Over on the Logos.com forum, there is a thread that started this week about Logos for Children.
It touches on a subject dear to my heart: how to raise my children in the ways of God?
Where I started with, was the thought, what would I like my children to have in their figurative "spiritual kitbag" by the time they were at an age where they might leave home to study, start a job or just to go flatting? I thought 16 was a good target age. They might stay home for longer, but from the age of 16, the risk they will leave home starts to go markedly up.
My answers to the question:
- Be able to confidently find a church to join
- Be able to join in with the youth ministry in that church.
- Know what a good church was from a bad one; and to reason that out
- Know how to deal with pain and disappointment
- Meeting God and talking to God through prayer, for themselves
- Know how to discuss confidently and respectfully their beliefs with people who live different lifestyles or follow a different religion; eg LGBT community members, atheists, or Muslims.
- Know his responsibilities as a parent to teach his children and his children's children to walk in the ways of God.
- Know what are healthy relationships from unhealthy ones; such as relationships with the opposite gender based on respect and engagement rather than objectification and personal gratification.
The list goes on but hopefully this conveys the idea.
Then I started working backwards from there to find age appropriate material for my children, different stuff depending on their age and tweaking it for things that pop up through the course of their lives.
A routine seems to work best so we put aside an hour or two each Saturday.
When my children says how come nobody else can read Hebrew or study Leviticus, I just say "that's what we do in our family."
No comments:
Post a Comment