My church, Faith Lutheran in Lincoln, Nebraska, is working
through a unique family event this summer. Our Pastors are presenting a sermon
series on parenting intending to cultivate resilient families. In addition to
the sermons, we have special activities during the Sunday school hour designed
to give parents opportunities to share their faith with their family. We are
also sending home devotion boxes that provide a list of things parents can
choose from as they teach the faith to their children.
Because Pastor Will produces a regular podcast, I suggested
we use this technology to serve the purpose of family ministry, too. This
episode, called Serve
and Return is the first in this series. Please give a listen and if you
like it, pass it on.
As Pastor Will mentions in the podcast, it is not our goal
to push guilt on to parents by giving a list of things that they should do.
Instead, we want parents to see how God’s plan for parenting. God made parents
the most influential teachers in the lives of their children. He also designed
the brains of children to learn in spite of mistakes because brain
development does not depend on perfect parenting. A child’s brain grows through
interaction with parents over the course of the day, so a poor interaction, or
a missed opportunity, will be balanced out by other experiences. We could say
God created a child’s brain to be forgiving.
Serve and return
is the name for those small interactions you have with your child each day. You
might be giving a direction, correcting a behavior, praising, laughing, or
sharing God’s love. Each interaction teaches your child’s brain what is
important. The best thing about serve and
return is when we weave faith into those experiences. We are telling our
children we love them, teaching them how to live a healthy life in this world,
AND showing them how God cares for them.
