Ted Tripp’s Worship Principle

The basic premise of Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Ted Tripp is this: “Behavior is heart-driven, therefore, correction, discipline, and training—all parenting—must be addressed to the heart.  The fundamental task of parenting is shepherding the hearts of your children.”  And that, he goes on to say in Chapter 3, is essentially an issue of worship.

That truth hit me like a ton of bricks early in my parenting career.  In some ways I still don’t like to think about it because it seems so overwhelming.  How can I parent my children’s hearts when I struggle to get them to put their shoes away at night?  If I can’t control the externals, why raise the bar even higher so that I aim to shape their thoughts and desires as well?

But the reality is, as Dr. Tripp points out, that’s where our parenting battles are already raging: in your child’s heart.  He says in Chapter 3, “Everyone is essentially religious….Even as a young child, he is either worshiping and serving God or idols.”  He goes on to say, “These idols are not small statuary.  They are the subtle idols of the heart.  The Bible uses terminology such as fear of man, evil desires, lusts and pride.  The idols include conformity to the world, being earthly minded, and setting the affections on things below.  What we have in view are any manner of motives, desires, wants, goals, hopes, and expectations that rule the heart of a child….Part of the parent’s task is to shepherd him as a creature who worships, pointing him to the only One who is worthy of his worship.  The question is not “will he worship?”  It is always “who will he worship?”

One of the reasons I wanted to start Redeemedreader.com was to try to apply this principle to literature.  What does heart shaping look like in the context of kids’ books?  How are books already shaping the hearts of my children, and how can I be involved in that process?

I’ve tried to answer these questions in many posts over the past few months.  I’m probably going deepest in my Behind the Bookcase series.  But pictures books in their brevity allow for some focused critique, and you can read about heart issues in Is Your Daughter God’s Little Princess? Or A Story, A Story: Thinking Through African Mythology.  Janie often focuses on heart issues–one of the reasons I first came to love her writing, and I’m put in mind of her post Looking for Love: The Paranormal Teen Romance.  Or her series on The Abolition of Man to complement our C.S. Lewis read-along.

As a start, though, take a minute to think about your child’s favorite book (or movie for that matter).  Then ask yourself, What are the “motives, desires, wants, goals, hopes, and expectations” (or maybe one of those) that draw your child to that story?  What does he glory most in?  Then take a moment to trace how that glory belongs to God.  Ask Him to help you…and engage your child in the process!

It will be difficult.  Messy.  Far more messy than handing them a book and expecting it to shape the child for you.  But as Janie said recently in one of our conversations when I complained how hard it is, “You just have to do it.”

On the upside, though, the rewards are far greater for this kind of parenting as well.  For as Jonathan Edwards wrote, “The enjoyment of [God] is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance…These are but streams. But God is the ocean.”  And to find Him through our reading is the ultimate reward.

Any ideas you could share with me and my readers about how to reach the hearts of kids through stories?  Have you used a particular book in your family to open discussion on a topic?  Would you be interested in an interview on this subject with Dr. Tripp himself?

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