From the Pastor...

Just as marriages are in trouble in North America, so are families. The family is becoming increasingly fragmented and broken. The results of this are all around us. The problem is, what to do about it. What principles ought we to have which will help us in parenting. Christians have different ways of looking at the issue. For example: if children are viewed primarily as sinful, parents are led logically to an authoritarian view of family government. Since children, according to this point of view, are basically rebels or bad, they need to be controlled or punished. And this forms the basis of a parenting style. Someone else may say, "well, children are essentially good, therefore parents ought to be fairly permissive." If left to their own devices, and given ample love, according to this outlook, children will develop in positive directions, and there is no need for the parental exercise of authority. Someone else may come down the middle, and say that the biblical alternative to the extremes of the authoritarian and permissive approaches is to be a "loving or benevolent authority." This thinking states, that although a child is made in the image of God, he is also a sinner, so he or she needs to be raised within a climate of authority and love. I think this is basically the style we need to adopt.

But I want to suggest a different way of deciding on a philosophy or theology of raising children. That is to look at God as a parent, and understand how He deals with us, modelling the way we ought to deal with our children. The basic truth about God is that God is Love. And His love has been shown most completely and profoundly in the "Incarnation" the coming into the world by Jesus Christ. God's love was embodied in the life and death of Jesus. Once we understand God's love, it then becomes our task as parents to incarnate that love in our relationships with our children. What, then, are some of the characteristics of God's incarnate love that can serve as a model for parenting?

1. FIRST, TO LOVE IS TO CARE. God as parent cares for us. The Apostle Peter in the simple words, "He cares for you," sums up the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus reveals that God is like a shepherd who cares for his sheep and their well being. The caring nature of God is most solidly revealed in the death and resurrection of our Lord. Someone has said that "Golgotha is both the demonstration and measure of God's caring." And parents are to care for their children. Caring is an essential thread in the fabric of family life. To care for children is to help them grow and become themselves. Caring is the opposite of simply using the other person to satisfy one's own needs, for it is a process -- a way of relating to children that involves their growth and development as a creature of God. As parents become caring persons to their children, they point beyond themselves to a greater reality, to an eternal God who cares.
2. SECONDLY, TO LOVE IS TO RESPOND. God as parent is responsive to us. Jesus taught us to address this caring, responsive God as Father; "Our Father who art in Heaven." Parents living under the grace of God respond in love to their children's needs as they would respond to their own needs.
3. THIRDLY, TO LOVE IS TO DISCIPLINE. God as parent disciplines us. Since God is intensely personal in that He cares and responds to His child, He also demonstrates divine anger when they fail to be accountable to Him, the Creator and Lord. Parents are to discipline their children. Children learn accountability through testing the rules of parents, society and God. Testing the rules and experiencing the consequences are important to a child's development of a sense of worth. Discipline must be executed with consistency. Above all else, children must have the feeling that their parent's love is unconditional.
4. FOURTHLY, TO LOVE IS TO GIVE. God as parent gives Himself to us. God revealed His love for us by giving His most precious possession, His only Son. Parents are to give themselves to their children. Because parents have received freely God's gifts, they are to give freely in return to their children, without expecting anything in return.
5. FIFTHLY, TO LOVE IS TO RESPECT. God as parent respect us. A love which responds, disciplines and gives, could degenerate into domination and possessiveness, if it were not for the dimension of respect. Parents need to respect their children. Each child is created in the dignity of God's image and has the right to become his or her own unique person. It is important to interpret to children the consequences of the choices they make, but it is also important that they have the right to choose. Children themselves will become respecting persons to the degree that they have experienced respect.
6. SIXTHLY, TO LOVE IS TO KNOW. God as parent knows us. Parents are to know their children. We get to know our children by being in dialogue with them, when we get to see their needs, and see their strengths and weaknesses. Without such personal knowledge a parent's caring, responsiveness, and respect toward a child leads to sentimentality and blindness; and a parent's discipline leads either to harshness and injustice or permissiveness. To love is to know and to know deeply.
7. LASTLY, TO LOVE IS TO FORGIVE. God as parent forgives us. Parents are to forgive their children. The family is probably one of the greatest laboratories for learning to forgive, for it is in the family where we can be hurt most deeply. When children wrong their parents, forgiveness calls for them to examine together the wrong doing, the hurt, the pain, the feelings, and the barriers, and to use the experience to create a new quality of relationship between them.