I've Finished Reading "Shepherding A Child's Heart"

I actually bought this book at the conference bookstore in October of 2006 at the Desiring God National Conference. It sat on the shelf as a "have to read but don't have time right now" book for over a year.

I shouldn't have let it sit that long. And if you have kids, you need to get this book. It's a great page turner, and Tedd Tripp has a thorougly Gospel-centered approach to parenting.

As a matter of fact, it's Carson, Piper, Keller, Mahaney all put through a parenting filter. Tripp forces you to examine why do you what you do as a parent. He makes you very uncomfortable and quite frankly drives you to repentance when he begins to poke his finger into your discipline methods and the ways in which you guide your children. He forces you to examine your motives. He forces you to take a long term approach to parenting. And the good thing is, that no matter how old your child is (even if they're a late teenager) this is a great resource to help.

It's broken into two parts:

1. Foundations For Biblical Childrearing
2. Shepherding Through Stages Of Childhood.

So basically he walks you through the theology of parenting and then helps you make applications. The book has 18 chapter and is a little over 200 pages long so each chapter is about 10 pages. It's very digestible in small chunks but is one of those that is not a "read once and put on the shelf" kind of a book.

It's a very helpful tool in the day to day responsibility of raising children to glorify God. I'll say this. Any book that starts with the first question of the Westminster Catechism instead of the leather couch in some shrink's office gets my confidence as a book most Christian parents need to read.

It has no general index and a somewhat short Scripture index but I'm not sure that those would add a whole lot to this work. Overall, you have to read it. I recommend it whole heartedly and only do so if you're willing to repent as a parent. I'll leave as I usually do with a chunk from the book:

It is imperative to be clear on this issue. Parenting is not just providing good input. It is not just creating a constructive home atmosphere and positive interaction between a child and his parent. There is another dimension. The child is interacting with the living God. He is either worshiping and serving and growing in understanding of the implications of who God is, or he is seeking to make sense of life without a relationship with God.