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I finished George Barna’s Revolutionary Parenting a few months ago, but wanted to look at it again recently. Like most Barna books, it takes the research from Barna’s company and turns it into a book that attempts to show what the survey evidence supports. As a parent of a toddler, I’m very interested to find out what parenting actions I should be taking now to help my child grow into a mature Christian.

Like Barna’s earlier book, Revolution, he attempts to distinguish between ordinary Christians (or in this case, Christian parents) and “Revolutionary” ones using his research. He defines a Revolutionary Parent as one who applies biblical commands, principles, and narratives, using the Bible as the guide to raise a child. The goal of a revolutionary parent is to raise their children to make their faith in God their highest priority in life, living as servants of God.

This book is a pretty quick read at 158 pages in the hardcover, although the size is quite small with large print. Each chapter has a quick review at the end, along with a few “hands on” questions. The book is broken into three parts, Reasons, Research, and Relevance. The first covers how the research was started and why Barna was motivated to write the book. He is raising children of his own, and thus personally interested in the research. The second part of the book covers the research, with seven chapters that focus on different areas such as the best conditions for raising children successfully and the behaviors found most commonly in revolutionary parents. These chapters include a number of excellent quotes from both the adult children of revolutionary parents and the parents themselves, along with a number of great suggestions and ideas. The final section consists of two chapters. The first gives a set of rules for revolutionary parenting gleaned from the research, and the final chapter is a personal one by Barna describing how this approach changed his parenting. I think that is book is one that I need to review, perhaps yearly. It would be a good book to use in a group discussion, especially in a group with new and experienced parents in dialogue.