Service – Page 30 – Parenting Like Hannah

Ways to Purposefully Prepare Your Children to Serve God

This month’s assignment in Teaching Our Children to Live More Like Jesus is to take the time to prepare our children to serve God. In Preparing Our Children for God, I shared some of the reasons I believe this is possibly one of the most important things we will ever do as parents.

Unfortunately, I am afraid many parents put more thought and effort into how they will potty train their child than how they will prepare that same child to follow and serve God. Admit it, when your first child was old enough to potty train how many articles and books did you read? How many experienced parents did you ask for advice? How many times did you call someone in the middle of the training process for support or emergency advice?

I think sometimes when we think about trying to be as purposeful about preparing our children to serve God, we just get overwhelmed. How are we supposed to train our child when we still don’t totally understand everything ourselves? Where is the training manual? Whom do we go to for the correct advice? You may even feel a bit embarrassed asking for help because you assume all of the other Christian parents have it down pat and will be shocked you don’t.

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Preparing Our Children for God

One of the oldest debates in education, psychology and other related fields is nature versus nurture. What qualities are we born with and which ones are a result of our environment? For parents, the question becomes “How much can I and should I influence my child’s personality and gifts?”. I believe the Bible can give us some answers.

There aren’t a lot of people in the Bible about whom God gives us details of their childhood through their death. Moses is one of the interesting ones. You may recall that as a Hebrew baby in Egypt, Moses begins his life in danger of having it taken from him. His family sets him afloat in hopes of saving his life. Sure enough, Pharaoh’s daughter finds the child and raises him as her own. She even brings Moses’ real mother in to nurse him and help care for him.

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Developing Your Child’s Skills for Service

One of my friends shared something interesting with me the other day. She said it is hard to find younger women who know how to bring home-cooked meals to people who need them or organize dinners for large groups of people. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to help, but they really didn’t know how to do it.

As we analyzed the situation, the light began to dawn. During our childhood, most of our mothers stayed home. We might have participated in one activity a week as a child and at times none at all. What resulted was a lot of time at home with our parents. Times when we invariably annoyed them with complaints of boredom.

Since there were few activities to enroll us in, they enrolled us in helping them do whatever they were doing. This meant many teens could cook entire meals for large groups of people, make simple repairs around the house, sew, knit or display dozens of other practical skills.

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The Danger of Doing Good

Part of being an effective parent is knowing how to be an effective leader. We normally don’t think of parenting that way, but when you analyze it, you are attempting to lead these little ones to follow God. As a result I am drawn as much or more to books on leadership than I am to books on parenting.

When I was asked to review Peter Greer‘s book, The Spiritual Danger of Doing Good I was intrigued. What angle would he take? Did he have some sort of axe to grind?

I ended up loving this book. Personally I believe it is a must read for everyone. Whether you are a leader, a parent, attempting to raise a child with strong leadership skills or “just” a follower of leaders, this book has information you need to know and thoroughly digest.

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Creative Service Project for Teen Girls

Creative Service Project for Teen Girls - Parenting Like Hannah Yesterday, our craft room was covered in ribbon, flowers, glue guns and hair clips. Several teen girls spent the afternoon crafting special hair clips and fascinators. The resulting masterpieces will be given to the young girls living in a local homeless shelter.

Yes, we could probably have gone to a box retailer and found standard hair ornaments for less money and donated those. These however, were made with love and the little girls who will be wearing them were kept in mind.

The project allowed the teens to be creative and discover another unique way to use their talents for God. During our time together I was able to share with some of them other interesting ways people were serving those who lived at the shelter. It also gave me special bonding time with the girls as we poured over craft supplies with our coupons in hand or as I admired their results.

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