Creating Your Christian Parenting Village

Creating Your Christian Parenting Village - Parenting Like Hannah
Sorry, I can’t invite everyone!

We are having tons of fun these days planning our daughter’s graduation party. We decided to turn it into a huge thank you party for all of the people who have helped us raise our daughter over the years. We are inviting everyone from her “aunties” to the sweet lady at the cleaners that always asks about her activities and buys Girl Scout cookies to our neighbors and the people at Church who have had a hand in her spiritual growth. Don’t tell my husband, but it’s a long list!

I am a strong proponent of learning from the mistakes and lessons of others rather than insisting on making the same mistakes yourself, “just to see”. Probably one of the least heeded scriptures in the New Testament is Titus 2:3-5. It admonishes the older women to teach the younger, with the implication that the younger women are listening. Yet if you ask older women in most churches, they will tell you the younger women routinely dismiss any wisdom they have to share as old-fashioned or uninformed.

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Christian Families and Mission Drift

Christian Families and Mission Drift - Parenting Like Hannah
Mission Drift by Peter Greer and Christ Horst

Nothing makes me sadder than to listen to Christian parents who are obviously experiencing mission drift in their homes. They are totally unaware this drift will most likely take their children away from the core spiritual beliefs the parents think they are instilling. In fact, the drift can become so severe the children grow up to reject God entirely.

Recently, I was privileged to read the new book Mission Drift: The Unspoken Crisis Facing Leaders, Charities, and Churches by Peter Greer and Chris Horst. Although I think it is absolutely imperative for all leaders of churches and ministries to read this book, it may be even more important for Christian parents to read it as well.

You see, mission drift is when an organization (your family) forgets its purpose in favor of practicality. You make tiny, little, seemingly meaningless decisions on a day to day basis. What we often don’t realize (until it is too late) is that the sum of these decisions has caused us to drift away from our core mission: raising children who will be dedicated Christian servants of God and who will go to Heaven when they die.

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Help for Stressed Moms

Helped for Stressed Moms - Parenting Like Hannah
You’re Going to Be Okay by Holley Gerth

Our family has had a rough couple of weeks. My mother-in-law died, just when we thought she was getting better. The assisted living facility where she lived with my father-in-law informed me that the next morning I had to totally clean out their apartment and prepare my-father-in-law to move to the memory care unit or be prepared to pay an extra $150 a day. My grieving husband was trying to work out the details of an out-of-state funeral, while trying to keep up with unexpected assignments at work.

Did I mention that week our daughter had to go to a local high school to take a competitive test, but on the day of the test, we had no hot water and no electricity? Or that the water main break that caused the electrical outage sent several hundred elementary students to that same high school for emergency shelter?

We managed to survive the week, but life is just like that sometimes. With me it happens usually right after I have taken on a new challenge or just when I am about to catch my breath from the last one. It seems like sometimes we can barely survive, much less think about living an active Christian life or parenting our children pro-actively towards God.

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Visionary Christian Parenting

Visionary Christian Parenting - Parenting Like Hannah
Of course, in my dream, we are living in Monaco!

Dream with me for a moment. You and your husband are in your late seventies. You are still healthy, vibrant and way too young looking for your age (we are dreaming right?!). You spot your now adult kids and people who must be your adult grandchildren. What are they like?

Are your children godly men and women? Are they baptized believers? Are they active members in a congregation of Bible following Christians? Do they love God and cherish His words? Do they serve others and share their faith while they serve? Have they brought others to Christ? Have they kept Christian brothers and sisters from falling away? Did they train their children to love and obey God? Do they live the fruits of the Spirit?

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Assessing Your Parenting

Assessing Your Parenting - Parenting Like Hannah
Photo by CTSNOW

Schools use report cards to keep parents informed about how well their child is mastering required material. Companies have reviews or use sales or production numbers to give employees guidance on their job performance.

Whether we like it or not, grades and reviews give us necessary feedback. They help us know if we are mastering new material or providing value to a company. Yet for parenting, there is no report card. Your kids don’t give you annual reviews. There are no real numbers to “prove” you are parenting well.

So, we just keep on doing what we are doing and hope it all works out in the end. Oh, we may occasionally read a parenting book or attend a seminar, but for the most part, we parent without any constructive feedback.

Wouldn’t you hate to learn if you had just changed one or two things, your child’s life would be richer, fuller, even happier? What if tweaking something or adding something to your parenting meant your child was a faithful Christian instead of rejecting God? Would you want to know what those things were? Would you be willing to change?

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