Our own walk of faith is our greatest parenting challenge . . . and it's the one challenge we have the most control over. We believe that the primary role of every parent is that of a disciple-maker and the primary GOAL of every parent is their own faithfulness to God. What, then, does faithfulness look like? We boil it down to 4 words: MODEL, TRAIN, PRAY, TRUST.
SUMMARY:
In this session of DadU, we took time to consider how we MODEL our faith to our kids. Deuteronomy 6, the quintessential passage for raising the next generation, commands us to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might" (vs. 5). Moses then goes on to say, "And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart." Before we can begin to pass on our faith, we have to have a faith worth passing on.
We said that a faith worth passing on is three things:
- ATTRACTIVE
- AUTHENTIC
- ACTIVE
This is the kind of faith our kids need to see in us and that, by God's grace, we pray will have the most significant impact on the life of our kids as they watch and follow our example.
CALL TO ACTION:
We always want to give you at least one way, if not a few ways, that you can put this lesson into practice. Here are a few things for you to consider:
- "Family Discipleship Plan": Regardless of the age of your children, the "Family Discipleship Plan" is something that you can do to be thoughtful about goals you have for your family and how you want your faith to play out in your home. We will be referring to this throughout the Fall as we walk through "Model, Train, Pray, Trust", but we'd encourage you to take this month to come up with your "Family Vision Statement" and some goals you have for yourself in the area of "Model".
- Family Survey: For those of you who have kids old enough to speak/write, the Family Survey is a great way to take the temperature in your home with your kids on what kind of Model you are giving them. Use this as an evaluation tool. Listen, take it in, don't argue with them or defend yourself, and see what the Lord might want to teach you through the insight of your children.
- Baptism: If you are a believer in Christ and have never taken the step of obedience to be baptized as a believer, now is your time. Head over to watermark.org/baptism and learn more about what the process might look like as well as what our beliefs are about the role of baptism in the life of a believer. Taking this step of obedience yourself is key to being able to shepherd the hearts of your children towards this moment themselves someday.
Resources:
As always, we want to make you aware of additional resources. We'd point you to any number of offerings from our Equipping ministry here at Watermark, whether that is Equipped Disciple, Core Classes, or even the Great Questions class. It could be that you need to focus in this season on strengthening your marriage at ReEngage or on working on personal holiness in Re:Generation. These are all tremendous resources at your fingertips that we hope you'll take advantage of, as appropriate.
Next Time
Finally, make sure your calendar is already marked for Tuesday, October 15th for our next DadU. You can REGISTER HERE. We will be walking through the next measure of faithfulness for us as dads, how we can purposefully and diligently TRAIN our kids in the truth of God's Word. Invite a friend, encourage your community group to join you and we will see you next month at DadU!