Parenting Like Hannah

Fun Restaurant Service Project

Ask any server and they will tell you how deflating their job can be. If they are industrious, they wait on people’s every whim in hopes of adding a few dollars in tips to their less than minimum wage salary. On a bad day, they would have made more money working at a fast food restaurant. Truly good days are often few and far between.

Thankfully, I have never had to wait tables, but my friends who have, tell me stories of the unbelievable rudeness and self-centeredness of many restaurant patrons. Perhaps an even larger insult is that to the majority of restaurant patrons, the worker is a nameless, faceless blob with food.

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Studying Baptism With Your Child

God can lead you down some interesting paths. Parenthood is one of them. The day your child is born is etched in your heart forever. You marvel as you watch your children grow into their personalities and gifts. Suddenly, they are old enough to understand the concept of sin and dedicating their lives to God. Now, what do you do?

The age of accountability is slightly different for every child. Only God and the child will ever really know when that age has been reached. As a Christian parent, the subject of baptism can be scary. What if you push it too soon? What if you wait until it is too late? How do you know when your child is ready? How can you encourage baptism without making it your decision instead of your child’s? The whole subject freezes many parents into total inaction.

When my daughter was about the age of accountability, I wanted to study with her. Unfortunately, my searches for a study on baptism hadn’t turned up anything I felt comfortable using. Either the study was outdated or juvenile looking or the theology wasn’t entirely sound. With a background in education, I had been trained to write lesson plans about a variety of subjects. Could God use those same skills to help me write a study about baptism parents could use with their children?

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Sisterchick Devotionals

My daughter went through a phase when she read Robin Jones Gunn’s series for girls – the Christy Miller series and the Sierra Jensen series. She enjoyed the books and I was thrilled my daughter had some wholesome fiction to read.

When I learned Robin Jones Gunn had paired with Cindy Hannan to write a devotional book for “sister chicks” (A SisterChick’s Devotional: Take Flight), I was curious. Would the book appeal to mothers and daughters? Could it encourage mother/daughter devotional times for teen girls and their moms?

Gentle is the word that comes to mind after reading this devotional book. Now, I am the first to admit, most devotional books don’t do anything for me. I think it has something to do with the hurried feeling many of them have. Sisterchick’s was different. Instead of feeling restless after reading several entries, I wanted to continue reading to see what was next.

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Fun Christian Cooking for Kids

No, Christians don’t have some weird recipes only we know (although there are a few potluck recipes I question!). We can though, use our cooking to do more than fill someone’s stomach. I hope as we teach our children to cook, we are also teaching them how to serve with what they produce.

I know, quite a few of you are now having a mild panic attack. You just realized you have never made a concentrated effort to teach any of your children to cook. At best, one of them can pop popcorn in the microwave and there is at least an even chance one of them can boil water, but that’s about it. The idea of using what they produce in the kitchen to serve others is a fantasy from another day and time.

I am going to challenge you to take back your kitchen for the Lord. If you are like me, this may mean cleaning out a few cabinets or a trip to the grocery first, but that’s okay. Clear an afternoon for you and all of our children to do some good old Christian cooking. You can use some of the ideas below or come up with your own.

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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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