The Long Game: What Parenting Actually Requires

You already know this is hard. Here's an honest look at what's really going on — and what you can actually do about it.

You Are Not Imagining How Hard This Is

If you found this page because you are worried about your kids — their faith, their screens, their future — you are not overreacting. The stakes are real. The pressure is real. And the sense that you cannot do this alone is not weakness; it is an accurate diagnosis of the situation. ^[2][8]

What every parent eventually runs into is the gap between what they want to transmit and what they can actually control. You can teach. You can model. You can pray. But as one way of putting it goes: "We cannot teach our children the scriptures, but we cannot will them into conversion." ^[9] That is not a counsel of despair — it is a clarification of the job. And once you are clear on the job, you can stop spending energy on the parts that were never yours to begin with, and put it where it actually matters. ^[9]

The Actual Goal — Stated as Plainly as Possible

There is a verse in 2 Timothy that does something almost no parenting book manages to do: it names the goal without flinching. "Continue in what you have learned and firmly believed" (2 Tim. 3:14). That is it. The aim of Christian parenting is to be able to say to the young man or young woman you have raised — with sincerity and conviction — "continue in what you have learned and what you have sincerely believed." ^[9] Not perform well. Not avoid embarrassing the family. Not check the boxes. *Continue in what you have firmly believed.*

Notice what that goal requires: not just that your child knows the content, but that they have moved from knowing to *trusting*. "It's not just that Timothy had learned these things, but that he himself had moved from simply knowing the truth of God's word into trusting God." ^[9] That distinction — between communicating faith and transmitting it — is where most parenting anxiety lives. You can communicate. Transmission is God's work. Your job is to be the kind of person through whom that transmission can happen. ^[9]

What You Teach Without Knowing You're Teaching

"Fathers and mothers, your children are listening to you, watching you, learning from you. What are you teaching them? Intentionally and not so intentionally." ^[5] That is the question that deserves the most honest answer. The unintentional curriculum runs all day, every day — in what you reach for when you are stressed, in what you celebrate, in what you fear.

One place this shows up that is easy to miss: the difference between raising children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord versus using your children's behavior to make yourself look good. "I want to look good by having successful, well-behaved children. Well, what am I worshiping there? Am I worshiping the Lord God? No. My worship of self is driving how I'm interacting with my kids." ^[4] That is not a rare failure mode — it is a common one, and naming it is the first step to something better.

The flip side of the unintentional curriculum is what a grateful, joyful faith communicates without a word. "A grateful, joyful heart is the key to a sincere faith. It's the expression of a sincere faith." ^[2][8] If your children watch you move through the world genuinely persuaded that God has been good to you, that lands differently than any lesson plan. It is, in fact, the most contagious thing you carry.

The Fight You Are Actually In

It is worth being direct about the stakes. "Making and raising children into fear and admonition of the Lord is one of the most subversive things you can do in this current day." ^[3] You are not just raising a child — you are, in the middle of a culture that has different plans for your kid, doing something that runs against the current. That framing is not meant to make you feel heroic. It is meant to make you feel clear. This is not a passive project that happens if you mean well. It is a fight, and fights require intention.

Part of that intention involves asking the right questions at the right time. In the parent-child relationship, the most common failure mode on the child's side is self-willfulness, and on the parent's side it is provocation. ^[4] Both of those tendencies have the same root: losing sight of who is actually in charge and who the relationship is ultimately for. "Children, worship the Lord. If you worship the Lord and not yourself, you will be honorific towards your parents." ^[4] The same logic runs the other direction. A father who is oriented toward the Lord rather than toward his own ego does not provoke — he leads.

You Need More Than Good Intentions — You Need Allies

Here is the part that most parenting advice skips: you cannot do this alone, and you were never meant to. "Parents, you have a ton of immediate demands in raising children. I want to encourage you as soberly as I can, not to neglect the long game." ^[2] The long game is not a strategy for your child's career or college placement. The long game is this: "While you are raising your children, you also need to raise up allies. Trust me, the day will come when you need a whole community of faith to help stand guard over your child's life and doctrine. The friendships you build in the church today will become gatekeepers for your child's heart tomorrow." ^[2][8]

This is not abstract. It is as concrete as a family sitting around a dinner table asking their kids: *Who do you know that is a servant? Who do you know is faithful? Who do you know is generous?* — and watching their children immediately start naming names of people they have watched up close. ^[7] The community you put your children inside of becomes part of the curriculum. What those people model, your children absorb. What they embody, your children can one day point to and say: *that* is what the faith looks like in a real life. ^[7]

The practical move here is not complicated: "Pick a church, stick with it, if possible put down roots, plant relational seeds, become known, and get to know others. So that when your children get older, they will be surrounded by people who know them, who love them, and who can do their little part in helping launch your child into the next chapter of their Christian journey." ^[8]

What You Are Actually Handing Them

At a child dedication, there is a vow that cuts to the center of what this is all about: "Do you now dedicate your child to the Lord who gave them to you, surrendering all worldly claims upon their lives in the hope that they will belong wholly to Him?" ^[13] That is not ceremony. That is the operating assumption underneath all of it — that these children are not ultimately yours to keep, but his to form. Which means the goal is not a child who turns out the way you planned. The goal is a child who belongs wholly to God.

That reorientation changes everything about the anxiety. You are not the final line of defense. You are a steward. "All those families have the responsibility to steward their children well, to teach their children about God's truth, and to live for Him and to be an example and to educate their children in the ways of righteousness." ^[11] Stewards are responsible — fully, seriously responsible — but they are not the owner. There is a Father behind the whole project who "knows his sons and daughters intimately, and he knows everything we need, and he cares enough about us to make sure that we have it." ^[10]

This page synthesizes what Chris Oswald has preached on parenting at Providence Community Church. Every claim above traces to the cited sermons — follow any citation to read the full sermon, listen to the audio, and see the surrounding context. Minute marks are approximate, estimated from each sermon's transcript.