So I came across this list recently and have to say it is very convicting. On a professional note, it makes me sad when parents believe that sending their children to a Christian school is going to guarantee their Christian formation without any work done at home. What do you think of this list?
Top Ten Mistakes Christian Parents of Teens Make | Jeff Strong.
Here is a great article about family worship. This is an issue that I have not developed a good pattern for in my own family and something that I am working on being more faithful to do. This article lays out a solid argument for the benefits and reasons behind establishing a consistent pattern of worship for your family. Check it out: Family Worship and Its Benefits – Reformation21.
Here is a great article from byFaith about what it means to love our neighbors. In the context of social media I particularly liked the following quote:
“Before clicking “publish” or “send,” consider what you would want said to you (or about you) and how you would want it said. Pray for a loving heart that looks to the interests of others. Then reread the draft and see if it still seems like the right thing to say.”
There are plenty of good tidbits to share with your kids as you talk to them about what it means to love one another. Discernment often begins with thinking through issues before they pop up instead of reacting to what has already happened. Hopefully this article will help.
Michael Horton has a great article today about the dangers of emphasizing energy and activity in our faith, to the detriment of living an ordinary life in Christ. Here’s an excerpt:
“My target isn’t activism itself, but the marginalization of the ordinary as the richest site of both God’s activity and ours. Our problem isn’t that we are too active. Rather, it is that we have been prone to successive sprints instead of the long-distance run. There’s nothing wrong with energy. The danger is that we’re burning out ourselves—and each other—on restless anxieties and unrealistic expectations. It’s an impatience with the familiar, sometimes slow, and mostly imperceptible aspects of life.”
It’s very easy to fall into the trap that Horton describes. Has “ordinary” become a dirty word in your vocabulary or are you able to delight in the way God works through the ordinary things in your life? Here’s a related thought from G.K. Chesterton where he sees the ability of children and God to rejoice in things that are the same, time and time again:
“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
I recently read this article on the Christianity Today website. The last sentence sums up the article beautifully: “I hope we can see that raising children is not about giving our kids “the very best” but about leaning on community and living out a costly love that covers all our failures (1 Peter 4:8), even our parenting ones.” Parenting is difficult work. It is nice to know that we have the community of believers, especially in our local church, to support, encourage and correct us as we do the task that God has given to us.
Irrigating Deserts 