The Gospel & Parenting by Moore Russell D. & Walker Andrew

Author:Moore, Russell D. & Walker, Andrew
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion/Christian Theology/Ethics
Publisher: B&H Books
Published: 2017-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter

How Should the Church Engage?

Candice and Steve Watters

The midweek service of the church we attended in Colorado provided Scripture memorization exercises for young kids. That arrangement also provided us a perfect window of time for a midweek date. For a couple of weeks, we enjoyed coffee and adult conversation at the Starbucks nearby—until we found out that wasn’t how the church intended the arrangement to work. We came to realize that they had not organized their Scripture memory program in order to meet our need for free babysitting and a date.

What can parents realistically expect from church? What parenting needs should a church prioritize?

Parents have no shortage of needs and concerns that the local church could address in some way: discipline, discipleship, media discernment, navigating a hostile culture, coping with the daily demands of raising young children, as well as guidance for a range of challenges such as sibling rivalry, sleep problems, eating issues, learning problems, bed-wetting, and more.

And there’s no shortage of ways churches can go about engaging those needs and concerns. In fact, we’re aware of churches currently providing the following programs, events, or resources as a ministry to parents: parenting conferences, father/daughter purity events, family camping trips, family mission trips, intergenerational events, family festivals, special celebrations of parenting milestones (such as baby dedications, passage to adolescence, baptism, graduation, etc.), preschool, parents’ day out programs, meetings for moms of preschoolers, family resource libraries, parent-training series, home visitation programs, and distinctive ministries to single parents, blended families, parents of children with special needs, military families, grandparents (especially those providing primary care for their grandchildren because of absent parents), and people caring for children while also caring for aging parents.

To this list, you could also add numerous programs and events from Sunday school and Vacation Bible School to concerts, sports programs, and youth activities that have the secondary goal of serving parents in the process of serving their children. How much support and guidance should parents expect from a church, and how much effort and expense should churches take on in order to serve parents well?

We have been parents for sixteen years. We’ve experienced the flood of parenting programs, events, and resources from the large church we attended in Colorado. We have also witnessed the more modest offerings from churches under five hundred members. We gained a wealth of family and ministry advice while working at Focus on the Family for thirteen years, and we have continued to learn over the past six years through studying family discipleship while serving in a seminary community.

Our purpose in this chapter is to provide guidance for those seeking to serve parents in the local church. It certainly requires biblical wisdom to accomplish this task in a focused and fruitful way. We also want to encourage parents to avail themselves of what the local church is best positioned to provide them. We realize “avail” isn’t an everyday verb, but this King-James-sounding word, meaning “to turn to your benefit,” describes well how we as

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