This Week in Faith 10-11-19
/Great Questions Lead to Great Conversations
If there is one thing I would love to have more of it’s great conversations with my kids. So I am always on the lookout for good questions that could lead to great conversations with my kids. I want to encourage them and hear what’s going on in their lives, but often my conversations with them devolve into me talking [and probably talking too much about what they’ve done wrong]. This is a short article with a couple of questions to think about, some of which could be a really good place to start for the few minutes we have in the car with our kids, or sitting across the table from them in a restaurant, or even in those last minutes before they head off to bed.
Click here to read the article by Rick Warren.
Why Don’t We Invite Input?
There are two articles here, an original and a response to the original, on a really good topic. As parents, why don’t we ask for more input from older parents that have successfully raised kids into adulthood? The articles talk about the tendency of parents to seek out the wisdom and practice of younger parents online who have a large following of their blog, than older parents in their church who have actually raised kids and done a good job. We also don’t ask because we’re afraid to admit that we don’t know and need help. It’s an insightful conversation so I’d encourage you to read the top article first and then the second one. The principle that the second article talks about also applies to our faith in general and the way our kids go about finding the answers they are looking for these days. But that’s probably a bigger conversation for another post.
Our hope is that Faith will be a place where younger parents are eager to ask and listen to the wisdom of older parents in our church and older parents are ready to offer wisdom with grace to younger parents. We want to do a good job of this so I’d love to hear any thoughts you have on how we can do a better job of fostering this in our church.
Click here to read Why Don’t We Invite Input by Chap Bettis.
Click here to read Two Habits of Successful Parents by Tim Challies.
When Your Child Looks at Porn
“It is more realistic to plan how you will respond when exposure to porn occurs than to try to prevent porn from slipping through the inevitable cracks in whatever protection system you devise.”
Because this is the case, this article has some helpful ideas for how to approach this with our kids when the day comes. There is a way that we can go about discipling and confronting our kids on these issues that can make it more about making them feel more guilty for what they’ve done or us feeling less guilty for it happening on our watch that we forget to offer the gospel to our kids and rest in it ourselves.
I have some great resources in my office as well, if you would like to check them out or talk about the issue of pornography more.
Click here to read the article by David White.
How We Helped Our Kids Transition to “Big” Church
Even though this may happen at different stages for all of our kids but it is the goal. Our job as parents is to train and equip our kids to know and worship god for themselves. So helping them learn how to worship and get the most of being with their church family on Sunday morning is vital. In the article, she offers a number of ideas for how to help your young kids transition to participating in a full worship service. While we offer children’s church to help in that process, you know your kids best and know when it will be best to do this with them. You don’t have to agree with everything she says here but I think a lot of the principles behind what she talks about are important: starting to prepare on Saturday for Sunday morning, setting clear expectations for your kids and talking about them ahead of time, and things like that. I would also encourage you, like the articles above suggest, that you talk to older parents who have successfully brought their kids through that stage to get advice and encouragement from them.
