One of the things that we love about Gospel-Centred Parenting is the fact that our community is so international. We love the idea of people from all over the world coming together to consider how the gospel can shape their family.
We created our Jesse Tree Ornaments to help the Gospel-Centred Parenting community to keep the gospel at the centre of the run up to Christmas. We keep our shipping costs to the minimum that we can, but to make it even easier for international community members to purchase, we decided to run this special offer for a limited time.
So, the shipping costs have been updated and will remain at their current level until the end of October. If you have any questions, please do get in touch.
Today marks the beginning of Adoption Week, and so we thought that in today’s post we would tell you why you should read Russell Moore’s book “Adopted for Life.“*
When a book is described as “one of the most compelling books I have ever read” by a president of a highly respected seminary, you know it’s going to be good.
Adopted for Life* is written by an adoptive Father and the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Russell Moore.
Hence the book combines a rich theological grasp of the nature of the gospel and the call on Christians to adopt, alongside a pastoral exploring of the practical issues surrounding adoption. As a theologian and a Father, he speaks from both Biblical authority and personal experience. The mix of Biblical exposition and personal anecdote is what makes this book so compelling.
The book is compelling, that much is for sure. And I (Cathy) devoured it despite not being a very quick reader. But that doesn’t mean that it’s an easy read. It’s quite fiery and uncomfortable to read at times. Moore certainly challenges us to give up our own comfort for the sake of the glory of Christ and the good of vulnerable children. Don’t read this book and expect to be unmoved or unchanged as a result.
Moore doesn’t separate the theological basis for adoption from the practical implication to adopt – his aim is not to convince us that adoption is something that the Bible calls us to do, as simply an interesting academic exercise – but to motivate us as individuals, families and churches to get involved in the domestic and international adoption movement; through prayer, giving financially and adopting ourselves.
Because that’s his aim, he discusses all sorts of tricky ethical questions surrounding adoption. Like should Christians adopt on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity and how should they think about the adoption of children with disabilities and diseases? He discusses infertility, fertility treatment and blending families with birth and adopted children. He discusses the cost and practical aspects of international adoption (raising and addressing questions about international child trafficking). He discusses how family, friends and strangers may interact with you because of your decision to adopt (showing the pain and loneliness that this sometimes causes, and yet how it is infinitely worth it). He discusses some of the issues that arise from the trauma that these children have suffered and how that can impact on a child’s sense of identity. He even states quite strongly that the only thing worse than hundreds of thousands of children across the world needing a loving family, is unsuitable families adopting them – so he helps readers identity if their motives for adopting can withstand some of the hardships that come as a result.
It really is very good.
It’s thorough. It’s thought-provoking. It’s theologically rich and beautiful. And it will make you fall in love with the gospel of Jesus Christ all over again.
How do you feel about hospitality with children in the house?
Sometimes we feel like we need to caveat our invitations for people to come round to the house. “You’re welcome to come round but…there’s mess, there’s noise, the food on offer is exactly the same as what was on offer last week!”
Some people love to play the host. Nothing brings them more joy than rustling up an exotic meal, decorating the table with freshly cut flowers and candles, and ushering their guests into the house for happy times in front of the roaring fire.
I (Cathy) love the idea of being that person, but I’m just not wired that way. That all seems like a lot of effort, and I feel exhausted at the thought of it. Add children into the mix, and the idea of that sort of hospitality is a joke.
With very young children in the house (a three year old and one year old), it’s easy to get discouraged about our meal-times. Often conversation is stilted, the floor is littered with the baby’s food and occasionally the three year old gets naked. It’s a far-cry from the idyllic picture of ministry-bliss that I had in mind when we first had children. Oftentimes the Christian call to be hospitable feels unattainable to me, at least the “be hospitable to one another without complaint” (1 Peter 4:9) command feels unattainable.
Because hospitality is something I find pretty stressful and because I know it’s a good thing to do – especially for those in church leadership (1 Timothy 3:2) – I can feel pretty guilty about my efforts and heart attitude towards it.
However, this week while reading a devotional by Gloria Furman called “Glimpses of Grace” I was comforted and compelled by the gospel in the area of hospitality. Furman writes:
The thing that makes our hospitality distinctly Christian is not a quantifiable domestic skill or quality of food, but the presence and power of Christ-like love. While the world points us to designer hospitality, we see in God’s word that Jesus is the true and better host. He calls us into God’s very presence through the sacrifice of his own body! The cross of Jesus is the greatest hospitality that the world has ever seen. Because Jesus gave his life to pay for our sin, all those whose faith is in him have been guaranteed a place in his Father’s house forever. Christ invites us to come in out of the cold, dark world and into his kingdom…Now that’s “biblical hospitality!””
I had never thought about the gospel in these terms before. That Christ is the best host ever – not because he was a Michelin Star Chef, but because he laid down his life so that we could commune with God the Father. Because that’s what hospitality is all about; people being brought into, and people belonging to the family of God. The goal is fellowship, is community, is family. That was Jesus’ aim in his hospitality.
And that can and should be our aim in hospitality too.
As we share meals together we express the gospel – that God creates a family out of people who were not family. That he welcomes into the warmth those who were lost and cold and alone. That we can enjoy the very presence of God – his Spirit given to us because of Christ’s sacrificial death on our behalf.
When I think about hospitality with that vision in mind – of welcoming and including people in our little Thomson family life – I can then see it as a foretaste and expression of what it means to belong to God’s family. Well that gives it an amazing purpose, it makes me want to do it.
And then, I remember the chicken-nugget-spraying baby, the rambunctious pre-schooler, the broken downstairs toilet and my limited cooking ability and I wonder is this really what God has in mind? Including others in this?
Furman’s words were a great comfort to me:
Every effort in hospitality must flow from a dependence on the grace of God. We look backwards to the cross to see and see how Jesus showed us what hospitality looks like in accepting others for God’s sake in order to bring them near to God. We look forwards to see future grace as Jesus supplies what we need in order to extend hospitality.”
In the end, it’s not about me, and that’s liberating!
As we express fellowship with others (those in the family of God, and those just peaking in to see what it’s like) we can aim for words and behaviour which glory in the cross of Christ.
It’s about his past grace – through his death on the cross to bring us near to God. And it’s about future grace – to give me all I need to host others in this crazy, messy, noisy stage of life.
And I’m trusting Jesus that he know’s exactly what he’s doing when he encourages crazy, messy, noisy adults and children to fellowship with him.
We are incredibly thrilled and humbled to announce that we’ve been shortlisted as “blogger of the year” at the premier digital awards!
The premier digital awards seek to recognise achievement in Christian digital engagement. The blogger of the year award “celebrates bloggers who have published the most engaging, insightful and well-presented content over the past year”.
We can’t quite believe we’ve been shortlisted when that’s what they’re looking for, but we’re very grateful!
You might remember that last year we were runner-up in the “up-and-coming” category, so we’re very grateful to be back again, this time as blogger of the year. Check out the shortlist for all of the different categories here (*Edit 16/8/18 – link no longer works*). There’s some very talented writers who are seeking to share the glory of Christ through social media on that list – why don’t you make someone’s day by “liking” their Facebook page or commenting on their blog?
We wouldn’t be nominated without you – so thank you for reading, commenting, encouraging and interacting with our blog. We’ll keep writing for as long as we feel that someone is listening, because we want God to use what we’re saying to help families remember the gospel. So thank you! And ultimately thanks to God for using weak vessels like us.
A couple of weeks ago, tragedy struck the Thomson household.
We thought it might be coming, but it was still a shock. The signs had been there – but I suppose, if we’re honest, we were in denial. We just didn’t think it would happen like this. It was too soon.
Our dear goldfish, Sparkly, shuffled (or floated) off this mortal coil.
Okay, so perhaps we’re not as upset as we made out there. Sparkly appeared in our lives after the grandparents took our toddler to the annual town moor fair. He arrived back happy, full of sugar and clutching this small, orange aquatic creature with a huge grin on his face (that’s the toddler, not the fish).
The grin on our face may not have been quite so sincere given this was unexpected and not particularly wanted.
Nevertheless, after it’s brief life with us (and it’s significant dent in our bank balance!), we had grown quite attached to our fishy little friend. Our toddler had given him his official birth-certificate name, Sparkly, and he’d even given him a variety of other names, playing with his proper name. Our favourite was probably “Sparkelina”. Cute.
When everything went (literally) belly-up for Sparkly, we had two options. The easiest option was to head on down to Pets at Home* (*insert your pet shop of choice), buy a similar looking fish and pop it in the tank – our toddler would be none the wiser.
Or the more difficult option was to tell him what had happened.
And that’s what we did.
We decided that instead of taking the easy dodge (which might have been the right thing to do at other times), we would use it as an everyday opportunity to talk to our toddler about the gospel. We wanted to raise the subject of death, in an age appropriate way. You just never know when he might need to understand death and the comfort of the gospel in a more significant situation.
So down comes our toddler, and we break the news to him that Sparkly has died, and that we won’t see him anymore.
He took it surprisingly badly. “But I love him”, he said. “I want to see Sparkly”, he said. He even said “but Jesus can make him better”. Whilst that’s technically true and totally adorable, we didn’t fancy fishing him out of the wheelie bin at that stage.
Instead we sat down with our little one, hugged him, and spoke to him of the New Creation. We told him about the world that we’ll one day live in. The world where there will be no more tears – no more sadness or pain. No more death. We told him that Jesus will make this new world, and that those who love Jesus will be there with him, forever.
It didn’t totally remove the sadness. It never does. But we hope it took at least some of the sting out of death.
That’s what the hope that Jesus offers does. Is death still sad? Of course. Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus – angry tears at this foreign thing that should not be in the beautiful world he created. He cried even knowing that he was about to raise him. He cried even knowing he was one day going to remake this world. Because death is unnatural, jarring and wrong.
But Jesus’ weeping wasn’t a hopeless weeping. Nor does ours need to be.
For those who know Jesus, death is not the end.
We didn’t get in to the ins and outs of whether Sparkly would be in the New Creation! But we did try to show our little one something of the difference that the gospel means when death rears it’s ugly head.
Gospel in the everyday – it’s these everyday moments that give us opportunity to show our children how the gospel impacts real life. They’re not always easy, but they’re worth fighting for.
