MINISTRY MOMENT

God intended for the home — in partnership with a vital faith community--to be the primary context for christian education and nurture of children.

Please take a moment to review Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:19-21, Judges 13:8, and Psalm 78:5-7. These are only a few of the scriptures that highlight the connection between the home and the faith community in the spiritual nurture of children. The Deuteronomy passages and Psalm 78 were spoken to the nation of Israel (the faith community), yet these verses describe processes that most frequently occur in the day-by-day activities of parents and children. Manoah felt inadequate to undertake the raising of his promised child without help from "the man of God."

Christian educator Lawrence O. Richards has identified five processes that influence spiritual growth in children. These processes are:

* Communicate to children a SENSE OF BELONGING to a vital faith community (a church).

* Allow children PARTICIPATION in the life of a vital faith community.

* Provide worthy ROLE MODELS within the faith community, and encourage children to copy their examples.

* Provide BIBLICAL INSTRUCTIONS AS INTERPRETATION-OF-LIFE.

* Encourage children's growing EXERCISE OF PERSONAL CHOICE(1).

Each of these processes occurs most naturally and easily in a Christian home supported by a church. The fourth and fifth processes, especially, occur best in the home. Here, Christian parents have more frequent and more contextual opportunities to model Christ in daily living than teachers in a church setting. In addition, as families go about their daily activities, parents can explain to children WHY they do what they do (biblical instruction as interpretation-of-life). "We give God 10 percent of our money, because we love Him and want to obey Him." "We aren't going to buy a brand new car because we want to use part of our money to feed homeless people." While spiritual nurture by committed Christian parents does not GUARANTEE that children will become formed in Christ's likeness, it greatly increases the LIKELIHOOD.

If the primary setting for Christian education of children should be the home, what is the role of the church?

~ First, the church must recognize that at its best the Christian education of children should be "home based and church supported."(2) This model will help the church to avoid suggesting--even inadvertently--that parents should sit back and "leave the Christian education to us."

~ Second, the church should seek to nurture all parents spiritually and train and resource them to carry out their Christian nurture responsibilities to their children. This can occur through special parenting classes and the curriculum materials that go home with the children. When the church ministers to children from non-Christian homes, strong efforts must be made to reach and evangelize these parents and awaken them to their nurture responsibilities. Someone has said, "The best gift a church can give to a child is a Christian home."

~ Third, the church has a responsibility to support, reinforce, and expand what parents do at home by providing the best Christian education possible at church. For children from non-Christian homes, this may be virtually all the Christian nurture they receive.

~ Fourth, the church should seek to forge ties between the church and home by informing parents of what children are learning at church. The church can suggest ways to reinforce and expand that learning at home. Again, curriculum materials containing tips for parents are helpful. Other ways to do this include bulletin boards in the church hallways, notes in the church bulletin, write-ups in church newsletters, or occasional letters from teachers to the parents of their students.

~ Fifth, the church as a whole can also play an important role in the Christian nurture of children. Biblical history shows that God intends for spiritual formation to occur in community. Children need to see not only their parents, but also a whole community of persons loving and serving God. Children need the wide range of Christian models a community of faith can provide. And through the faith community, children can find avenues of Christian service.

To reap these values, children need to be active participants in the whole faith community. The church must not continually segregate children from teens and adults by providing all their Christian education in age-graded groups. Children need to work, worship, and play with all segments of the faith community.

Partnerships work--in business, in education, and in social-service ministries. But perhaps the best partnership ever is the partnership between the home and church in the nurture of children. This one produces eternal rewards.

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(1) Paraphrased from Lawrence O. Richards, A THEOLOGY OF CHILDREN'S MINISTRY (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1983) 76.

(2) I first heard this expression at a Family Ministries Conference sponsored by Group Publishing Company.

-- contributed by Donna Fillmore