March, 2016 | Gospel-Centred Parenting

Gospel In The Everyday

Scott and Cathy Gospel In The Everyday March 28, 2016January 7, 2018 11 Comments

What do you talk to your children about?

I’d imagine for most of us the conversations that we have with our children range from the sublime to the ridiculous!

Perhaps your conversation with children involves you asking them what they did at school, and them replying “nothing”? Isn’t it strange that they never do anything – you’d think someone would have noticed by now!

It could be that you talk to them about what they’re doing at that particular time – narrating their life as it happens (just in case they happen to miss something!)

Or maybe it’s simply telling them what they need to do (or not do!) “Please pick up that entire car collection that you’ve just dumped on the floor and spread across the house.” “Please don’t stand up while I change this impossibly pooey nappy.” “DO NOT put everything smaller than your fist into your mouth!”

Depending on the age of your children, the things that you talk to them about will no doubt vary.

Speaking About The Gospel

But how easy do you find it to speak to your children about Christian things? How easy, in general day-to-day life, do you find it to speak the truths of the gospel into your child’s life?

The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones*

We’re not talking about the set aside times that you may have with your children to disciple them – perhaps a family devotion, or a time of Bible-reading and prayer before bed. Those are wonderfully precious and important times for the spiritual nurturing of our children. At some point we’ll definitely have some musings on different children’s Bibles etc.

Rather, we’re talking about speaking about God – chatting about the gospel and a Christian understanding of the world in the normal activities of life – as we go about living in the day-to-day.

Speaking to our children about the gospel in this way isn’t something that necessarily comes naturally to many of us, but most would like to do it more often and more naturally. We certainly would.

In light of this we thought we would, from time-to-time, publish a new entry to a series of blog posts called “Gospel in the Everyday”, to help all of us think about how we might do this.

The Biblical Basis For Gospel In The Everyday

The Bible teaches that God has fashioned and ordered the world in such a way that the things we encounter in it speak to us of him and his attributes. Here’s what King David says in Psalm 19:

“The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
    night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
    no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
    their words to the ends of the world.”

Do you see what he’s saying there? He’s saying that God has designed the world to reveal something about himself. It’s what’s known in theology as “general revelation” (as opposed to “special revelation” – God’s supernatural, deeper and fuller revelation of himself in the Bible and ultimately in Jesus). God is speaking – not audibly, but speaking nonetheless, through his world. We just need to be listening in order to hear it.

Here’s how Paul says it in Romans 1:

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities
– his eternal power and divine nature –
have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made”

What does this mean for our parenting? It means that as we go about life, we are bombarded with opportunities to speak to our children about God. But often we’re so used to ignoring these signs ourselves that we find it difficult to interpret them and speak of them. But they are there.

They are there as we encounter the beauty of a creation that speaks of the splendour of the God who created it.
They are there as we feast our eyes on the rich palette of colour of an autumn day which speaks of a God who isn’t simply pragmatic, but loves to create beautiful things for our enjoyment.
They are there in the culture we engage with (even children’s TV and films!), in which image-bearing humans seek to represent truth as they offer interpretations of general revelation (without even realizing it).
They are there in the chaging seasons; in a sunset; in a beautiful gospel-mirroring act of kindness; in a simple glass of water.

The Example Of Jesus

Jesus took this even further. Very often Jesus simply observed the world around him and drew parallels to spiritual truth. It’s fascinating to look at the way that Jesus engaged with the physical things of the world and used them to talk about matters of spiritual significance. But as Jesus engaged with the creation, he often drew out much more than we’d normally expect from simple “general revelation”. General revelation can never reveal to us the gospel or knowledge for salvation. But Jesus, as the source of special revelation, was able to take these things much further, and draw out the depths of the gospel as he went about his day to day life in creation. He did it all the time. Here are just a few examples:

Using water, with the woman at the well (Jn 4:1-42);
Using agricultural observations with the parable of the sower (Mk 4:1-20);
Using the unworried, but nevertheless fed and clothed, ravens and lilies (Lk 12:22-34);
Using salt and light, in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:13-16).
Using bread and wine, at the Last Supper (Lk 22:7-23)

We are fortunate as Christians that we can use “special revelation” (the Bible and Jesus) to guide and add depth to our interpretation of “general revelation”. As fallen humans, general revelation is never able to give us saving knowledge (Romans 1 and elsewhere makes that clear). But we who have saving knowledge can engage with the things of general revelation and draw out echoes and glimpses of the gospel (just like Paul does in Acts 17, and elsewhere). What a joy to be able to do that day-to-day with our children as we go about life with them.

That’s exactly what this series of posts aims to help us do. The aim is to get us – Scott and Cathy – thinking (and hopefully help you to think, too) about how, in the everyday interactions with the world that we share with our children, we can point them to truths about who God is, and share with them the truths of the gospel. We’ve gone fairly deep into the theology behind this series in this introductory post to show why we’re doing this, but the future posts in this series will be very practical, looking at specific opportunities we might have with our children.

We hope you find them helpful!

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What’s the church’s role in raising a child?

Scott and Cathy Uncategorized March 21, 2016January 13, 2019 1 Comment

It Takes A Village To Raise A Child

We’ve probably all heard of the African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child”. Most of us quite like it as a sentiment.

Becoming a new parent suddenly sheds light on how useful and necessary to survival your parents and friends are… for respite; for bringing food round after the birth; for being supportive and kind when you’re hormonal, sleep-deprived and in your pyjamas. The support that friends and family can give (for those of us who are fortunate to have these people around us) is deeply appreciated. In the days and weeks after our first child was born, we relied on family and friends in a way that we had never previously done so before. We were in a state of shock! As such, we were very thankful for the cake, cups of tea and company (well, most of the time!).

The midwife, health visitor and doctor constantly asked us during pregnancy and post-partum appointments, “Do you have good support around you?” and “Do you have family and friends close by?”

Now that we have a child, we know why. We definitely needed them. And though the kind of support we need changes over time, the need never goes away.

So yes, a village. A support network. Family and friends are definitely super helpful when raising a child, at least that’s definitely the case for us. And we’re so thankful for that help.

How Does The Church Fit In?

But does the same thing apply to the church? Do we really need the church to help us raise a child? How does that relationship work?

Something we found when reading resources on Christian parenting was that the main focus was on the family unit for evangelism and discipleship of our children. We’d want to commend this outlook – we would definitely say that family unit is the primary place where a child should be discipled.

It seems that these books are trying to correct a tendency for Christian parents to outsource discipleship to church youth leaders and Sunday school teachers. But our reflection is that the New Testament view of church is something much more holistic, much more inclusive, and much more collective. The family unit doesn’t seem to be the central feature of the New Testament – Christ and his bride, the church family, is. By church we’re not talking about an institution, but the people of God. God’s family. The community of believers.

There are (apparently) 100 uses of the word ἀλλήλων “one another” in the New Testament. These are commands given to the church family about how they are to live together. If you were looking for themes about what they are largely about, then loving each other, and the importance of unity in the church rank pretty high. Here are some examples:

Be devoted to one another in love (Ro 12:10)

Regard one another as more important than yourselves (Php 2:3)

Bear one another’s burdens (Ga 6:2)

Speak truth to one another (Ep 4:25)

Encourage and build one another up (1 Th 5:11)

Be hospitable to one another (1 Pe 4:9)

Be kind, tender-hearted, and forgiving to one another (Ep 4:32)

In the glory days of the early church here’s how this happened:

”They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer[…]Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

(Acts 2v42; 46-47)

The community of believers were hanging out together, reading the Bible together, praying together and eating together.

Every day.

So what were the children up to?

Presumably they were involved too.

Assuming that the church community is a place for children, and assuming that God’s plan for his church is the regular fellowship of Christians… what does it look like for our children to be loved, encouraged, served, accepted etc by the church? What does it look like for us to do these “one anothers” for other people’s children?

Practically Living This Out

Here are a few practical ideas.

Invite other people’s children into your life. Have a whole family round for lunch, or take another child from church swimming when you’re already going. Plan to invite another family from church along to an activity you’ve got planned – maybe going for a walk, or visiting the local museum. Organise a group to come round and watch the latest sports match, and invite some of the older children from church to join in. Arrange to have coffee once a fortnight with one of the teenagers in church who shares some similar interests with you.

Why not think about something you could do this next week to get to know some of the other children in church? Writing this has prompted us to think about how we can, with God’s help, be better at this too – we’ve come up with some practical steps that we’re going to take.

As all this happens, children have the opportunity to witness Christian community in action, and to experience the “one anothers” taking place.

One of the things we love about our church is how our weekly mid-week meeting seeks to include children. Each week we start at 6pm so the children can eat with us and be involved for the first half of our time together. Sometimes this is slightly chaotic, but it’s great to feel we are getting to know the children, and that they’re part of the church community. This, alongside an intentionality to share life outside of more “formal” meetings, means that the children are increasingly becoming part of our church community. How could you do this with people at your church?

In all of this, here’s the crucial ingredient: as you do these things, be intentional to chat to the children. Don’t just settle for children socialising with children, and adults with adults. Chat to the children. Get to know them. Find out what’s important to them. Find out what they hope for, what they fear, what is going on in their lives right now. Understand them. Share age-appropriate things about your life too. And as you go, speak the truth of the gospel into the situations they face – both the joys and the struggles. Show them how the gospel is impacting the way you go about life, and the way you respond to situations. Pray with them.

The Apologetic Of Love

In John 13:35, Jesus is addressing his disciples for one of the last times before he goes to the cross. What he says here is really significant. He says this:

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

What’s he saying there? He’s saying that one of the primary ways that onlookers will see that we love and follow Jesus is this: by witnessing Christian community in practice. By seeing us loving one another.

What is true for our neighbours, colleagues, friends and relatives must also be true for our children.

We want to expose our children to the nitty-gritty of church life. We want them not solely to be farmed out to children-specific church programmes (though they have their place), but to be involved in the inter-generational, cross-cultural, socio-economic-divide-crossing network of relationships – to witness us doing the “one anothers”, and to be on the receiving (and ultimately giving!) end of them too.

We want them to see us self-sacrificially serve and love one another, just like Jesus.

We want them to witness our church family speaking deeply into one another’s lives about how the gospel impacts every area of life.

We want them to see that when we fall out we respond in a godly way as we extend grace and forgive one another, just like Jesus.

As they do, they see and experience a powerful apologetic for the gospel. And when they (Lord willing) become believers, they grow and are discipled in Christian community. They develop a robust, deep and broad view of how the gospel shapes every area of life. All of this takes place as our church families play their part in the raising of our children.

In writing this we’ve seen in ourselves a tendency to gravitate towards speaking to and spending time with adults when around church family. We really do believe, however, that we have a wonderful opportunity to invest in the lives of the children in our church, and so will be seeking to increasingly take these opportunities in future.

So these are our thoughts. The family unit is the primary place for the discipleship of our children. But the church can and should play an exciting and important part in displaying and proclaiming the gospel to our children, and raising them to be those who love Jesus and see how his kindness and grace wonderfully impacts everything.

What do you think? Why not share in the comments below your positive experiences of this, and ideas you have for how this be worked out in practice?

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Clingy-Tyke or Christ-Like?

Scott and Cathy Parenting babies March 14, 2016January 4, 2018 0 Comment

Human beings are made in the image of God. That means lots of things: we’re creative; we’re made to rule; we’re communicative; and we’re relational.

In the beginning, when the Lord was creating, he declared “good”over everything. That is until he made a solitary man. In all of creation, the only thing that was “not good” was that this man was alone. After the Lord had made a woman for the man he then stood back, admired his handiwork, and with satisfaction declared that the universe that he made was “very good”. (Note that, ladies; God thinks the addition of women is the icing on the cake!)

This makes sense when we think about the nature of God. A triune God. A loving community. Father, Son and Spirit loving each other from eternity past. If the creator of all things is by definition a relational community, then it makes sense that human beings are wired not to be solitary creatures but to live in community too.

That’s why in Genesis 1:26-27, God says this:

“Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…

So God created mankind in his own image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.”

Which takes us to our son. Our baby is six months old. He’s (most of the time) pretty easy to please. He has some physical needs that we have to meet. He needs food when he’s hungry. He needs sleep when he’s tired. He needs to be bathed, changed and kept clean and dry. He’s needs to be kept a happy temperature. But even if all these things have been seen to and he’s perfectly content, he still needs one other very important thing. He needs company.

Our baby is a little human being and he’s a social creature. Nothing starts him crying more quickly then when we walk out of a room. He hates being alone. That’s why he’s happiest when he’s playing with someone, when he’s being cuddled and sung to, when he’s sleeping in our bed (we’re trying not to love it so much, and break the habit!). But of course the reason he loves these things is because he’s one of God’s image bearers. And while he will become more independent from us as parents as he gets older, and while these years of physical affection and constant cuddling are short lived, our son will never outgrow his need for relationships. He will always crave them and we pray his life will be full of satisfying and loving relationships.

So as we struggle to do any housework because our little boy wants us to carry him, or as we relent and let him sleep in bed with us because it stops him crying… or as we flinch because as he tries to affectionately stroke us he ends up scratching us to pieces(!)… we just need to remember this; he’s acting in accordance with his God given desire to be in community. There might be one or two things to work on there. But fundamentally we can rejoice that our precious son bears the image of our triune God.

So – clingy child or image bearer? Probably a bit of both. But here’s a wonderful truth to remember when the baby’s clingy-ness is beginning to annoy us:

It’s not good for him to be alone.

We’ll try to remember this the next time he scuppers our plans.

What is Christian Parenting?

Scott and Cathy Uncategorized March 7, 2016September 2, 2019 1 Comment

So, what exactly is Christian parenting?

Is it…

Home schooling delivered by a full-time stay at home mum?
A safe, accepting place where we instil in our children a strong sense of security and freedom?
An orderly and disciplined home, where the “rod” is paramount to shaping a child’s character?
Pretty much like any other parenting, apart from we encourage our kids to go to Sunday School and Christian summer camps?
Teaching our children to respect authority?
The decision to send our kids to a boarding school with a long history of evangelical Christian witness?

These are all approaches that we’ve come across in our exploration of Christian parenting.

When we found out that we were expecting our first child it suddenly dawned on us that we were going to be responsible for another human being. Us!

Surely you should have to pass an exam or something first?

Time to start the homework…

We read several Christian books, we went on two Christian parenting courses(!), we started listening to podcasts and reading blogs… you name it, we did it. We like to think that we were just excited, but others may think we were borderline neurotic! We also read our fair share of secular resources.

(In case you’re wondering on the secular front… most thought provoking award goes to French Children Don’t Throw Food * and most down-to-earth award goes to The Unmumsy Mum Blog).

There was lots of helpful stuff in this which we’ve implemented into our parenting and are very grateful for. The problem was this: lots of these really helpful resources (and some of the not so good stuff too) wasn’t given as helpful advice but rather was presented as universal fact.

Here’s our conclusion on the matter. The Bible has much less law to lay down on Christian parenting than we often think.

It says that Christian parents are to teach their kids about God in everyday life, at every opportunity. Such as here:

“¹⁸Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.¹⁹Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” (Deuteronomy 11:18-19)

It also says that the way parents treat their kids is really important – don’t embitter them, love them, discipline them, counsel them, provide for them, and so on.

And it says that the way kids treat their parents is really important – listen to them, obey them, respect them, honour them, provide for them etc.

Other than these things, there’s not a lot else that the Bible directly says about Christian parenting. And for many of these things, it rarely prescribes exactly how we are to go about them.

Which is interesting, isn’t it?!

Despite this, lots of cultural expressions of Christian parenting are presented with an authority that would suggest they’re directly from the Bible. When the reality is, they’re just not.

Don’t get us wrong. There’s lots of wisdom out there on Christian parenting. But we need to remember that it is just that. Wisdom. Ideas that are generally true in lots of situations. But every situation is different. Each family is made up of unique individuals, living in different contexts, with different pressures, strains, resources and opportunities. So Christian parenting can never be a one-size-fits-all, pre-packaged formula.

One of the beautiful realities of Christianity is that it does not call for a uniform culture that is dictated and prescribed (unlike some other religions). Rather, whatever culture Christianity is being expressed in, the culture remains but is shaped and moulded by the Christian worldview. This applies in the realm of parenting too.

In Spain, children regularly stay up with their family till 10pm at night. In Japan, children as young as 7 catch the underground by themselves. In Vietnam, babies are potty trained to the sound of a whistle – at the grand age of 9 months old! (Don’t believe us? Check out this article).

You’ll read some of these cultural differences and gasp in shock. You’d never permit that for your child! But here’s the thing: if you were a parent (even a Christian parent) living in that culture, you wouldn’t bat an eyelid. And nor would your peers. Yet people in that culture would look to some of the choices that you and your culture make and think “How on earth do they justify that?!”

The same is true for generational differences. It only takes being with your parents/ in-laws and grandparents for the briefest amount of time for this to show. Differing opinions about feeding, sleeping and children’s manners abound, which can have its tensions and hilarities! “Thank you Nanna for that advice” we said, while secretly thinking ‘there’s no way that I’m putting a rusk in my two months old’s bottle of milk’! (Yes that was actually recommended!)

So, let’s stop labelling our societal preferences or even Christian-subculture norms of Christian parenting as the way to parent as Christians. They might be right in your particular situation. They might even be right for lots of other people. But they aren’t Biblically prescribed, and so we should be careful to look down on other Christian parents who do it differently.

We’ve all done it. We’ve all looked at another parent’s choices and felt that little glow of self-righteousness. In writing this we’ve been convicted again of our tendency to use parenting as a way of exalting ourselves.

Well the gospel is for us too. The gospel says that we’re forgiven for our self-righteousness, that Jesus has dealt with it on the cross and given us the power to live differently going forward. And the gospel means that we can view those situations differently next time.

It says that a lot of the decisions about how we parent our children don’t matter nearly as much as we think they do.

Isn’t that hugely liberating!

It frees us from the tyranny of self-righteousness that only ever leads to our own condemnation as we fail to live up to our own high standards.

And it frees us to be generous to those who are different to us, just as Jesus is generous to us.

So then, let’s be those who have open, loving conversations about parenting. Let’s seek to edify and build up, not to tear down. Let’s seek to extend grace, just like it’s been extended to us.

Let’s not get so bogged down by important but secondary issues within parenting, and instead let’s keep the main thing the main thing: let’s keep sharing Jesus with our children at every possible opportunity.

So here’s the most important question. How can we keep chatting to our children about Jesus in everyday life at every opportunity?

Because let’s be honest: eating, education and environment are the easy bit really. The real challenge of Christian parenting is keeping the gospel at the centre of it all. Chatting about Jesus and living for Jesus – that’s the battle of the Christian life. And that’s the battle of the Christian parent. But it’s the joy too.

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