Lifegiving parenting is not about changing the culture we live in but about being a counterculture to it. It’s not about creating a comfortable Christian subculture insulated from the surrounding world; rather, it’s about being the kind of lifegiving home culture that will stand as a testimony of God’s biblical design for family to a lost world whose sandy foundations are washing away. It’s not about being a political or social “culture warrior” for the family but about definitively, and maybe even defiantly, building a home where the living God of Creation is undeniably living through the family within it. Lifegiving parenting is about bringing the life of God into your home and family to create, with Him, an outpost of the Kingdom of Heaven in this world. We can call that place a “Christian home,” but Christians often have very different ideas of what those words mean.
Throughout the quarter century of what I call our Christian home and parenting ministry, we’ve met and seen many families with life- affirming and life-infused Christian homes, where the presence of God was unmistakable in the parents’ vision for their biblical roles and in the spiritual homelife they were cultivating for their children. However, we’ve also observed many American Christian families where the parents, though unquestionably believers, seemed minimally engaged in the spiritual life of the home or their children. If asked to give a reason why theirs was a Christian home, they might answer by focusing mostly on what their children were doing—“My kids go to church, Sunday School, Bible club, youth group, and camp; have all the best Christian music, videos, books, and apps; attend a Christian school; go to VBS and Christian activities; and have great Christian friends. Of course they’re being raised in a Christian home.”
There’s no question that exposing children to so many good and godly Christian influences can be a positive thing. However, it can also become a negative thing if Christian consumerism becomes either an unintentional or preferred substitute for the life of God in a family. We need to distinguish between a home that is considered Christian primarily because cultural Christianity happens there and a home that is Christian because Christ is alive and present in percep- tible ways. Here’s the reality that needs to be affirmed: A distinctively Christian home can never be defined only by what the children are doing; it must be defined by what the parents are doing.
Excerpt from The Lifegiving Parent, Get your copy today and join us for the podcast series starting soon. You will be so refreshed and inspired.
Today, we have wonderful Scott Turansky from The National Center for Biblical Parenting
He has so much experience and wisdom for the parenting journey. Enjoy our podcast toddy. He is an author, a pastor and conference speaker who has so much to share.
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