How to Prepare Your Student to Pursue God’s Call
Are They Ready?
For three consecutive summers, I’ve had big “are they ready?” moments with my children. In the summer of 2024, I walked my oldest daughter down the aisle and watched her get married. In the summer of 2025, my youngest daughter walked across the stage and received her diploma from Indian Rocks Christian School. And in the summer of 2026, I walked down another aisle, this time behind my son as he escorted my wife to her seat, and then we watched him get married. Walking down those aisles and standing on that stage, the question ran through my head as vividly as I’m writing it now: Are they ready?
Honestly, the question in those moments was futile. It didn’t matter if they were ready or not. The time had arrived.
It didn’t matter if they were ready or not. The time had arrived.
If you’d like to know how urgent this is, count the summer breaks or Christmases you have left with your child before they graduate high school. The thought alone, let alone the actual number, brings a lump into any parent’s throat. The time to prepare your child to pursue God’s call on their life is now.
1. The Point of Parenting Is to Get Them Ready to Go
It’s a heart-wrenching reality: the entire objective of parenting is to send them out. Psalm 127:3-5 tells us our children are like arrows in the hand of a warrior. The only reason a warrior picks up an arrow is to place it in a bow, pull the string back, and launch it as fast, as far, and as straight as it can go. The apostle John wrote that there is no greater joy than watching our children walk in the truth (3 John 1:4). The implication is that we’re standing behind them, watching them walk away from us.
So what are we preparing them for? What are we sending them out to?
The objective of our parenting is to prepare our children to pursue God’s call on their lives.
2. Calling: A Proper Understanding
Calling can be a complicated and murky topic. Here are three realities of God’s calling that, held in the right order, help us master the murky.
Called by Someone. If there is a calling, there must be a Caller. God Almighty has known your children, planned their lives before time began, and loves them more than we can fathom. The Caller wants a personal relationship with them, and that is their highest priority. They have been called to a Person.
Called for Someone. Not only have we been called to a Person, we’ve been called to live our lives for his glory. I do think God cares what we do, but I think he cares more about why we do it and who we do it for. Everything we do should be for his glory. This is the second-highest priority of calling.
Called to Respond. In his sovereign love, God gave us the gift of free will so that we could choose, or not, to love him back. That gift comes with two implications. First, we are response-able: all of us can respond to his loving call. Second, we are responsible: free will comes with personal responsibility. As a wise mentor of mine often said: “You can make your choices, but you can’t choose your consequences.”
A SIMPLE FIRST STEP
Begin, or maintain, a commitment to be in church. The research is undeniable: regular church attendance is positively associated with many of the things parents most desire for their children.
3. Three Ways to Help Your Student Get Ready for God’s Call
Train Them to Think with Sound Minds
Did you know the Bible addresses the mind and thinking hundreds of times? “Love the Lord your God with all your mind” and “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” are just a familiar sampling. Dr. J.P. Moreland, one of the great philosophers and Christ-followers of our time, says, “Sincerity is not enough for Christians. We must develop intelligent Christians who are intellectually trained to see issues clearly, make important distinctions carefully, and weigh various factors appropriately.” Here are three simple ways to train your child to think.
Raise readers. If they’re still of age, read to them every day. Set up reward systems for reading additional books. Hold your child accountable to fulfill their IRCS summer reading requirements. Strong reading skills remain positively correlated with college degrees, income potential, and good decision-making.
Take notes. We are strategic about nurturing a note-taking culture at IRCS. The process of listening, reflecting, and writing things down is a formative exercise that develops critical thinking.
Guard attention and memory. Concerns around screen time are never-ending, so here are two simple rules. The bigger the screen, the fewer the concerns; the smaller the screen, the more the concerns. And no screens of any kind close to bedtime.
Turn Their Gaze Outward with a Servant’s Heart
The Bible teaches that husbands are to sacrifice for their wives as Christ sacrificed for the church. To teach my son this in practice, I often made him do things for his sisters and his mother, reminding him that he’d spend the rest of his life sacrificing for a woman, so he might as well practice now. I have not been a perfect father, but watching how my son, now married, cares for his wife is enough to tell me I may have gotten that one right.
Students will be hard-pressed to impact the world for Jesus Christ if they aren’t regularly serving the people around them. Humility, as the saying goes, is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less. Here are four ways to nurture an other-centered posture in your young person.
Expect kindness. Hold an Ephesians 4:32 expectation in your home: be kind to one another.
Serve others regularly. Your local church is a great place to start. My father made me serve in our church nursery when I turned 12. And he served with me.
Don’t pay an allowance for chores. Teach your children that chores are for the good of the family.
Send thank-you selfies. In a perfect world, we’d always send a handwritten note, and that’s still desirable. But I’ve found that a thank-you selfie texted to the giver is just as meaningful. A grandparent receiving a photo of their grandchild eating at the restaurant from the gift card they sent means more than we can imagine. Pictures are powerful, and so are young people who show gratitude.
Expect Them to Do Difficult Things with Skilled Hands
It’s amazing how young people exceed our expectations when we control our own emotions and don’t rescue them from discomfort. Here are three ways to expect your child to do difficult things.
Praise effort, not ability. Research on grit shows that we undermine perseverance when we attribute success to talent alone. Put the focus on the work: “I’m so proud of the effort you put into achieving that.”
Get a job and pay for your stuff, including a bill. Due dates are real, and so is the money needed to pay them. Require your child to be employed and pay a bill. And do this a little earlier than you think they are ready. I assure you. They are ready.
Grades are earned, not given. Our own Pastor Asa Walker reminds students during morning announcements that grades at IRCS are not given; they are earned. Reinforce that at home.
Grades at IRCS are not given; they are earned.
4. It Starts with You
I’ve heard lots of great parenting advice over the years, but here’s the piece I think about most: the shortest way to have the greatest impact on your children for their good and God’s glory is to stay very close to them and keep working on yourself.
Stay very close to them, and keep working on yourself.
So, what did you just read that you need to keep working on, so that your child sees your example and is inspired to pursue God’s call on their life?
God bless & Go Eagles!
Recommended Reading
Guinness, Os. The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003.
McCracken, Brett. The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021.
