Josh and Jessica Heyworth are great examples of intentional, spiritual parenting. While not perfect, the Heyworth’s are passionate about sharing, experimenting and encouraging others to discipleship their children.
Here is their plea at Hayward Wesleyan Church’s vision Sunday a couple of weeks ago on the “Need for Family Discipleship” (click here for #1):
source Vimeo
A couple of weeks ago, Hayward Wesleyan Church shared some of the vision for this next year. For as long as Hayward Wesleyan has been under Pastor Mark Wilson’s leadership (20+ years), the mantra has been:
Mark shared that the first 10 years our church was focused on “bringing in” and the last 10 years on “sending out.” The arena that needs focus for perhaps the next decade is “building up” the body–discipleship.
On vision Sunday, Pastor Heath emphasized men’s discipleship (Turbo groups). Pastor Loretta emphasized women’s discipleship (Emotionally Healthy Spirituality). And I emphasized family discipleship. We each had a member of the congregation share a testimony of their involvement in one of these areas.
The video below is my introduction to “The Need for Family Discipleship” before the Heyworths graced the stage (I apologize that the sound recording wasn’t the best):
source Vimeo
Michelle Anthony, in her new book, Dreaming of More for the Next Generation: Lifetime Faith Ignited by Family Ministry,expresses a certain regret and a resolve:
Partly out of ignorance, much of my past ministry had eliminated parents from experiencing their God-given role of nurturing faith. There were even times when, out of compassion, I felt that we as the church could help parents out by doing what they were struggling with.
[However], instead of rescuing children from the lack of spiritual parenting they were receiving, I began to think in terms of raising up spiritual parents and homes.
Michelle Anthony goes on to ask two really crucial questions for churches and newly-minted family ministry strategists to help “raise up spiritual parents and homes.”
How does the church come alongside parents to help them in their own faith formation so that the spillover of their faith influences their children in the way God envisions?
What shifts in ministry focus need to take place in order for us to devote time and attention to a ministry for adults when our infrastructure was designed for children and youth?
These questions (and their answers) have the potential to redirect ministry focus and resources from ministering TO children to ministry TO/WITH/AMONG parents…
NSEW | Game SetupThis is a large group game played with the WHOLE group
Download: NSEW Game [304kb, PDF]
Download: David and Goliath Dodgeball [204kb, PDF]
Download: Bombardment Dodgeball [205kb, PDF]
Download: Elimination Dodgeball [204kb, PDF]
Samuel Clarkson wrote a book called The Church at Home: A Plea for Family Religion (available for free @ Google Books) circa 1860.
I wrote a post called Do As I Say, Not As I Do a couple of days ago with a quote from the author of this book. Clarkson has some great things to say about what he called “family religion” or what we would refer to as the spiritual formation of our families today.
Clarkson lays out a plea for wise interaction with the Sunday morning sermon at church:
“It is the duty of Christian parents to take their children at an early age to the house of God, and to train them to take part intelligently, earnestly, and sincerely in the worship; and if they wish them to profit by what they hear, they will do all they can to deepen the impressions made in the sanctuary.
“They may do much in this direction by referring to what they have heard – by questions as to the subject of the preacher’s discourse – by explanations on some points which at the time might not be understood – and, more than all, by affectionate appeals to them at once to obey the truth.
“Instead of acting thus, too many parents are in the habit either of criticizing or censuring the preacher on their return home, in the presence of their children, or of wasting the time by talk on subjects as far away as conceivable from gospel doctrine and duty.
“Every wise and holy parent, who sincerely desires the spiritual well-being of his children, will train them to receive the words of their minister as a message from God, to be attentively heard, candidly examined, seriously pondered, and honestly obeyed.
“Instead of sitting in judgment in their presence on sermons and preachers, he will try to produce in them a conviction of their responsibility for the priceless privileges they enjoy; will not fail to remind them that they must give an account to Him for every sermon, precept, and appeal; and will urge them, by all motives of duty and delight, to yield themselves to their Maker and Redeemer.”
So what about you…
Earlier in the book, the author said that parents need to “second” at home what they learned at church so as to ingrain and instill the message of God into the very fabric of their lives. Only that “second” from the parents can truly and in a relevant way, apply the truths of God’s Word and put them into action.
A while back, Doug Fields witnessed a parent “smack their kid when he messed up.” This caused him to reflect on how he would have engaged her in a conversation had he had the chance.
I think we’ve all been in this situation before. We witness someone do something and we wish we could either intervene or have an imaginary conversation with them. Here is what Doug thought:
“Consider the confusion the boy received when he got hit for hitting another child. It seems as though it’s teaching the child that hitting is okay if you’re in charge.
“Hitting a child may thwart inappropriate behavior, but there’s a high cost connected to it—emotionally, relationally and physically.
“There’s no one way to discipline children, but there are better ways.”
Doug goes on to offer 5 questions he and his wife would ask when they disciplined their kids:
- What did you do?
- Why was that behavior wrong?
- How could you have handled it better?
- Next time, what do you think you could do?
- Should you not, what would be a fair & natural consequence?
“These questions gave us some cool down time and also helped us teach our kids to think about their actions. It would have been a lot easier to simply scream and send them to their rooms.”
Recently I was reading a fantastic book on the parental role to “train” their children, and one of the things the author said to NEVER do was to punish in anger. Angry punishment might make the parent feel better in the moment, but it does not “train” a child. It may or may not even cease the behavior. If it does, it is only temporary.
Our charge, as Doug and his wife affirm through their questions, is to “teach his kids to think about their actions,” to train them, and we do this best when we are calm.
Discipline or punishment does not have to happen in the moment. Delayed reaction (and punishments) have a great effect and can be used wisely in the discipline/training of a child/teenager.
Yelling or “smacking,” is not only inappropriate, but it fails to adequately train a child in the way he (or she) should go.
HT Doug Fields
In Main Street last summer (2011) we ended up playing games every week for about 15 minutes at beginning if the children’s ministry hour. It was fun. The students had a blast being silly and it brought some great playful energy to the large group time. And, it woke the sleepy students up and got them engaged!
Normally our routine in Main Street was to sing songs for the first 10 minutes and then on to offering, announcements, and birthday celebrations before we taught the large group the Bible story of the day. However, because of the game experiment over the summer we wanted to add that to the line up, but there was no room to put it in.
Then we had the idea to alternate every week between games and music. We would just be substituting games for music every other week instead of dipping into small group time. We didn’t want to keep making the large group time longer and the small group time shorter so the alternation seemed like a good idea.
And I’m happy to report that it has become a great tradition. If we did games every week it might become routine and expectant, but we don’t. When we did music every week, only certain students would participate while others were disengaged. Alternating weeks has added a sense of intrigue and mystery that is helpful when engaging with children on a Sunday morning.
It’s neat to be continually learning not just NEW things, but fresh ways of doing thing and packaging/arranging things with the students in mind.
Playing games has brought some great humor and created some fun memories of Sunday morning.