At Home with God

In this second article on the senior members of church we are going to focus in on this issue from the perspective of grandparents (and surrogate grandparents) in the church. There is no greater privilege than seeing the next generation rise up around you. Having a sense of the legacy that God has given to you brings its own reward. As the famous saying goes, ‘No one ever said on their death bed I wish I’d spent more time at work.’ While the value of family is seen more clearly that does not mean that it comes without significant challenges for many. The obstacles of time and location may be one thing, but harder still can be the obstacles of past issues and changing values. The former can be overcome with technology and will power, the latter require much more effort.  So here are few thoughts: 1. Don’t live in guilt and regret. Live in faith and effective prayer. You cannot change the past. You may look back and see things that you wish you’d done differently. To be honest, it wo...

In the light of the recent coronavirus outbreak, many churches are changing the way they connect together. For many this means no meetings on a Sunday for a season and even no small group gatherings. What can you do to make the most of this time as a family and grow spiritually? Jesus often withdrew to a lonely place to pray and it seems that for many of us we are entering a season of withdrawing from others. Whilst others are fighting to keep this country going, let's make the most of this season to seek God's face, grow closer to Him and build His kingdom. Whilst there are many new stresses and routines have been broken , let's not forget that we serve a great God and now is the time for the church to rise up and shine for Jesus. Many families will be spending a lot more time together, whilst others will be working at full stretch to keep our country going. In times when a nation is in crisis, it is vitally important that we seek God. This is an opportunity for the...

Children can be leaders. Children should be leaders. Children who follow Jesus will find themselves leading others. I have seen this happen time after a time. This should be no surprise, for those who are of the kingdom of God are called to be leaders in the world: our calling as salt and light is not dependant on age or spiritual maturity. Indeed, Jesus implies that anyone who is following him is the light and salt of the world (not that we need to become it). The only question is whether or now we will hide our light and whether our salt will lose its saltiness.  This means, by definition, our children are called to lead. By leadership I do not mean that children will take over the church eldership and start managing the church budgets. I mean that they are prepared to make a stand for God no matter what comes their way.  This is part of what it means to be adopted. No wonder the rebuke from Paul over the church in Corinth’s inability to judge correctly is so pa...

The worship song had begun and the girl on the camp started to pray for everyone around her. I am all for children praying for each other, but something about what she was doing caught my attention. I stepped off the platform to chat with her and after a brief conversation encouraged her not to worry about anyone else at this time, but to worship God for the remainder of the song. I climbed back on to the platform to carry on leading. Five seconds later she was praying for people again. ‘You are not to pray for people now, now is the time to worship Jesus.’ Moments later the girl was off praying for others. It soon became clear that she had been taught to minister to people, but did not know how to minister to the Lord. In part one of this series we looked at the importance of giving our children opportunities to stretch their faith. If their faith is to develop, it must have a forum in which it can move beyond the theory into action. The hall of faith listed in Hebrews 11 shows t...

Without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to please God. If we are to disciple our children we must see them grow in faith. Ineffective faith will result in children falling away from God. Faith comes from hearing God’s word (Hebrews 10:17). That’s why I am so passionate about making sure that we proclaim the Gospel to the next generation and give them an opportunity to engage with the Bible for themselves and see God’s word lived out in their lives. Responding to the Gospel results from hearing God’s word preached. This Faith then needs to be strengthened (Acts 16:5), tested and grown (2 Corinthians 10:15). All of this happens when we have to move our faith from the place of theory and concepts into the place of action and experience. James illustrates this when he says in James 2:17-18, “Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith b...

Christmas has been commercialized: decorations, lights and cards that have little to do with the real meaning of Christmas and can all serve as a distraction from Jesus. Deuteronomy 11:18-20 says that we are to constantly teach children and talk to them about Jesus throughout the whole year and it instructs us to write these things on door frames of your houses. Our homes should be the centre piece of faith development. Christmas time is a time when we should be more intentional so faith is not buried under the wrapping of Christmas. So here are seven thoughts, in no particular order, about how to do this.   1.  Be intentional about keeping Jesus centre. The main thing is to keep the main thing as the main thing. Build into your Christmas routine things that intentionally keep Jesus at the centre. Plan both in the time of advent and on Christmas day itself to keep definite signposts to Jesus. You would not have a birthday party where the celebrant is ignored by all, inst...

We are living in a day and age where the screen has power! iPads, smartphones, tablets and computers are integral parts of everyday lives, so that most of us don't leave home without at least one device on us. After all we may need to connect with others, complete everyday tasks, shop, educate and entertain our children. But there is one place where they should surely not be used. That short time of worship before the children leave for their own groups (because we believe in all generations worshipping together, right?) or even the whole service where the children's team volunteers have a week off, sees parents reaching for their devices. After all we don't want to be distracted from our worship? Some parents even come prepared with headphones, allowing their children to be zoned out, completely cut off from their surroundings. It’s time to reverse this trend. It is easy as parents to reach for the most pain-free option - after all we don't want our children to be fid...

Over the years, we surveyed the children under our care so we could look after them better and target the ministry to where they were at. Time after time the same concerning result would come back. No matter what we did there was a hard core of 20% of our regular church children, raised in Christian homes, who believed that you had to be good to go to heaven. Every month we made sure the Gospel message of God’s grace was included somewhere in our teaching programme. So much so that one seven-year-old even commented to his mum after church,  “Mum, I think I’m ready for adult church now.” “Why is that dear?” “All we talk about in children’s church is the cross and I know all about that.” Long pause while the mother processed this fact. “But that’s all we really talk about in adult church too!” Of course, we covered many topics over the months, giving the children as much of the meat of God’s word as we could, but this seven-year-old had clearly picked up our repeated emphasis on the ...