As I make my transition this summer from the Student Ministries team to the Adult Ministries team at NMC, I thought I would take some time to share a few parting thoughts with the parents of the preteens and teens at NMC from my 10 years of experience in youth ministry at Nappanee Missionary Church...
Big Thought: GOD’S PLAN FOR YOUR CHILD’S LIFE MAY NOT BE THE SAME AS YOUR PLAN FOR YOUR CHILD’S LIFE
"God’s Dream for Your Kids" By Chip Ingram
What if God’s dream for your children isn’t about their happiness?
Now, that’s not to say that God doesn’t care about their happiness; He does. But what if their happiness is only a gracious by-product of His primary agenda for their lives? What if we, as parents, are unconsciously working against God’s best plan for our kids?
That would mean that we need a completely different parenting paradigm to raise effective kids in this defective, hostile world.
Bringing up confident, Christ-centered kids in a culture that is at odds with scriptural priorities is no easy task. As parents, we often act based on cultural cues and pressures we don’t even recognize. There are many parenting myths that run rampant in our culture.
God says that my goal as a parent is not to make my kids happy; but to make my kids holy—set apart for God.
Our culture’s focus on making our kids happy is dangerously shortsighted. The result is children who constantly strive for more and better. Happiness is always just out of reach, because more and better is never enough. They are never content.
In contrast, the by-product of holiness is joy. If our focus is on cultivating the character of God in our children, we’ll be setting them up for the kind of happiness that comes from genuine, deep joy—both now and forever.
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