How to Teach Your Kids to Be Courageous in a World That Discourages Faith

This year’s Colson Center National Conference addressed how Christians can cultivate and live out a “Courageous Faith.” Courage doesn’t just happen. It is a virtue, and virtues are like muscles. They must be developed by “working out.” 

One of the presenters was beloved author, speaker, and founder of Celebrate Kids Dr. Kathy Koch. Dr. Koch described how parents can cultivate Christian courage in their children. As she put it, Christian courage is rooted in the truth of who God is and who He made us to be: 

How do we and our children reach that victorious “I am”? 

It takes courage. And courage—it’s about what we do with courage. It’s about who we are and whose we are. Courage hinges on knowing who God is and acting on that knowledge. 

We matter. Who we teach matters. What we teach matters. And how we live matters. And we may not ever know this side of heaven the effect we’re having, but I hope we live to have one. And I hope that, you know, . . . the Spirit reveals something to you that you’re making a difference here. Courage for God requires that we and our children know God, and We relate to him accordingly. Our children need us to teach this and to model it and to do even more. 

Courage takes encouragement. A simple definition of “encourage” is to give someone courage. If you write down “encourage,” you’ll notice courage is the base word. When we encourage children and adults and loved ones and complete strangers, we give them courage. On the other hand, discouragement means to steal someone’s courage. To encourage children in this cultural moment [is] to be courageous. … 

So, we must teach, and we must coach, and we must cheer, and we must also be a referee. 

We want our children to have a complete understanding of courage: what it is and what it isn’t, why it’s valuable, when and where to use it, how to be courageous. We want us, the loved ones we know, and our children, to be consistently courageous with people they know and people they don’t know, in large groups and small, when they’re tired and when they’re not, when they could be teased and bullied, and when they are emotionally and socially safe to be consistently courageous. 

We also want those we love and our children to have automatic courage. We don’t want to always have to remind them, “Remember, be brave today.” So, for [us] and those we love and our children to have complete courage and insistent courage and automatic courage where they’re courageous to be all the time, they have to know, “I am courageous” because identity controls behavior to be automatically courageous. 

These must be our goals. Complete courage, insistent courage, automatic courage. 

Why would courage be a good thing for them to be? Let’s give examples using Scripture, because then it makes Scripture relevant, and they see that God gets them and must be for them. 

You realize that when David killed Goliath, the first question King Saul asked David was recorded in Samuel 17:58. Listen to this. The first question that King Saul asked David was, “Whose son are you, young man?” King Saul could have asked any number of questions. But … as the Benhams write, Saul saw something in David he hadn’t seen in anyone in Israel, not even in himself. (David and Jason Benham wrote the foreword to Koch’s latest book, Parent Differently.) 

He saw courage. He saw strength. He saw a young man who stood unflinching in the face of certain death and boldly proclaimed God is king. Saul could have asked him a thousand questions in that moment of awe, but he asked one simple question: “Who’s your dad?” Translation: “Who raised you to be a warrior spirit like this?” Saul’s question reveals the importance of our role as parents to raise up a generation of boys and girls who will stand like David and face the Goliath of today. If David’s dad could do it in his generation, we can do it in ours. 

To hear (and view) the rest of Dr. Kathy Koch’s CCNC presentation, visit colsoncenter.org/august today. As a thank you for a gift of any amount this month, we will give you access to every video recording from this year’s Colson Center National Conference.  

If you’re a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.  

Photo Courtesy: ©Getty Images/Vasyl Dolmatov

Published Date: August 22, 2024

John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.

The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.

BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.