A Missing Relationship
From my old blog…
As I was preparing to write something for this month’s newsletter, I came across a very good article about a missing relationship. This article was written by Andrew Hedges, Associate Pastor of Family Ministry at Morning Star Baptist Church in Centerville, Ohio. Please take two minutes and read this article:
Relationships are essential to life. No one knows this better than teenagers, and youth workers seem to be aware of this. We often provide creative activities to promote teen-peer relationships and word hard to build relationship between ourselves and individual students, but we are still missing a key connection.
In ministering to middle school students, I’ve seen their need and desire for companionship. They are excited to find someone — anyone — who will accept them as they are in spite of the confusion they are experiencing in their changing bodies and minds. My heart goes out to them, and I want so much to be a friend in this wonderful time of growth and change. While I can endeavor to meet this need a couple times a week, there is someone who can do this every day.
In a recent ethnography I completed of middle school students in my community, I found that almost 100 percent of the teens interviewed counted their parents as the number one place to go for advice, support and answers to life’s greatest questions. A few listed a religious leader, and only one ranked a teacher in the top three. In fact, many of the middle schoolers even said their favorite place to hang out with friends was at their own home.
Researcher Christian Smith has said, “A parent is the most important pastor a teenager will ever have.” Of course, this only makes sense. God had planned it that way from the beginning. He gave the responsibility of spiritual growth and guidance to the parents (Deut. 6).
Did you know that the greatest responsibility you will ever have will be to raise the children God has given you? Did you know that you and you alone have the greatest influence on your children and what they will become? Did you know that even as messed up as our world is, that parents who seek after God and teach their children to do the same will raise children to be difference makers for God’s Kingdom.
It is my heart’s desire for parents to be that spiritual leader that God has called us to. Now that I have two young children I am realizing more and more how it feels to be a parent who simply doesn’t have all the answers. I know that as parents many times the very reason why we don’t take the spiritual leadership position in our home is simple – we don’t know how to do it. We ask ourselves, what do we do? How do we do it? What if they ask me a question I don’t know the answer to?
As a father, I desire for my children to remember me as a father who loved them, taught them, and led them as instructed by God. I don’t want my children to remember me just as a hard worker, good speaker, or an energetic youth leader. Even though working hard is important and is something I hope they will see is what God desires from us, I want them to remember me foremost based on what I did at home when no one was looking but my family.
I challenge you today to be the parent God wants you to be. Let us join forces and once again focus our attention on the thing we can influence the most – our children. May we raise them, challenge them, and equip them to be all that God desires them to be.
I close with this – as one parent to another – you are not alone. As a friend – we are in this together. As a pastor – how can we help equip you to be the parent God desires you to be? Our staff truly does desire to have a healthy family ministry here at Northcliffe. Whatever we can do to help you raise children in the ways of God, we want to partner with you to do it.
