Family Life Monthly
Each month its my plan to send out a resource to help us in a realm of our discipleship as a church Family. Some months will be on marriage, others on singleness, others on hospitality or sexuality, this month it is: parenting!
I recently listened to a fantastic talk by Paul Tripp on ‘Gospel-Shaped Parenting’.
You can listen to it here: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/podcasts/tgc-podcast/parenting-is-gospel-ministry/ and there is a button to read the transcript if you’d prefer to do that.
Also, his book, ‘Parenting’ is a longer more detailed version of this talk. I highly recommend it. Buy it here
Some key quotes that helped me from the talk:
“Parenting, good gospel driven, God honoring, fruit producing parenting doesn't begin with theology. It doesn't begin with strategies. It begins with confession. And what you need to confess is that parenting is impossible.”
“One single word that is a comprehensive definition, but a practical explanation of what a parent is supposed to do. Hear this. Everything a parent does, everything a parent says, in every moment, in every day throughout the life of the child is meant to be representative.
It’s not what you want for your children, it’s not what you want from your children, it’s always, “I am representing the message, the methods and the character of the King, the message, and methods, and character, the King.I am put to make this invisible King visible in the life of my children.”
Every time I exercise parental authority, here’s the plan. God makes His invisible authority visible in the lives of children by sending parents of authority to exercise authority in the life of their children. That means, parents, are you ready for this? Every time I exercise authority in the life of my children, it must be a beautiful picture of the authority of God.
I don’t know about you, but just saying those words makes me want to drop to my knees. Say, “God, help me. God, help me.God, help me. God, help me.” God will make His invisible grace visible by sending parents of grace to give grace to children who need grace.”
“A family is not meant to be comfortable. Are you ready for this? A family is meant to be transformational.”
“I would ask you to consider that there are really only two models of parenting. There's ownership parenting and ambassadorial parenting. The owner parent basically says, these children belong to me and it is my right and responsibility to get from those children what I want from them, and to produce in them what I want in them. That is contrasted with ambassadorial children that say, these children do not belong to me. They belong to the Lord, and my calling... Here this... Is to make the invisible presence, the invisible grace, the invisible power, authority of God visible in the lives of my children.”
He outlines that when we lose sight of our need for grace, our common weakness that we share with our kids and our role and calling to be an “ambassador” to them, the following happens:
1. First, You will turn moments of ministry into moments of anger. God-given moments of ministry, rather than being about Him, they’ll be about you, about your schedule, about your peace and quiet, about something you want to watch on television, about some phone call you need to have, some anger you have at the conversation you’ve had 10 other times.
2. Second, you will do that because you personalize what is not personal. We make their sins about us rather than about God.
3. Third, they become your adversary rather than you being God’s ambassador. Thus, we fight against our children rather than for them!
4. So, I settle for quick situational solutions that don't get at the heart of the matter. We go for easy fixes (punishments, “say you’re sorry”, etc) without going down deep into their heart, their need for Christ, their (and our confession) and their hope in Jesus!
I hope it blesses you!
Perhaps meet up with someone and have a coffee and discuss it!