5 Practices to Jumpstart Your Family (pt 2)

This continues the post from yesterday “5 Practices to Jumpstart Your Family.”

Practice 4: Worship together on the weekend.

Now it may seem unnecessary to even say this, but a practical way to encourage your children to know God is to come to worship in community every week.

If you want your kids to learn about Math, English, History, and the basics of Western education, you help them engage in a setting where they will learn, like a school.

If you want your kids to learn about a sport, you sign them up for the sport and help them get involved in practices to learn.

The same is true for helping them learn to live for God. Get them to the place and community where they can learn about living for Him. That’s called the church. Gather here as a family on Sundays.

Show them by worshipping God yourself during the services of worship. But also bring them to a place where they can see that in others and learn what it is all about by example, experience, and education.

Practice 5: Love your children.

Paul says in another of his letters “and over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (Col 3:14). Along with the other things I’ve mentioned, love your children.

Take time to build a real relationship with them.

Take time to listen to them and have two-way conversations with them.

In the midst of all that there is to do in your lives, take time to do special things just with your children, whether taking them out on dates or having a family night.

Take time to understand their world, their friends, their difficulties, their joys.

Take time to see how God has uniquely made them and help them develop into people who can make a unique contribution to this world.

Loving your children well is what will tie all the other practices together into a meaningful way of helping them learn to live for God.

Undoubtedly, the list could go on with ways we could help our children grow to know and live for God. You may have some meaningful practices that you have as a part of your parenting. Share it with people around you so that we can all learn. If so, post your response here so that we can all learn from you.

As your children grow older, you will need to launch them out to make these decisions on your own.

Faithfulness, not ‘Success’

It must be said that there is no fail-safe way to make your children own their faith and live for God. At some point, they have to make their own decisions and we cannot control them in that. In fact, during my days as the college pastor at Elmbrook Church I saw that trying to control a child is one of the most counter-productive methods of helping them own their faith.

As parents, we should not aim for controlling our children so that we can wear the blue-ribbon of success as parents. I know too many great parents whose children have not followed the Lord or who have lots of problems in their life.

Success is not our aim. We cannot guarantee that.But what we should aim for is faithfulness. We should be faithful in doing all in our power – with the mighty power of God at work with us in prayer – so that we have done our part in raising our children ‘in the training and instruction of the Lord.’

[To listen to the message from which these thoughts are drawn, visit the Brooklife Church messages page.]