Fearful Obedience — Plucking and Planting

As a stay at home dad who has spent endless hours around children in all states of being, I’ve learned that sometimes those states of being can change multiple times within the same hour. I have received a hug from one of my children and have been told by that same child that I am ruining their life, all within one meal. In all of my observations, I have come to the conclusion that roughly 80% of my time with my children is spent either trying to get them to stop doing something or encouraging them to do something that they really don’t want to do. On the side of “stop doing that” we have such classics as, stop jumping on the couch/bed/brother, stop farting on each other, stop coming into our room, stop pouring the entire contents of the parmesan container onto your butter noodles, etc., etc. On the side of “please do ______” we have please brush your teeth, throw away your plate, put on clothing, change your clothes for the first time this weekend, take a shower, put on deodorant, eat the food placed before you, etc., etc. I hate feeling like I am just a robot repeating the same phrases, hoping to create a sing song melody to my nagging that will somehow be the key to unlocking a magical portal where my requests are heard, without moving to screaming and begging. I think, as a parent, I am all over the board on how I try to get my request heard and respected. At a certain point I become so frustrated that I am willing to give anything a try. I try punishment or threatening a loss of tablet time. For the younger ones maybe a threat of timeout will do. I try the promise of a reward that maybe we can have a picnic or perhaps just a popsicle when we get done cleaning our rooms. All of my techniques have varying levels of success but something I heard on NPR recently has helped me see where I may be going wrong with my kids. I think I also found some clues as to where we may be missing the mark as a global church.

“Fear works in two situations. It works when people are already stressed out, and it also works when what you’re trying to do is get someone not to do something, an inaction…If there is, you know, an apple that looks bad, I don’t eat it. Fear is actually not such a good motivator for inducing action, while hope is a better motivator, on average, for motivating action.”

-Tali Sharot

Maybe it seems simple and obvious for all of you other parents out there but when I heard this I was stunned. I had been placing every instance of my children’s disobedience under one umbrella. I had something similar to the caveman brain I talked about in a previous post. “Children no listen is bad!” I was trying to use fear in almost all cases of disobedience. If they didn’t eat their food they would lose their tablet, if they jumped on the couch, they would lose their tablet. I was applying fear of punishment to action and inaction. The fear of losing their tablet has a disconnect in their brain from what I’m actually trying to teach them.

This doesn’t just apply to punishment either it can be a problem in the way we offer reward. Tali Sharot speaks in the interview on how fear is a useful motivator when you are trying to protect your children. Telling your children that if they run out into the road that they may get hit by a car works much better than telling them that if they have a full week of not running in the road then they will get a pizza party. The future reward never has anything that ties itself to the current situation. So I have been, since I heard this presentation, trying to slow down to figure out what is really happening when my caveman brain is triggered by my children’s defiance. A couple of things happen when I do that. I’ve found that sometimes I realize that it really isn’t that big of a deal. You know the saying “choose your battles”? Well, it’s true. I am way too wound up sometimes when it comes to my kids, though I hope I’m getting better. The other thing that happens when you slow down is that you can really analyze what is going on. Are my kids threatening an inaction that I would like to see changed or are they committing an action that I would like to see stopped? I’d better have different responses to those two possibilities. Fear has a tendency to cripple all of us, with the exception of a high stress situation so maybe we should stop putting in our kids in high stress situations for no reason. Often the high stress situation is manufactured by us as parents. If I am playing on fear to try to get my kids to do something, they aren’t responding and I just feel like banging my head against the wall, I have no one to blame but myself. If I am offering a reward if my kids will stop jumping on the bed, I also am sending their brains mixed signals.

So, as some of you have stuck with me as I try to write with some regularity may be aware, I like to look at how these truths that I grab from a bunch of different places intersect with our faith and specifically, the Church. Looking back, I can say that I did see both types of motivators coming from church leadership and really all of the Christian world that I was familiar with. If you did the wrong thing, i.e. smoke, drink, have premarital sex, swear, etc., you were threatened with eternal torment and punishment. I’d say that could be classified as motivating through fear. At the same time, if you didn’t do the right thing, i.e. confess Christ as Lord, be baptized, attend church three times a week, etc., you also would be in danger of eternal torment. For a faith that is supposed to be built largely on the overwhelming love of God displayed in His Son, I was finding that for myself and many others my age, that message of love was being choked out by fear. Are there times that fear should be used by those in leadership either as parents or religious leaders? Absolutely! I want my children to be fully aware of the dangers of unprotected sex, the use of drugs, and the health risks associated with many potentially harmful behaviors. I hope that as they become informed that they make wise decisions. Fear, in those cases is utilized for safety and nothing else. What happens is kids will begin to see that the warnings that we gave them for those things were warranted and real. If I am using fear to encourage some sort of behavior out of children or church members when it comes to the Church, I am causing them to suffer from mixed signals. It is the love of God and the hope for a loving community that should motivate us to gather, as many times a week or month as that happens to be. Someone “accepting Christ” and being baptized, purely because they are afraid of what will happen if they don’t, has not accepted the love of God because that isn’t what was offered.

I think this has implications when it comes to general church activity as well. So, if fear motivates inaction then are we really surprised at the inactivity of much of the church in the Western world? People are afraid of doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing, accepting the wrong people and they would rather do nothing just to be safe. Just look at the difference in a hope filled gospel community, if you have had the privilege of seeing one. Look at how much more loving activity is going on. People in those communities love, not because if they don’t, lightning bolts will fall from on high. They love as a response to love and the promise of a greater future for all of creation that begins here and now.

Church leaders, it is dependent on you to stop the cycle. First of all, stop controlling the people you are blessed to have in your congregations. If you would like to see a certain behavior from the people in your community, then you have to show how that behavior is actually good news. People will attend services and events when they see the life of Christ displayed in your gatherings. The more people see love, diversity, forgiveness, reconciliation, and freedom in you and your members, the more that they will willingly and even excitedly come through the doors. The motivator of guilt and shame is old and played out. People are being bombarded by guilt, shame and fear in too many other areas of their lives. The days of keeping people in check by making them feel worse about themselves is, thankfully, over. It never changed people’s hearts anyway, it just made them better at hiding.

I’m already noticing an improvement in my home as I have been trying to remove idle threats and fear based parenting. The kids seem less confused and I am able to parent from more of a place of peace. There are still warnings that I issue to my kids, especially when it concerns safety, but since they aren’t hearing it every day they are much more likely to take notice. They know that if I have raised my voice and changed my inflection, it is because I am concerned for their well being. I hope some of you are considering what this change could bring to your homes as well. I’m also excited about the possibilities that this could bring to our churches. Some of you have led or attended churches your whole life where fear is the motivator of both action and inaction. It isn’t working. If you manage to have a good week where you check all the right boxes and attend all of the church’s functions, you still somehow feel like you’re just escaping punishment. Where is the reward? Somewhere future and distant? We must display that our love is not dependent on those things. Reward is not primarily in some future place but right here and now. I’m not talking about churches providing more goods and services for their members. I’m talking about the kind of communities that in and of themselves feels like a reward. The reward of unconditional love, forgiveness, diversity, inclusion, and empowerment. The reward of seeing the hungry fed, the naked clothed, the stranger invited, the foreigner protected, the humble lifted up, the proud made low, the widow provided for, and the orphan adopted. This is enough to sustain and motivate us. What we might see is people’s lives actually being transformed, not a gathering of people playing a part. At best, I hope it may just save the Church as a whole but, in the meantime, I know it will save our souls.