Heaven or Harvard?

Back when Pam & I served at a Korean church one of the youth leaders who was a college student challenged the parents of youth & children at a family retreat.
He challenged the notion that the most important thing in life for parents was getting children into the best acedemic institution like Harvard, MIT etc. To make heaven the ultimate goal of their children's lives was supposed to be the most importatnt thing and not anything else. Now, we're parents of a teen & pre-teen and we see the temptations out there! It's tempting to do very good things and not put Jesus as both our priority and our children's priority. In our society, it's things like sports, theatre, acedemics, friendships etc. It's easy to get our priorities out of whack when society keeps pushing. Our schools, teams, groups can demand incredible amounts of time from us & our kids and we give it to them. We'll go to great lengths and sacrifice many other things that are even more beneficial. The sad part is that most of the time our kids won't even continue in the things that we sold out to for some years! Not many people get to make it big in sports, theatre etc. In the meantime church, youth group small groups & Bible Study have become an occasional option rather than the priority. These things are designed to deepen our relationship with God and we put them on the back burner for when the time is right. I think our friend had it right when he asked a group of parents "is it more important that your kids are in Harvard or heaven"? It's kind of like what the scripture that says "What good will it be if we gain the whole world yet forfeit our souls?" Matthew 16:26