INTRODUCTION
Being a parent is one of the most important things you will ever be or do in your life. What an enormous privilege and responsibility to be blessed and entrusted with the care of a child. It's also likely to be one of the most challenging and rewarding things you will ever do.
Mary Alice Gran, Director of Children's Ministries at the General Board of Discipleship, describes the environment parents need to provide for children this way:
"Children need to feel safe, to be free from hunger, to be rested, to have a stable, loving environment, and to be free to explore and to learn. As they grow, they increasingly need to be independent, to make decisions, to feel purposeful and competent, to think, to question, to observe the world and people around them, and to practice skills."
—From "Ministry with Children," Partnership in Discipleship by Mary Alice Gran, June 2004
In addition to meeting their physical and developmental needs, Christian parents must also nurture the emotional and spiritual needs of their children. Children need constant positive reinforcement, praise, encouragement and guidance.
Modeling God's love
The most important thing parents can teach their children is that they are beloved children of God. They do this by simply loving their child, unconditionally, no strings attached. Children who do not experience unconditional love in early childhood may have a difficult time believing in a loving God when they are adolescents and may never develop a close relationship with God. Growing up without the secure knowledge that they are loved may also cause children to have difficulty forming relationships with others throughout their lives.
Parents model God's love by accepting their children as they are. Each child is a unique creation of God. Children have different gifts, temperaments, and abilities. Our responsibility as parents is to help children discover these gifts and learn to use them to glorify God and to serve others.
Parents model God's love by through Christ-like behavior. Children who feel loved show compassion for others. Children who see their parents read the Bible and pray grow up with a respect for the Bible and its teachings and learn to seek God's guidance in their lives. Children whose parents are involved in church or mission activities are much more likely to be involved in those activities throughout their lives.
Parents model God's love by teaching their children responsibility. Sometimes loving children unconditionally is confused with permissiveness. But true parental love mimics God's love. God calls us to a standard of behavior that shows love for God, self, and others. Parents must also guide their children to love God, to love themselves, and to respect the earth and all its inhabitants.
Nurturing your child's faith
As a parent, you have enormous influence on the development of your child's spiritual life. The lessons children learn at home have more impact than those learned at school or even at church. Most faith-filled adults were raised by faith-filled parents. Children learn and model their faith through the examples of their parents and other important adults in their lives.
In Parenting on Point: Leading Your Family Along God's Path, James Williams emphasizes the importance of nurturing the faith of your children through the consistent-and daily-practices you model for them and the environment that these practices create. Williams suggests you make the following part of your daily practice of nurturing your child's faith:
- Talk openly and frequently about your own faith and beliefs
- Pray together with your children, especially at meals and bedtime.
- Have a regular family devotion time.
- Allow everyday occurrences to become opportunities for acknowledging God's presence and making faith connections (e.g. thanking God for a beautiful day, pointing how God helped you in a particular situation, and so forth.)
- Make being involved in church a high priority.
—Adapted from Parenting on Point: Leading Your Family Along God's Path by James Williams (Abingdon Press, 2002), p. 77-78.
How the church is in ministry with families
The church offers children and families nurture and support
Parents themselves need a community of support and nurture in order to provide a nurturing and supportive environment for their children. Churches are also called to nurture and support parents through programs such as parenting classes, providing help in the form of meals or babysitting during times of stress, and adequate children's programming. Parents and churches are called to partner in helping children develop spiritually and grow into faithful adults.
Most importantly, the congregation provides a nurturing community of love and support for both parents and children. In our Baptismal liturgy, the congregation pledges to be involved in the life of the child being baptized and his or her family. They pledge to model Christian faith through the example of their lives and surround the family with love and support:
With God's help, we will proclaim the good news
and live according to the example of Christ.
We will surround these persons
with a community of love and forgiveness,
that they may grow in their service to others.
We will pray for them,
that they may be true disciples
who walk in the way that leads to life.
—From "Baptismal Covenant II," The United Methodist Hymnal (The United Methodist Publishing House, 1989), p. 40.
|
