Becoming Faith Builders

I was 3rd of 4 children in a loving “church going” family, but it seemed that during my formative years, our Christian faith was mainly centered around the weekly ritual of going to church. As I look back, I recognize that my parents primarily outsourced my faith in God to the institution we called "Church". I was taught Bible stories, memorized verses but it all seemed more like religious education. When I reached a point of crisis in my life as a college student, I discovered that the God I had learned about in Sunday School classes was actually meant to be there to help me personally. I finally realized that Jesus was more interested in a relationship with me than in fulfilling my religious duties. I started to see a God who is loving, forgiving, and caring, who I desperately needed as my Savior and Lord.

I made a life-changing decision to attend a Bible School, which helped me learn who God is in His Word. Faith in Jesus suddenly became much more than rules and regulations and Bible Stories to know and recall. I actually found the person of Jesus, whom I wanted to build a relationship with. I saw in Him the most fantastic love I desperately needed. It was also at this Bible School that I met the most amazing woman, with whom I could follow Jesus. Now having been married to for 40 years and raising three daughters to their adult lives I feel that we have learned what it means to parent children well spiritually.

When each of our three children were born I started realizing how faith is learned. I was increasingly aware that our primary task as parents was to introduce our children to the reality of God's love and how to begin and maintain the most important relationship we could ever have.

When you see how much your children learn from you, it becomes increasingly clear that faith is an invaluable gift to be received, and we as their parents are the primary ones called by God to pass it on to them. We are here to know, love, and serve God — to love and be loved — which is why we must teach our children the basics of faith in Him.

Our children are entrusted to us so that we can teach them, by example, what it means to have faith in Jesus and love others. It is as simple as passing this life of following Jesus to your children. They are in our lives to also show us the character of God. I saw how my wife and I both learned to love God with childlike wonder and inquisitive minds as we parented our girls. Most parents know that they have a responsibility to teach their children, but it's more challenging to remember that our children are also in our family to teach us and help us learn about Jesus. Through parenting, I hope we are all learning what it means to have unconditional love, which loves others the way it loves. When our children look at us with devotion, I hope it shows us glimpses of our Father God's love and mercy. When an infant keeps us up at night, a toddler has tantrums, a teenager disobeys or gets embarrassed by us, and a college student doesn't call or come home, I hope you see that these times are helping you learn to love with the heart of God, which loves unconditionally.

Help your children to see Jesus regularly. Finding Christ in the world today may seem impossible, but know that you can introduce your children to Him in many ways. We can show our children what it means to see Jesus in others, in His creation, in other followers of Jesus who live out their faith. Faith is built when we look for Jesus together.

Before becoming parents, we think we are up to the task and have developed many ideas on how to raise our children well. Once the children arrive, we may quickly feel inadequate, overwhelmed, and discouraged. The truth is that the task is actually too big for us to handle on our own. Know that the same God that your children need to know about is the same one that will help you parent well. Throughout your parenting and family lives, God wants to continue making your family all His children, with ever-growing faith in Him. God wants you to be aware of His presence, to cultivate an ever-growing relationship with Him, and to know that He desires to help you parent the young lives He has entrusted to your care.

After serving in Youth Ministries for 32 years, I see how foundational the years leading up to the teenage years are. As you guide your children in their faith development, you can provide them with a better foundation for those turbulent adolescent years. There are times you may feel like giving up in the face of difficulties, but know that God can take our loving actions and multiply them. In the miracle of Jesus feeding the 5,000, Jesus doesn't create a meal out of nothing; he takes the food that people brought and multiplies it. When we say "yes" to Jesus in the midst of Jesus being the Lord of our families, know that He can take the little we have and make it enough. He will give you what you need with what you have. Then we get to see miracles happen and faith the size of a mustard seed grow.