5 (Obscure) Ways To Disciple Young Children

There’s loads of parenting advice flying around the internet. Most, like in THIS article, is very helpful.

But so often it seems certain bits of advice are missing. That might be because I’m way off the mark, but I’ve personally found these 5 bits of advice, whilst a bit obscure, helpful, so I thought I’d share them with you:

1. Watch TV with them

It can be so easy to let the kids watch TV whilst I get a bit of a lie in, or make the dinner, or catch up on Facebook. The problem is, you don’t always know what they are watching. Watching Frozen the other day was interesting – why do the girls have tiny waists and huge eyes? What is this magical curse that Elsa can’t control?

Watching with kids is a great way of both seeing what they are watching, but also talking with them about it. Leaving them to watch alone when we don’t know what’s on means we leave our kids to the worldview and even mercy of programmers and filmmakers – and why would I trust them an inch?

2. Sponsor a child

We have started to sponsor a little girl from a war-torn African country who is the same age as my daughter. As well as really helping this girl, it is just a great way to teach our kids. It makes poverty personal. It exposes my kids to need. We plan to eat like she does at least once a month to empathise more with her. We can write to her – the kids love it!

 Most of all it opens my kids eyes to what God is doing in the world and shows that, just like with throwing those starfish back in the sea, they can make a difference. You can sponsor a child at http://www.micahscall.org.uk/sponsor or http://www.compassionuk.org/.

3. Do daily devotions with them

Kids are influenced by our culture every minute of every day. Fine; but rather than moan and be passive, we can actively do something about it. So why not soak them in the Bible while they’re your kids in your house? In other religions a high value is placed on gathering around a holy book and explaining teachings. The Bible commands us parents in Deuteronomy 6:7 to teach God’s law to our children diligently. How many of us actually do this? 

Most parents seem to take the view that sitting children down for 5 minutes is too much to expect. Well, as someone who works in child development I can tell in the vast majority of cases it isn’t. With some persistent training, even a 1 year old is perfectly capable of this discipline after only a few days.

There are lots of age-appropriate resources out there to help make it short, fun and beneficial (see below). Establishing a family routine helps, be it after dinner or after breakfast – whenever suits you best.

You don’t have to do it at a table. ‘Devotions’ can be done throughout the day, interpreting life as you experience it and discussing topics as they come up and applying biblical truth to them.

4. Worship with them

Get your little ones used to singing/praising with you - both at home and at church. Let them know that you worship as a family. From an early age, hold them as you sing at church. Children are developmentally capable of managing 10-20 minutes of being held or standing next to you in church as you sing. Have high expectations of them and they will rise to them.

Allowing them to run off or play with toys says that what is going on isn’t for them; it says to them that they need to be entertained whilst adults get on with their business.

However child unfriendly your service is, let me encourage you, engage your children in worship. Bring instruments. Ask the service leaders to consider the age demographics of the church rather than hoping the kids will keep quiet and let the adults get on with ‘serious’ worship. 

5. Read something

Making time to read something, however brief, can be that pick-me-up when things are really tough. There's some great resources out there. Here's a summary of just a few:

For parents

Gospel-centred Family – Moll and Chester – well worth working through these short chapters

You can download these short e-books HERE which are GOLD

Family Worship by Joel Beeke 

Devotions

     Beginning with God and The Beginners Bible – fun 5 minute devotions with stickers! Great for age 1-5.

     Table Talk – very similar but for slightly older children

     Long Story Short – brilliant resource for a daily family devotion

     The Jesus Storybook Bible – we’ve only just starting using this and wish we’d started sooner. An amazing way of reading the Bible to your kids.

Memorisation

Some good resources HERE and HERE 

Some good articles:

Family Worship 101 

10 Surefire Ways to Make Your Kids Hate Family Devotions

A Quick Guide to Family Worship 

Teaching Children the Bible

What about you? Anything to add to the above or to the resource list? Have you found any of these resources helpful?

Is 11am Sunday the most segregated hour of your week?

 

 

Who goes to your church?

No, not just names.

What are they like?

Are they white or black?

Middle or working class?
Do they all like a formal or informal service?
Are they all ‘educated’?
Are they hands up, hands out or hands down?

And so on...

 

You may well baulk at the distinctions I’ve just drawn.

The question remains however – is your time at church the most culturally segregated time of your week?

 

Multicultural society

We live in a multicultural society. Many of you will work and study with people from all over the world. Your neighbours may be Eastern European. Your work colleague may be Asian. Your Badminton partner may be South American. We are used to living alongside and often counting as friends people from different cultures, with different religions and different tastes and preferences.

 

Monocultural church

But so often churches can be monocultural. So I may visit a ‘black African’ church. Or I may visit a strict Baptist (aka in my experience white middle class central). Or even a ‘youth church’. And I confess, I feel uncomfortable about this. Perhaps in part because I feel uncomfortable in churches where people are so different to me. The thought of mixing it up seems, well, just a bit radical…

 

The diverse church

Galatians 3:28 says: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”.

And in heaven the church is described as being ‘from every tribe and language and people and nation (Revelation 5:9).

• A diverse church presents this as a present-yet-future reality.
• A diverse church shows the world that Jesus is not a tribal God but Lord of all nations and ethnicities.
• A diverse church is evidence of Christ’s power on the cross to “reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility” (Eph. 2:16).

 

Stop segregating

And so God’s church is not supposed to be segregated. Granted, we will naturally drift towards those like ourselves. In some ways I believe God means for the Global Church to have different local expressions. This is not in and of itself wrong.

But what if? What if we saw an end to black and white churches? What if we saw an end to churches defined by cultural preference and instead we are defined by our belief in the Gospel?

What a magnificent picture people of different cultures, preferences, personalities, all united under the gospel presents to the world.

 

So let me ask:

• Will you desire to demonstrate the Gospel in your church by pursuing cultural diversity?

• Will you abandon many of your secondary preferences for a greater goal?

• Will you stop being comfortable with people who are just like yourself and see that church is not for you or for us, but for Him and for a needy world?

Will your Sunday service be the most culturally segregated of your week?

Thanks for reading.
Any thoughts? Am I way off the mark with this?

 

 

Mummy Pig or Homer Simpson: Are You a Passive or Aggressive Parent?

Passive parenting

‘I’m literally James’ taxi service’

‘I’m out every night with kids at one club or another’
‘If Rachel doesn’t like her food, I’ll often let her eat mine’

Passive parents act as if their child’s needs matter, but their needs don’t.

It can seem really kind and loving. Often these are parents who you look at and just wish you were more like them.

So what’s the problem?

We communicate to our kids that we don’t respect ourselves.

What we are saying is: ‘My own needs are not important to me, but my child’s needs are always predominant’

So why would the children value what their parent needs? And how will they learn to grow up considering other people’s needs around them?

Society is full of children bought up in supposedly respectable law-abiding families who doesn’t give a monkeys about the impact of their actions on others.

And they have learnt this primarily in their own homes, where well-intentioned ‘nice’ parents have, by being a passive parent, produced children who cannot appreciate let alone care about the needs of others.

 

Aggressive parenting

‘Shut up Peter, you’re giving me a headache’

‘I don’t care if your leg hurts, just get on with it’
‘I’m too tired to play with you Stephen, just leave me alone’

Aggressive parents acts as if their needs matter, but their child’s needs don’t.

These parents are often seen as the ‘disciplinarians’.

We may even admire these parents for their meek children, for the order in their house or their exemplary table manners.

But in these families kids need to keep a safe distance from them or something is going to blow. One step out of line and the child gets zapped.

What’s the problem?

We communicate to our kids that we don't respect others. 

What these parents are saying is: ‘My own needs are of primary importance and will almost always come above that of my child. It may be the type of food we eat, the time we go to bed or the fact that they get the brunt of my bad mood at the end of the day’.

Children with these parents learn that if someone comes along who is bigger and louder and more powerful than they are, then they will lose.

These children need to know that their needs do matter, because otherwise they will learn that when they can dominate someone else (i.e. who is smaller and quieter and less powerful than they are), then they will win.

 

Dog eat dog.

Look after number 1.

And so the cycle repeats.

 

 

Nice company

So where’s the balance?

How do you teach kids these seemingly contradictory truths?

 

Well, post after post and book after book have attempted to answer that question. Perhaps the best advice I've seen is to simply recognise which extreme you tend towards.

But here’s one idea.

'Be nice company'

If your child kicks off at family mealtime, rather than leaving the table to sit with them, or having a shouting match before they go to their room, control can be given to that child to take responsibility for his or her own behaviour.

You might say something like this: ‘I’m sorry to see you are upset. If you’re going to be nice company you are welcome to stay at this table and eat with us, but if you’re not going to be nice company you need to go to your room as your screaming is hurting mummy’s ears’.

In this way the child is given a clear choice, and they learn to take control of their actions.

Their needs are acknowledged as they are sympathised with and are not shouted at

They have the option to express their anger and frustration in their rooms.

They are taught that their actions and reactions impact other people.

They thus learn to set limits on their relationships and to respect others

 

What do you think? Do you agree? Are there other ways you have come across to avoid the above extremes?