Jesus didn't tell His followers to make converts. He told them to make disciples: "teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:20). For most of us, the first disciples we'll ever make are sitting at our dinner table.
That's a heavy sentence if you're parenting a child who can't sit at the dinner table. Or one who melts down when Bible time starts. Or a neurotypical child who has decided that faith is an often-interrupted, stressful item in the schedule that has nothing to do with their own heart.
I've spent years thinking about what disciple-making actually requires of a parent, and I keep landing on ten practices. They all happen to start with T, which makes them easier to remember, and they fit the image I love most for this work: tea. Discipleship isn't poured in. It's steeped. Our children soak in whatever we keep them in, slowly, over years.
The ten T's fall into two groups. The first four are about who we are. The last six are about what we do. The order is important. We can't pour from an empty cup (pun intended).
Be: Who We Are as Disciples
We can't give our children a discipleship we aren't living. Children, especially children who read people closely or take words literally, notice the gap between what we say and what we do faster than we'd like. These four come first because everything else grows out of them.
1. Teachability. A disciple is, by definition, a learner. If we've stopped learning from God, we've stopped being disciples, whatever our title is at church. For a parent of a child who's wired differently, teachability also means letting God teach us through that child: unlearning the parenting we planned and learning the parenting this child needs. Matthew 28:20
2. Trust. Jesus calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and follow Him (Luke 9:23). Daily is the key word. Mixed-needs parenting will regularly take us to the end of our own wisdom. Trust is what we do there. Our children learn more about trusting God from watching us on a hard day than from any lesson we teach on a good one.
3. Testing. We're told to "test the spirits to see whether they are from God" (1 John 4:1). A parent who knows God's Word can tell the difference between truth and the lies the world tells our children, and the lies it tells us about our children. Testing is how we teach discernment: by practicing it out loud where they can see it.
4. Tractability. Tractable means flexible, or easy to lead. We follow Christ wherever He leads, including into a family that looks nothing like what we imagined. Proverbs 22:6 tells us to train a child "in the way he should go," and in the original Hebrew, it meant the way that child is bent: the way God made him. Every child is God's workmanship (Ephesians 2:10). Tractability means we follow the Spirit's lead in raising the child we have, not the one we pictured.
Do: What We Practice With Our Children
Once we're living as disciples, these six are how we pass it on.
5. Teaching. Paul reminded Timothy that "from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings" (2 Timothy 3:15). His mother and grandmother taught him. Teaching is our deliberate passing on of God's truth. In a mixed-needs family that will mean different methods for different children: a concrete example for one, a story for another, a hands-on activity for the one who learns by doing.
6. Transparency. Our children need to see a real faith, not a polished one. That means owning our mistakes, apologizing when we're wrong, and telling the truth in age-appropriate ways, including the truth about their own diagnoses and differences. A faith that only shows up when everything is fine won't survive the first time things aren't.
7. Testimonies. "We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD" (Psalm 78:4). Tell your children what God has done in your life and in your family. Testimonies are concrete. For a child who struggles with abstract truth, "God is faithful" can float right past. "Here is the time God provided when we didn't know how we'd pay the bills" sticks.
8. Talks. Moses told parents to talk about God's word "when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise" (Deuteronomy 6:7). Talks are the ongoing conversation, including the hard ones we'd rather put off. Some children talk best face to face. Others talk best side by side, in the car, or in the dark at bedtime. Learn where each of yours opens up.
9. Time. "Teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom" (Psalm 90:12). Discipleship takes time: time with God ourselves, time with our children, and time for our children to meet God on their own. Time with God won't look the same for every child, and it doesn't have to look like your quiet time to be real.
10. Tea. This one is hospitality, fellowship, and koinonia: opening our homes and our table. The early church "broke bread in their homes" with glad hearts (Acts 2:46). Children learn that faith is lived in community when they see us welcome people in. In a mixed-needs family, hospitality may need to be smaller, quieter, or more planned. It still counts. A cup of tea with one family on a predictable afternoon is hospitality.
Why Be Comes Before Do
It's tempting to skip straight to the six practices. They're the part that feels productive. But a parent who teaches without being teachable, or tells testimonies without trusting God today, is handing children a script instead of a faith.
And there's a reason this matters beyond our own homes. We aren't only raising disciples. We're raising disciple-makers. Someday our children will teach, tell their own testimonies, and open their own tables. They'll do it the way they saw it done.
Where to Start
You don't start with all ten. You start with one.
Read back through the list and notice which T made you flinch. That's probably the one God is pointing to. Over the years of parenting and following Christ, I've had to focus on each one of these at different times. Lately, trusting has been a challenge -- trusting my adult children to make godly choices and trusting that God has them in His hands always. I'm in the stage where I can't even share my opinions without their permission because they are adults. They need the ability to make their own decisions without me putting in my two cents which can come across as disapproval. They need to know I trust them and believe they can live their lives successfully adn that their walks with God are their own.
This month on the blog, we'll go deeper into a few of these:
Transparency and Talks: the sex talk, the body talk, and the other hard conversations, alongside this month's podcast episodes.
Teaching and Tractability: how to teach a child who thinks concretely.
Time: what time with God can look like for active bodies and anxious minds. [podcast on this topic]