Raising Children Who Know Where They Belong

Every child grows up as a citizen of somewhere. Long before they can name it, they absorb what home feels like, what counts as normal, whose approval matters, what a good life is supposed to look like. Parents shape this whether or not they intend to. The question is not whether your children will learn a citizenship but which one.

Paul told the church at Philippi that their citizenship was in heaven. He was writing to adults in a Roman colony, but the idea is a gift to Christian parents, because it names what we are actually trying to do. We are not raising children to be nice, or successful, or even churchgoing. We are raising them as citizens of a city they have not yet seen, so that when they arrive it will feel like coming home.

Start with what is eagerly awaited. Paul says the Philippians eagerly await a Savior from heaven. Children learn what to look forward to by watching what their parents look forward to. If the countdown in your house is always toward the next vacation, the next purchase, the next achievement, your children will learn that those are the real destinations. This does not mean vacations are wrong. It means the deepest anticipation in the home should be visibly for Christ. Advent does this well once a year. Ordinary Sundays can do it every week, if parents let their gladness about going to worship show.

Then consider the body. Paul says the Savior will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body. Children are very concerned with their bodies: how fast they run, how they look, whether they are sick, whether they are strong. The Christian hope does not despise bodies; it promises they will be made new. A child with a chronic illness, a child who is anxious about appearance, a child grieving a grandparent, all of them can be told a true thing here. This body is not the last word. There is a resurrection coming, and it is bodily.

Third, notice the enemies of the cross. Paul describes people whose god is their stomach and whose mind is on earthly things. He says it with tears, not contempt. Parents will need this posture, because children will encounter people, sometimes people they love, who live this way. Teach them that the right response is grief and prayer, not scorn. A citizen of heaven is not superior to the people around him. He is on his way somewhere else, and he wants them to come.

Practically, a few habits help. Talk about heaven as a place, not a mood. Children can imagine a city; they struggle with abstractions. Read them Revelation 21 and let them ask what it will be like. When something in the family breaks or is lost, name the fact that in the city we are going to, nothing breaks. When you discipline, connect it to citizenship: this is how people from our city behave. And when you fail, and they see it, tell them that you are still running the race, not that you have arrived. Paul said the same thing of himself, and it made him a better example, not a worse one.

Children raised this way will not be insulated from the world. They will be oriented in it. They will know which direction is home, and when they are old enough to leave your house, that knowledge will go with them.