our home and our children need to learn how to be righteous.

And I always look at it as a pyramid that if we're faithful and we do lots and lots of training in this child phase, then our children will really experience that joy of obedience.

And then we can move into that education phase where we can spend a lot of time reasoning and educating and telling them why.

And when we do it right, this is 1 of the most exciting stages at all because a lot of that discipline you've been doing constant and constant and constant lifts up.

And then you get to enjoy your children when you think, is this ever going to get better?

If not, there is something you will reap from it.

But when we are at this stage and we really, our children are doing this, we have the hearts of our children and our children's goal is always to please the Lord.

That's what they want to do and please the Lord.

There's a statement that somebody I found years ago.

And it's from Moments Together for Living What You Believe.

And it says, some boys were tempting a young lad to pull a prank with them.

They said, oh, you're just afraid because if your father finds out, he might hurt you.

And the boy looked back at the others and he said, no, I'm afraid if he finds out, it'll hurt him.

And that's what we want from our children, that sin is something they don't want because it's hurting us and it's hurting their heavenly father.

Many families are not training children and educating youth.

Teach Them Diligently - Part 3: Each Thought Counts

Kind Heavenly Father, we want to thank you again for giving us this opportunity to come before you.

You know that we have nothing of ourselves to present here, but Lord, everything's about you.

We ask that you would come into our hearts, our minds, the 3 of us as we present, and our audience as they hear.

We desire to raise children that honor and glorify your name, and Lord, you're using us to do it, these weak, un-Christlike vessels.

But yet, you're pouring out your spirit within us that we may give back to our children.

So we just ask now that you would be with us and continue to watch over us this day.

I'd like to tell you before we actually get started, these talks are actually custom made for all of you.

I want you to know that because every night when each of us sit down to pray to go over the next day, God keeps changing our talks.

Now, we're not together, you know, so we're not in the same room doing this.

So I'm doing my thing and Amy's doing hers and Megan's over there doing hers, and I got 1 PowerPoint, so they just start sending all this stuff to me and I start plugging in for what the Lord has just showed us and I was just thinking this is actually a custom-made program just for you guys you know and that's usually how it goes because when you actually ask the Holy Spirit you think you know where you're gonna go but that's not always the case God does change it.

As we looked earlier yesterday, we were looking at how we train children to educate youth.

And as you know, that Megan is actually present.

And Megan's actually doing how to apply that mostly in the training phase.

Now, as you can look at this chart, as you're moving here, there's going to be lots and lots of training.

But as you notice at the top, there's a little bit of education going on.

But as you start moving your child on through life, and you get to that 12 years of age, and we're just using that as a break off, you start more of the education, and that's what Amy is sharing.

They do overlap, but The majority of the children when they're young is training, training, training.

We have 3 things I always say, that you teach them how to pray, study, obey.

Child training should be very simple, not hard.

The obedience and training is more of this is what you do, no talking about it, this is just what we do.

If they're obeying, you can start educating very, very young.

So you don't have to stick, but you have to realize whenever that education starts, if they're not obeying, you stop telling them why, and you go back to obedience.

And like I said, we took in rebellious teens.

And so they had not learned how to obey in their home.

That's why they were into demonic worship, why they were pregnant, why they were doing drugs.

And they was add in as kids that we took in.

Once you learn to obey, then we start educating as why.

This series, like I said, when we got together, we prayed about the 5 things that we thought were most essential.

It doesn't mean there's not more that we teach, there's more, but there was 5 essentials that we thought we cannot do parenting without.

And that's what we've been sharing with you.

Yesterday was understanding how to train children, educate youth.

You've got to get that right or you're going to set up automatic rebellion in your home and I promise you.

It's like that upside down triangle we covered yesterday.

If you do very little work when they're 3 and toddlers, you're going to have lots of work to do when they're teens.

So you've got to flip that over, do lots and lots of work when they're little, and there's very little work you have to do in those teens, and your teen years are just heaven on earth.

And that's what you want in your teens is heaven on earth, because the other is just not pleasant.

And so now what we're going to talk about is each thought counts.

Why is it important to be concerned about the thoughts of our children?

It says, a good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good, And an evil man out of the evil treasures of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil.

It's just a law and it's always going to work that way.

In Proverbs 23, 7 it goes on and says, for as he thinks in his heart, so is he.

So his thoughts are creating who he or she is.

So if the thoughts he thinks or she thinks evil in his heart, then he will be evil.

If he thinks good in his heart, he will be good.

Series

Teach Them Diligently

Teach Them Diligently - Part 3: Each Thought Counts

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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Recorded

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A Sacred Trust: Character

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3. The Well-Disciplined Child

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