Laying the Foundation for Christian Kids

Laying the Foundation for Christian Kids - Parenting Like HannahWhat if I told you your child was only going to learn less than nine letters of the alphabet at school? If that is all your child ever learned, how well would they cope in the world? Would they struggle more than if they had learned the entire alphabet and could read more? Would the missing letters cause gaps in their knowledge?

A very conservative estimate is that there are 250-300 stories in the Bible. Some are only a verse or two. In addition, there are Psalms, Proverbs and other passages that would not exactly qualify as a story, but have tremendous meaning and wisdom to give us. Yet even if your children have Bible class twice a week for their entire childhood, in most cases they are getting less than 20% of the information in the Bible shared with them. Even children attending private Christian schools are not covering everything in the Bible.

Now if your child were only taught a percentage of the alphabet, at first you might attempt to get the school to step up and teach more. The parents who realized the value of knowing the entire alphabet wouldn’t wait for something to change. They would take the time to teach their children the missing letters so their kids would get everything they could out of life.

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Teaching Kids To Go the Extra Mile

Teaching Kids To Go the Extra Mile - Parenting Like Hannah
Babysitting kit for a pretty day

Remember the command in Matthew 5:41? You know – the one when if someone asks you for one piece of clothing or to walk a mile, you give them twice what they asked from you? I think if I ever heard any sermons on it, they revolved around helping others or being nice to our enemies. How often though do we teach our children to actually go the extra mile in everything they are asked to do?

Unfortunately, it has become politically incorrect and “uncool” to do your best. Anyone expecting the best from us is judgmental, demanding, and even divisive. If we go the extra mile and give more than is asked from us – whether it is in church, service, work or school – we can be labeled “teacher’s pet” or much uglier things. Yet, I don’t find Jesus putting any limitations on his commands in those surrounding verses. Clearly, God expects us and our children to go that “extra mile”.

So how can you encourage your children to do their best without turning them into anxious perfectionists or rebellious slackers in the process? I think we can train our children to go the extra mile while also teaching them how to set healthy boundaries. There are probably a lot of ways to do it, but here are a few we tried:

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Adding Meaning to Christian Service

Adding Meaning to Christian Service - Parenting Like HannahChristians tend to think serving others automatically produces amazing spiritual growth. While there are things we do easily learn from service, guiding our children and teens through the service is more likely to produce meaningful, lasting spiritual growth in their lives. In fact, if we don’t make it intentional, studies have shown any growth from a short term mission trip (for example) only lasts a year before the person’s spiritual gains return to pre-trip levels.

The problem with Christian service is that often our preparation is almost entirely focused on logistics. How will we get there? What will we do while we are there? What will we wear? Because we focus so much on externals, often those serving begin to focus only on the externals too. Was I comfortable? Did I have a good time? Did the people I was serving make me feel appreciated?

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Teaching Kids About Sins and Mistakes

Teaching Kids About Sins and Mistakes - Parenting Like Hannah

If you have ever broken something that was precious to you, you know how horrible a mistake can make you feel. On the other hand, Satan can make sins feel fun and delay consequences until we are in so deep it feels impossible to get out of the mess our sins have created. If our children are going to be faithful Christians, it is so vitally important they understand the difference between sins and mistakes.

So what do our kids need to understand about sin and mistakes?

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What If Christian Marriages Are Different?

What If Christian Marriage Are Different

 

Shaunti Feldhahn is one of my favorite authors dealing with men, women and marriage. What I appreciate about her books is that she doesn’t just give her opinion and back it up with an example from her life. Ms. Feldhahn apparently does a lot of research to make sure her assumptions are correct.

I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her latest effort The Good News About Marriage. With her co-author Tally Whitehead, she went back and looked at the studies  and “facts”which are constantly cited in newspapers, magazines and even sermons. What she found was very exciting.

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