Mary E. DeMuth - You Can Raise Courageous and Confident Kids: Preparing Your Children for the World They Live in

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Verses marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Verses marked MSG are taken from The Message. Copyright by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Verses marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189 USA. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the New English Translation (NET) BIBLE copyright 2003 by Biblical Studies Press L.L.C. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Ste #200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920. www.alivecommunications.com.

All emphasis and inserts in Scripture quotations are added by the author.

This book contains stories in which the author has changed some peoples names and details of their situations in order to protect their privacy.

Cover photo iStockphoto / monkeybusiness images

Cover by Left Coast Design, Portland, Oregon

YOU CAN RAISE COURAGEOUS AND CONFIDENT KIDS

Copyright 2007 by Mary DeMuth

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

DeMuth, Mary E.

[Authentic parenting in a postmodern culture]

You can raise courageous and confident kids / Mary E. DeMuth.

p. cm.

Originally published: Authentic parenting in a postmodern culture. 2007. With additional material added.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ).

ISBN 978-0-7369-2971-4 (pbk.)

1. ParentingReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Title.

BV4529.D46 2011

248.845dc22

2010028944

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 / VP-SK / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Darci, Jim, Taylor, and Micah Rubart:
a courageous and confident family

Patrick, I couldnt have written this book without you. Thank you for listening to my constant postmodern ramblings, for offering advice when I needed it, and for believing this book must be written. I love you.

This book is better because of my critique group, Life Sentence. Leslie and DAnn, I needed your extra set of eyes as well as your unique experiences as parents.

A hearty thanks goes to my prayer team, who sacrificed time to pray alongside me: Kevin and Renee Bailey, Colleen Eslinger, Sandi Glahn, Jack and Helen Graves, Kim Griffith, Ed and Sue Harrell, Debbie Hutchison, Katy Raymond, Hud and Nancy McWilliams, Michael and Renee Mills, Kim Moore, Marilyn Neel, Caroline ONeill, Kathy ONeill, Don Pape, Catalin and Shannon Popa, Tom and Holly Schmidt, Carla Smith, Erin Teske, Jim and Stacey Tomisser, Janet Turner, JR and Ginger Vassar, Rod and Mary Vestal, Jodie Westfall, Denise Wilhite, Betsy Williams, Jan Winebrenner, and Liz Wolf. As this book blesses parents and gives them a voice, I applaud your prayers.

Brandy Prince, thank you for that wonderful conversation via Skype about coaching and parenting. I still think you need to write that book!

A hearty thank you for those who were interviewed for the book: Will and Lisa Samson, Steve and Erin Teske, Byron and Lisa Borden, Michael and Renee Mills, Phil and Laina Graf, Troy and Heather Cady, JR and Ginger Vassar, George and Jeanne Damoff, and Justin and Jen Powell.

Sophie, Aidan, and Julia, it seems strange, doesnt it, that your mommy had to spend time away from you while she wrote about parenting. I am so thankful, though, that you are children of grace, that you love me in the midst of deadlines. My hat goes off to you, and my heart as well.

Jesus, its all about You.

The first time I heard about a cultural shift, I was a young mother, saturated in the throes of diapers, toddler tantrums, and primordial exhaustion. I brushed the notion aside, thinking it unimportantcompletely unrelated to my life as a mother. The next time I heard about it was in the context of evil. Radio voices warned about the slippery slope of postmodern thinking and the inherent wrongness of a new worldview. Again, this seemed detached from my very real life as a preschool parent, the day-to-day joy and grind of raising the next generation (while I cleaned peanut butter from every surface). Although I largely ignored the alarming statements, a bit of fear infused itself into my heart. Not really knowing what postmodernism was, I envisioned it a malevolent force, like the New Age proliferation of the 80s.

The next time I heard whispers about cultural shift, my children were all three walking and talking and making their own peanut butter and jelly sandwichesno more diapers, still some tantrums. My husband, Patrick, and I were exploring church planting in Western Europe, and the terms postmodern and emergent circulated around us.

Something shifted in me in that interim period between ignoring and fearing a cultural shift. I started thinking in new ways. I became dissatisfied with parts of my Christian subculture, but I couldnt put that underlying unease into words. Although I could not pigeonhole my past inner world as modern, and I did not dare call my new thoughts postmodern for fear of being seen as evil, I knew my thinking had shifted radically. As our church-planting organization educated us about the cultural shift that is postmodernism, Patrick and I nodded a lot. We resonated with what was said. Eventually, we moved our family thousands of miles away to the hotbed of postmodernityWestern Europe.

Our sojourn there was the context in which I wrote this bookinitially to help parents navigate the world outside their front doors. Its original title was Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture. My goal was to empower parents to help their children flourish spiritually regardless of what the culture dictated.

Now that my eldest child is kissing adulthood, I am vitally interested in how my children have learned to love others and live out the gospel of Jesus Christ courageously and confidently. As I prepared them to meet the culture, I realized that in doing so, something shifted all of us. The more we elevated Jesus, the more we fell in love with Him and His radical ways as a family, the more my kids exuded Christs courage. My eldest daughter, Sophie, led her friend to Jesus. My son, Aidan, stood up to bullies. My youngest daughter, Julia, endured a difficult teacher. All with courage and all with confidence. Hence the retitling of this book.

In these pages, I grapple with a question you may have wondered or worried about: What is a biblical, timeless view of parenting?

I write this to reassure you. Like you, I am a learner. I dont have all the answers. But I do have a highly unusual testing ground of experience. Our family lived in a culture hostile to Christianity, and by the grace of God, my children thrived. We now live on American soil after two and a half years overseas. We faced many trials on a global scale, but we endured them together. My children are courageousso much so that they challenge me to take more risks and trust Jesus for more. Theyre confidentin their faith, in our family, and, ultimately, in themselves.