If I could have one wish in ministry, it wouldn't be for more equipment, or double the number of leaders (although we could use that), or for a flashier room or unlimited event budget. I would wish that every parent would take their child's spiritual potential seriously.
To put it another way: given the choice between you and me, I'd choose you any day. That's because you, the parent, creates and sustains this special environment known as "home". Home holds a unique and powerful position in the life of a child. It is the foundation of their universe. School assumes an important role the older they get - the center of academic, social, and athletic life - but even into adolescence, when the time spent at home and with family diminishes, home remains a sanctuary. The rules of the home delineate acceptable and unacceptable, the routines define normal and abnormal. Home is, ideally, a place of absolute safety, unconditional love, a constructive and helpful environment.
But I'm not Pollyanna-ish enough to believe that every home is a utopia. You are stressed, overscheduled, under financial strain, underappreciated, at wit's end dealing with misbehaviors - in a word, human. The fact that many parents are breathing a sigh of relief as school restarts is less an indication of parental inadequacy than it is a reflection of the fact that parents never get a break. You just have to press on, through holidays and birthdays and school programs and teacher conferences and sports and lessons and next year's summer vacation, and before you know it, your kid is in middle school and knocking on the door of 13. I truly believe that most parents do the best they can. There just isn't time for a massive re-evaluation and re-tooling of your parenting practices once you become one. You just sort of...do it. I also believe that, lacking deliberate effort to the contrary, most of us will end up parenting the same way we were parented. Sometimes this is conscious - "My mom and dad did x, and I turned out ok" - and sometimes it's not, such as when we unwittingly fall back on shaming and guilting as methods of disciplining, despite our distaste for shame as children.
So as good as I want our upper elementary ministry to be - and we continue to strive to improve it - I want even more for you to be a success as a parent. As I said, I think it's rare that someone carries through with an overhaul of their parenting. TV shows like SuperNanny and Wife Swap prove that old habits die hard: even when change is obviously needed, the advice is only grudgingly accepted, and you get the sense by the end of the episode that nothing really is going to change. But people can change - I've seen it. Parents pick up bits of wisdom that, judiciously exercised, make a huge difference in their outlook. Moms and dads learn to communicate differently, and in the process, painful verbal sparring with children decreases.
The most effective change I've seen comes when parents meet other parents who are navigating the same issues. There is an unspoken brotherhood between parents of incorrigible teens, or of children with special needs, or of angry, violent kids (usually boys). Books are great; understanding in the flesh is ten times as great. Sometimes this parent can lend advice that unlocks a solution for that parent. Sometimes they can recommend a resource. Sometimes they can only commiserate - and that's enough.
There is untapped potential in bringing parents together. We're about to find out how much. This Fall we plan to offer programs for parents that run alongside our new Thursday night midweek program. So while we minister to 4th-6th grade kids (an important program), just down the hall we'll also be building into 4th-6th grade parents (the really important program). (I'm toying with calling it "ParentCare" - what do you think?)
This all kicks off September 13. I'll be speaking that night on "The Nine Things Your Kid Needs to Thrive Spiritually." But more importantly, it'll be a chance to put faces with names, meet parents who have kids in your child's grade and at your child's school, and put heads together about how we can help each other build strong homes & families. On September 28, in conjunction of with Marriage and Family Ministry, we are bringing in a speaker named Tim Smith. A discussion group on his book "The Danger of Raising Nice Kids: Preparing Our Children to Change Their World" will run Thursdays beginning September 20. Beyond that, the popular "Raising a Modern Day Knight" series for dads will be offered again this October. Into 2008, we hope to offer similar workshops for moms of boys and dads of girls, too.
We have big dreams. But they're all driven by the reality that success in church programming rises and falls on the spiritual foundation laid in the home. Better than a thousand dodgeball games or 20 summer camps or 500 raucous duct tape nights, you are the key to your child's spiritual health. You set the context of their whole life. Yep - I'd choose you any day.
