Questions:
Do you look at your home as a Mansion, a gift from God?
Do you enjoy your home? It is a reflection of you in how it functions. What steps do you need to take to make your home function? Organization? Planning??
How can you minister to your husband in your home?
How can you minister to your children in your home?
How much bible teaching is done by other people for your children? All, some, none?
What dedication would you like pronounced in your home?
In what ways do you need to change entertainment into hospitality?
Do you minister to those outside your home? What opportunities could you be part of in the future?
Titus 2:4-5 says we are to be busy at home. Do you find this to be overwhelming? How do you juggle the demands of work, parenthood, ministry, marriage, etc? What priorities do you need to make to find a balance and follow God’s call?
Prayer
Ministry of Your Mansion
Ministry of Your Mansion
From Titus 2:3-5, “Teach the older women to live in a way that honors God. They must not slander others or be heavy drinkers. Instead they should teach others what is good. These older women must train the younger women to love their husbands and their children, to live wisely and be pure, to work in their homes, to do good, and to be submissive to their husbands. Then they will not bring shame on the word of God.
As young women we are to seek training that teaches us:
-how to love our husbands
-how to love our children
-how to live wisely
-how to be pure
-how to work in our home
-how to do good
-how to be submissive
If we learn how to do these things our attitudes and actions will be aligned with the word of God so that others will be led to Christ, and not led astray.
Tonight we are going to look specifically at working in our home. How, in this area of working in our home, can we align our attitudes and actions with the word of God so that others will be led to Christ?
My sources tonight are Elizabeth George, author of A Women’s High Calling and Donna Otto, author of Finding your Purpose as a Mom, and Jane Englund, a teacher at Willow in the Women’s daytime classes. I have had the opportunity to be under her teaching and leadership for 2 years now.
Donna Otto says, “Your home is holy ground – a place where God has chosen to live and do his work.”
You most likely do not live in your dream home. My first home with my husband was an apartment in downtown Arlington Heights. It was in a cool up and coming area. New buildings were everywhere. There was lots of shopping and dinning, and it was near the train line to the city. But it wasn’t perfect. We figured out how to live in close quarters very quickly, you see, our apartment was a studio apartment. It was tinny tiny and it was also in an old apartment building. It was all we could get for the rent we could afford in this awesome area. So, as soon as we had saved enough money we bought a new 2 bedroom condo in Palatine. It was beautiful and new. I was very excited about the newness because the apartment had been so old and somewhat disgusting to me. The new condo was also enormous to us. I thought it had so much space. I actually made a rule about shouting. You were not allowed to shout from the living area to either of the bedrooms. You had to go to the person you wanted to speak with instead of shouting for their attention. But, we quickly out grew the space. We had Nathan just 11 months after moving in and Reagan was born before we were there 2.5 years. My sweet baby girl slept in a crib her 1st year of life that actually fit into our guest bathroom. This condo began as a dream come true but became crunched quarters. I searched for months for the perfect next step. And I finally found it, it is our current townhome, and I love it. But truth be told, it isn’t my dream home either. I dream of a back yard for my kids to play in and a larger living area for hosting and a million other things that could bigger and better in the next home.
But this home, and all the other places I have lived have been Mansions where Ministry Happens. God understood when he wrote our stories, wherever we live is a mansion. We need to see things as God sees them. Our home is a place where He can be known by his children.
The question is, do you see your home as a gift from God? I am asking not just are you thankful for your home, but do you see it as a gifting to you, yours and those around you? Do you use it as a gift?
Psalms 16:5-6 claims that our land is our inheritance – the home we have is a blessing and part of Gods gifting to us as his children.
Joshua 24:15 tells us to choose whom we will serve – how and who will you choose to serve with your home? Will you serve God with your Mansion?
Titus 2:4-5 urges us to be workers in our homes – to be busy there.
There are three ways our homes are used for ministry, Ministry Inside Your Home, Ministry With Your Home, and Ministry Outside Your Home.
Ministry Inside Your Home is ministry to the people in your home, your husband and your kids.
Beginning with ministering to your husband, let me read to you from Ephesians 5:33 (from the Amplified version), “Let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband. That she notices him, regards him, honors him, prefers him, venerates and esteems him; and that she defers to him, praises him, and loves and admires him exceedingly.”
I was just at a wedding yesterday and I was reminded of the commitment I made to my husband in my vows. I was also reminded of the role I have as a Christ follower in a marriage. Standing 7.5 years ago in front a church full of witnesses, I had no idea the level of the commitment I was making. Yesterday I looked at those newly weds and thought about how difficult it is to truly be selfless and put another person and their needs above your own. Marriage is really an act of servant-hood.
In what ways do you serve your husband? Is your husband led to Christ in your home? Do you allow him to make mistakes? Is he safe when he comes home from work? Does he get the opportunity to relax and rejuvenate in your home? As he is inside his gift from God, does he feel blessed? Can he worship?
As we are called to work in our homes, let us have our husbands in mind. Could planning meals, serve him? Could a clean house and clean laundry serve him? Could a break from stress and expectation serve him? How can you take steps to minister to your husband inside your home?
Ministering to your children is another act of Ministry Inside Your Home. Only you can be their mother, caring for their needs, teaching them, and training them. Have you noticed that no matter how much work anyone else does for your children, you the mother are ultimately in charge? I have a wonderful husband who helps out tremendously in our home with our children, and yet no matter how much he does, and knows how to do, he will still defer to me as the authority over the children.
We as mothers have a wonderful opportunity to study God’s word with our kids, to read bible stories together and memorize scripture. We have the opportunity to teach scripture in everyday circumstances. Deut. 6:7-9 tells us to teach God’s commandments when we get up and lie down, and when we are walking along the road. We can fill our homes with worship and play Christian music. As your children grow and develop, our homes should be safe places for them to come to escape from the world around them. Our homes will never be perfect, but they can be forgiving and loving and nurturing and peaceful. When our children want to run away from the troubles they are facing, wouldn’t it be wonderful if instead of running away from home, they were running to home.
The second way to use your home for ministry is the Ministry With Your Home. Ministry with your home is the ministry of hospitality. 1 Peter 4:9 tells us that being hospitable is not optional, gifting or not gifting, we are called to hospitality. Use your home for fun, food and fellowship, have other people and their kids around. How can you make your home hospitable? Here are some ideas…
First impressions are important. Walk out your front door and head to the curb. Be critical. Is your home welcoming? Are there maintenance opportunities on the outside of your home? Could you improve the appearance with a few flowers and plants? Does your front door look nice, or does it need a fresh coat of paint? Is the walkway clear of debris? Could you sweep the front walkway and steps to clean it up a bit? Brush out cobwebs in your front door? What about once your guests enter your home? Is your entry way free from clutter? Is there a place to hang their coat? These questions and this line of thinking is not about creating the perfect home or a model home where people don’t live, but rather creating a home that says, “Welcome to the place where we live, we love it, we take care of it, we want you to know there is a space for you as our guests in it as well.”
Another idea for making your home hospitable is to actually dedicate it to the Lord. You could hold an dedication ceremony with family and friends. You can create a blessing, a confession of your faith and place it at your front door. Deut 6:4-9 tells us to write God’s commandments on our doorposts. I have in my home, not currently at my front door, but several dedications of the values and blessings our family holds dear in my home. Be creative and make it special to your family. Pray over the rooms in your home. Pray that God would use them and be present in each space.
In this era there is much on TV, in print media, and on the internet telling us how to decorate and entertain in our houses. Please recognize that there is a very big difference between Entertainment and Hospitality. Our calling in 1 Peter 4:9 says, “Cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay.” From Finding Your Purpose as a Mom here is a poem by Donna Otto:
Hospitality…
Hospitality seeks to provide a safe place.
Hospitality strives to serve.
Hospitality puts people before things.
Hospitality claims that what’s mine is yours.
Hospitality takes no thought for reward or reciprocation.
Hospitality is about welcome, inclusion, and acceptance.
Hospitality frees us to enjoy one another and grow in the Lord.
Hospitality specifically seeks out those in need of food, shelter, company, or a listening ear.
Hospitality is an act of obedience and stewardship.
Entertainment…
Entertainment seeks to provide a showplace.
Entertaining strives to impress.
Entertaining elevates things above people.
Entertaining claims that everything is mine and you should admire it and certainly not touch it.
Entertaining expects praise and a return invitation.
Entertaining is about exclusiveness and pride.
Entertaining enslaves us to personal and cultural expectations.
Entertaining seeks out those we think can help us in some way.
Entertaining is essentially a self-serving occupation.
You see, there is a ministry that can actually happen With our homes. If you haven’t the perfect home for inviting others in, invite them anyway. This will help you see how your home functions, what changes you need to make and how you can best use it to minister to others.
A final way we can minister using our homes is with the Ministry Outside Our Homes. This statement seems a little paradoxical. What I am talking about here is a call to minister to those in our walk of life. For example, our neighbors, those in our social paths via church, school, work, extracurricular activities, and service opportunities.
God calls us to minister to his children. We are to walk outside the doors of our home and minister to those in need. We can do that with our homes. Have you ever baked a meal for a friend who has just had a baby? Brought homemade cookies to your new neighbors? Cheered up a friend with handmade card? Used your home to Collect and assembled goods for a service project – Angel Tree or the backpack drive? These are all ways to use our homes to minister to others.
I believe that in taking care of your home and keeping it organized you will find much that you don’t use and can’t use. By identifying those things and giving them to those in need you are using your home to minister outside your home. When my mother in law remodeled her kitchen, she was able to donate the old cabinetry to a church in need of kitchen cabinets. What an opportunity to bless people with something you no longer needed or used.
When you look Outside your home, be intentional about reaching out. Share God’s love.
I hope and pray that God would help you see that your home is your ministry and that there are many ways to minister using your home. The people in your home are your top priority. You have a unique role in their lives and providing a home for them is of utmost importance. We have also a great work of ministry with our homes though the act of hospitality. Finally we can use our homes for ministry as we reach out to those outside our homes. Elizabeth George calls the home a ‘hub’, a ‘haven’, a ‘hospital’, a ‘hearth’, a “place to be happy’, and a place of ‘hospitality’. Can you see the ministry you have in your Mansion? Let me close with a poem and a word of prayer. This poem is from a Jewish friend of author Emilie Barnes, “May its doors be open to anyone in need, its rooms filled with kindness, may joy shine from its windows and God’s presence never leave it.”
From Titus 2:3-5, “Teach the older women to live in a way that honors God. They must not slander others or be heavy drinkers. Instead they should teach others what is good. These older women must train the younger women to love their husbands and their children, to live wisely and be pure, to work in their homes, to do good, and to be submissive to their husbands. Then they will not bring shame on the word of God.
As young women we are to seek training that teaches us:
-how to love our husbands
-how to love our children
-how to live wisely
-how to be pure
-how to work in our home
-how to do good
-how to be submissive
If we learn how to do these things our attitudes and actions will be aligned with the word of God so that others will be led to Christ, and not led astray.
Tonight we are going to look specifically at working in our home. How, in this area of working in our home, can we align our attitudes and actions with the word of God so that others will be led to Christ?
My sources tonight are Elizabeth George, author of A Women’s High Calling and Donna Otto, author of Finding your Purpose as a Mom, and Jane Englund, a teacher at Willow in the Women’s daytime classes. I have had the opportunity to be under her teaching and leadership for 2 years now.
Donna Otto says, “Your home is holy ground – a place where God has chosen to live and do his work.”
You most likely do not live in your dream home. My first home with my husband was an apartment in downtown Arlington Heights. It was in a cool up and coming area. New buildings were everywhere. There was lots of shopping and dinning, and it was near the train line to the city. But it wasn’t perfect. We figured out how to live in close quarters very quickly, you see, our apartment was a studio apartment. It was tinny tiny and it was also in an old apartment building. It was all we could get for the rent we could afford in this awesome area. So, as soon as we had saved enough money we bought a new 2 bedroom condo in Palatine. It was beautiful and new. I was very excited about the newness because the apartment had been so old and somewhat disgusting to me. The new condo was also enormous to us. I thought it had so much space. I actually made a rule about shouting. You were not allowed to shout from the living area to either of the bedrooms. You had to go to the person you wanted to speak with instead of shouting for their attention. But, we quickly out grew the space. We had Nathan just 11 months after moving in and Reagan was born before we were there 2.5 years. My sweet baby girl slept in a crib her 1st year of life that actually fit into our guest bathroom. This condo began as a dream come true but became crunched quarters. I searched for months for the perfect next step. And I finally found it, it is our current townhome, and I love it. But truth be told, it isn’t my dream home either. I dream of a back yard for my kids to play in and a larger living area for hosting and a million other things that could bigger and better in the next home.
But this home, and all the other places I have lived have been Mansions where Ministry Happens. God understood when he wrote our stories, wherever we live is a mansion. We need to see things as God sees them. Our home is a place where He can be known by his children.
The question is, do you see your home as a gift from God? I am asking not just are you thankful for your home, but do you see it as a gifting to you, yours and those around you? Do you use it as a gift?
Psalms 16:5-6 claims that our land is our inheritance – the home we have is a blessing and part of Gods gifting to us as his children.
Joshua 24:15 tells us to choose whom we will serve – how and who will you choose to serve with your home? Will you serve God with your Mansion?
Titus 2:4-5 urges us to be workers in our homes – to be busy there.
There are three ways our homes are used for ministry, Ministry Inside Your Home, Ministry With Your Home, and Ministry Outside Your Home.
Ministry Inside Your Home is ministry to the people in your home, your husband and your kids.
Beginning with ministering to your husband, let me read to you from Ephesians 5:33 (from the Amplified version), “Let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband. That she notices him, regards him, honors him, prefers him, venerates and esteems him; and that she defers to him, praises him, and loves and admires him exceedingly.”
I was just at a wedding yesterday and I was reminded of the commitment I made to my husband in my vows. I was also reminded of the role I have as a Christ follower in a marriage. Standing 7.5 years ago in front a church full of witnesses, I had no idea the level of the commitment I was making. Yesterday I looked at those newly weds and thought about how difficult it is to truly be selfless and put another person and their needs above your own. Marriage is really an act of servant-hood.
In what ways do you serve your husband? Is your husband led to Christ in your home? Do you allow him to make mistakes? Is he safe when he comes home from work? Does he get the opportunity to relax and rejuvenate in your home? As he is inside his gift from God, does he feel blessed? Can he worship?
As we are called to work in our homes, let us have our husbands in mind. Could planning meals, serve him? Could a clean house and clean laundry serve him? Could a break from stress and expectation serve him? How can you take steps to minister to your husband inside your home?
Ministering to your children is another act of Ministry Inside Your Home. Only you can be their mother, caring for their needs, teaching them, and training them. Have you noticed that no matter how much work anyone else does for your children, you the mother are ultimately in charge? I have a wonderful husband who helps out tremendously in our home with our children, and yet no matter how much he does, and knows how to do, he will still defer to me as the authority over the children.
We as mothers have a wonderful opportunity to study God’s word with our kids, to read bible stories together and memorize scripture. We have the opportunity to teach scripture in everyday circumstances. Deut. 6:7-9 tells us to teach God’s commandments when we get up and lie down, and when we are walking along the road. We can fill our homes with worship and play Christian music. As your children grow and develop, our homes should be safe places for them to come to escape from the world around them. Our homes will never be perfect, but they can be forgiving and loving and nurturing and peaceful. When our children want to run away from the troubles they are facing, wouldn’t it be wonderful if instead of running away from home, they were running to home.
The second way to use your home for ministry is the Ministry With Your Home. Ministry with your home is the ministry of hospitality. 1 Peter 4:9 tells us that being hospitable is not optional, gifting or not gifting, we are called to hospitality. Use your home for fun, food and fellowship, have other people and their kids around. How can you make your home hospitable? Here are some ideas…
First impressions are important. Walk out your front door and head to the curb. Be critical. Is your home welcoming? Are there maintenance opportunities on the outside of your home? Could you improve the appearance with a few flowers and plants? Does your front door look nice, or does it need a fresh coat of paint? Is the walkway clear of debris? Could you sweep the front walkway and steps to clean it up a bit? Brush out cobwebs in your front door? What about once your guests enter your home? Is your entry way free from clutter? Is there a place to hang their coat? These questions and this line of thinking is not about creating the perfect home or a model home where people don’t live, but rather creating a home that says, “Welcome to the place where we live, we love it, we take care of it, we want you to know there is a space for you as our guests in it as well.”
Another idea for making your home hospitable is to actually dedicate it to the Lord. You could hold an dedication ceremony with family and friends. You can create a blessing, a confession of your faith and place it at your front door. Deut 6:4-9 tells us to write God’s commandments on our doorposts. I have in my home, not currently at my front door, but several dedications of the values and blessings our family holds dear in my home. Be creative and make it special to your family. Pray over the rooms in your home. Pray that God would use them and be present in each space.
In this era there is much on TV, in print media, and on the internet telling us how to decorate and entertain in our houses. Please recognize that there is a very big difference between Entertainment and Hospitality. Our calling in 1 Peter 4:9 says, “Cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay.” From Finding Your Purpose as a Mom here is a poem by Donna Otto:
Hospitality…
Hospitality seeks to provide a safe place.
Hospitality strives to serve.
Hospitality puts people before things.
Hospitality claims that what’s mine is yours.
Hospitality takes no thought for reward or reciprocation.
Hospitality is about welcome, inclusion, and acceptance.
Hospitality frees us to enjoy one another and grow in the Lord.
Hospitality specifically seeks out those in need of food, shelter, company, or a listening ear.
Hospitality is an act of obedience and stewardship.
Entertainment…
Entertainment seeks to provide a showplace.
Entertaining strives to impress.
Entertaining elevates things above people.
Entertaining claims that everything is mine and you should admire it and certainly not touch it.
Entertaining expects praise and a return invitation.
Entertaining is about exclusiveness and pride.
Entertaining enslaves us to personal and cultural expectations.
Entertaining seeks out those we think can help us in some way.
Entertaining is essentially a self-serving occupation.
You see, there is a ministry that can actually happen With our homes. If you haven’t the perfect home for inviting others in, invite them anyway. This will help you see how your home functions, what changes you need to make and how you can best use it to minister to others.
A final way we can minister using our homes is with the Ministry Outside Our Homes. This statement seems a little paradoxical. What I am talking about here is a call to minister to those in our walk of life. For example, our neighbors, those in our social paths via church, school, work, extracurricular activities, and service opportunities.
God calls us to minister to his children. We are to walk outside the doors of our home and minister to those in need. We can do that with our homes. Have you ever baked a meal for a friend who has just had a baby? Brought homemade cookies to your new neighbors? Cheered up a friend with handmade card? Used your home to Collect and assembled goods for a service project – Angel Tree or the backpack drive? These are all ways to use our homes to minister to others.
I believe that in taking care of your home and keeping it organized you will find much that you don’t use and can’t use. By identifying those things and giving them to those in need you are using your home to minister outside your home. When my mother in law remodeled her kitchen, she was able to donate the old cabinetry to a church in need of kitchen cabinets. What an opportunity to bless people with something you no longer needed or used.
When you look Outside your home, be intentional about reaching out. Share God’s love.
I hope and pray that God would help you see that your home is your ministry and that there are many ways to minister using your home. The people in your home are your top priority. You have a unique role in their lives and providing a home for them is of utmost importance. We have also a great work of ministry with our homes though the act of hospitality. Finally we can use our homes for ministry as we reach out to those outside our homes. Elizabeth George calls the home a ‘hub’, a ‘haven’, a ‘hospital’, a ‘hearth’, a “place to be happy’, and a place of ‘hospitality’. Can you see the ministry you have in your Mansion? Let me close with a poem and a word of prayer. This poem is from a Jewish friend of author Emilie Barnes, “May its doors be open to anyone in need, its rooms filled with kindness, may joy shine from its windows and God’s presence never leave it.”
Raising Great Kids - Session Four
This week’s material from Henry Cloud and John Townsend’s Raising Great Kids, centers on developing competence, morality and Spirituality in our children. So far we have discussed developing three other characteristics in our children; connectedness, responsibility, and reality. These final three seem very challenging to me. I am so glad that we have Cloud and Townsend, experts in this area to help us.
Competence: Children tend to see our work inside and outside the home as something that takes us away from them. It is important to model interest in, involvement in, and even frustration with the work you do both inside and outside the home. Let your children see that you love them, but that you have a work life, tool.
Take a moment to evaluate what we are modeling about interest in, involvement in, and even frustration with work you do inside as well as outside the home.
Not only do you want your child to integrate work into their lives, but you also want to help them with the specific interests, talents, gifts and aptitudes God put into them. Parenting involves helping your children explore, discover, and develop those capacities that they will later enjoy and excel in.
Morality: Remember the 10 Commandments that Moses brought down to the people of Israel? We as parents also give our family our own set of commandments. Think about the set of commandments your parents gave you as you were growing up. Some possibilities are “Thou shalt not speak the truth about certain issues. It will make your father angry”; “Thou shalt not make a mistake ever. You should already know how to do it before you are told”; and “Thou shalt not be independent. It is an abomination.”
Cloud and Townsend say, “No family would put such commandments on the wall of the kitchen in embroidery to be memorized. But commandments like these are memorized because they are experienced by the children and become part of their own conscience. Later in life, when a relationship calls for direct truth or independence, the child’s conscience will not allow him to bring forth those qualities. As a result, his adult relationships will suffer.
What we want is for our children’s conscience to be his friend, not his adversary. And we want the focus of that conscience to be relationship, reality issues, and reality consequences. We want the conscience to work toward protecting love with God and others and toward aligning oneself with the reality of God’s created order more than with petty rules. “
Your laws become part of your children’s conscience through identification, imitation, modeling, and experience. Using these methods we can construct a conscience in our children around the issues. Remember how you relate to your children is forming their conscience. Their brains are recording your responses to them. It is necessary to make sure that the rules we give them are focused on love, corrected by love, and built in the context of love.
Our final characteristic is Spirituality, a child’s connection to God.
Helping our children shift from immature to mature dependency on God the Father---that, in a nutshell, is the challenge of raising kids who will one day come to love and serve the Lord. More than any other character capacity, spiritual development is caught more than taught. Children will internalize more of what you are with God and with them than what you teach them about God.
Closely related to the challenge of developing a setting that encourages a child’s spiritual life and commitment to Jesus is the question of when and how to help our child make a decision of faith.
We have discussed a lot of things during this study. Let’s do a quick review.
Responsibility Continuum – transfer responsibility to them by adulthood
Ingredients for Growth: Grace, Truth, and Time – Children need to know that you are on their side that is grace. Children need to know that you will give them reality that is truth. Children need to spend both quality of time and quantity of time with you.
Elements of Growing Character: experience and internalizing – this is how they will get character developed in them, through participating in the experiences of life and experiences you place before them and then internalizing these experiences
6 Character Traits:
Connectedness – the ability to form relationships; remember the attachment Goals?
Responsibility – taking ownership of their own life and seeing their life as their problem; remember that they gain responsibility by practicing self-control, delayed gratification, and setting and receiving limits.
Reality – the ability to accept the negatives of the real world; remember the 5-step process of embracing reality? (Protest, reality remains, metabolize the reality, grief, problem solving and resolution)
Competence – the development of everyday life skills as well as their God-given gifts and talents; teaching them that work is part of life, and helping them discover gifts and talents.
Morality – an internals sense of right and wrong – developing a conscience in them that is a friend and helper.
Worship/Spirituality – learning that God loves them and is in charge of life; learning to seek God on their own
To close out this session, I would like to have us end with a time of prayer. Pray for your children to develop the six character traits we have talked about these past few months. Also, pray for each one of them to one day make a decision for Christ.
Competence: Children tend to see our work inside and outside the home as something that takes us away from them. It is important to model interest in, involvement in, and even frustration with the work you do both inside and outside the home. Let your children see that you love them, but that you have a work life, tool.
Take a moment to evaluate what we are modeling about interest in, involvement in, and even frustration with work you do inside as well as outside the home.
Not only do you want your child to integrate work into their lives, but you also want to help them with the specific interests, talents, gifts and aptitudes God put into them. Parenting involves helping your children explore, discover, and develop those capacities that they will later enjoy and excel in.
Morality: Remember the 10 Commandments that Moses brought down to the people of Israel? We as parents also give our family our own set of commandments. Think about the set of commandments your parents gave you as you were growing up. Some possibilities are “Thou shalt not speak the truth about certain issues. It will make your father angry”; “Thou shalt not make a mistake ever. You should already know how to do it before you are told”; and “Thou shalt not be independent. It is an abomination.”
Cloud and Townsend say, “No family would put such commandments on the wall of the kitchen in embroidery to be memorized. But commandments like these are memorized because they are experienced by the children and become part of their own conscience. Later in life, when a relationship calls for direct truth or independence, the child’s conscience will not allow him to bring forth those qualities. As a result, his adult relationships will suffer.
What we want is for our children’s conscience to be his friend, not his adversary. And we want the focus of that conscience to be relationship, reality issues, and reality consequences. We want the conscience to work toward protecting love with God and others and toward aligning oneself with the reality of God’s created order more than with petty rules. “
Your laws become part of your children’s conscience through identification, imitation, modeling, and experience. Using these methods we can construct a conscience in our children around the issues. Remember how you relate to your children is forming their conscience. Their brains are recording your responses to them. It is necessary to make sure that the rules we give them are focused on love, corrected by love, and built in the context of love.
Our final characteristic is Spirituality, a child’s connection to God.
Helping our children shift from immature to mature dependency on God the Father---that, in a nutshell, is the challenge of raising kids who will one day come to love and serve the Lord. More than any other character capacity, spiritual development is caught more than taught. Children will internalize more of what you are with God and with them than what you teach them about God.
Closely related to the challenge of developing a setting that encourages a child’s spiritual life and commitment to Jesus is the question of when and how to help our child make a decision of faith.
We have discussed a lot of things during this study. Let’s do a quick review.
Responsibility Continuum – transfer responsibility to them by adulthood
Ingredients for Growth: Grace, Truth, and Time – Children need to know that you are on their side that is grace. Children need to know that you will give them reality that is truth. Children need to spend both quality of time and quantity of time with you.
Elements of Growing Character: experience and internalizing – this is how they will get character developed in them, through participating in the experiences of life and experiences you place before them and then internalizing these experiences
6 Character Traits:
Connectedness – the ability to form relationships; remember the attachment Goals?
Responsibility – taking ownership of their own life and seeing their life as their problem; remember that they gain responsibility by practicing self-control, delayed gratification, and setting and receiving limits.
Reality – the ability to accept the negatives of the real world; remember the 5-step process of embracing reality? (Protest, reality remains, metabolize the reality, grief, problem solving and resolution)
Competence – the development of everyday life skills as well as their God-given gifts and talents; teaching them that work is part of life, and helping them discover gifts and talents.
Morality – an internals sense of right and wrong – developing a conscience in them that is a friend and helper.
Worship/Spirituality – learning that God loves them and is in charge of life; learning to seek God on their own
To close out this session, I would like to have us end with a time of prayer. Pray for your children to develop the six character traits we have talked about these past few months. Also, pray for each one of them to one day make a decision for Christ.
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