“If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.” John 13:14-15 (ESV)

Poto by Rick Miller

As a parent (or someone who has worked with children), you probably know how VERY important you are in influencing your child’s actions, words and behaviors. I remember when my sister had her first child, she would hear her daughter say things and wonder “Where does she get that from?” Later on she’d catch herself saying the exact words she’d heard her daughter say earlier!! She hadn’t realized that her daughter was simply mimicking the example that she was given!

We, as children of God, have the benefit of having the perfect example to look to and learn from. Not only that, but His examples are recorded in a book so we can go back and study it and learn from them again and again! (It’s called the Bible, in case you didn’t catch that).

Instead of looking to our peers or the culture or the media to get an idea of what actions, words and/or behavior we should live by, we should be looking to the Word of God. John 13:14-15 says “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.” I think that you can take out the “washed your feet” part and add a blank line (“If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have ___________, you also ought to ______________.”). You could fill in so many other things Jesus did: shown mercy, fed the hungry, clothed the naked, loved the lost, shown grace and compassion, served the undeserving, ate with sinners, loved the children, shown forgiveness, and on and on and on! If our Lord and Teacher has done these things, then we also ought to do these things!!

Jesus was not the type to sit around and see what others could do for Him. He went out and did things Himself! So should we. Don’t just sit in church and wonder what you’re going to be able to TAKE. You need to get out there and do a little GIVING! Opportunities are out there to serve in the church and follow the most excellent example we have been given. But YOU have to take the first step. Get involved.

Cassa Wing

Photo By Laracee

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6

You always hear people say that “the children are our future.” I would say that most people believe this to be true. It makes sense, right? As each generation gets older and eventually succumbs to the natural progression of death, the next generation takes the place of the last in all areas: having families, in work, and in continuing cultural traditions and religious faith.

You see children being trained or taught from the moment they’re born- how to walk and talk and read and write and thrive in all areas of life. Parents have such an instrumental part of this training! Studies have shown that the most influential people in a child’s life are her parents (this is true, even if the child does not act like it is true!). The next most influential person in your child’s is her teacher. As a Christian, this can include who is teaching/training your child about their faith. This also includes you (as the parent), as well as their Sunday School teacher or pastor.

The vast majority of people who ask Jesus into their heart do so as a pre-teen child. One study I found stated that “a person who is unsaved at the age of 14 has only a 10% chance of being ‘saved’ later in life” (www.religioustolerance.org). This is why it’s so important to get involved and at least try to plant a seed in the lives of children that we see around us. This is also why Northern Peaks has made kids one of the top priorities of our church.

Many kids get their only religious training on Sunday mornings in Sunday School, taught by volunteers from the congregation. Unfortunately, these volunteers are very few and far between. I think that some people hear the word “teach” and get freaked out. They think “I can’t teach. I don’t know how. I haven’t been trained to teach kids. I don’t know enough to teach.” and other such thoughts. What these people don’t realize however, is that so much of teaching a child is by what you do, not so much about what you say or how your lesson plan goes. The best way to teach is by example, through stories, through involvement, and by showing how to love, share, and care.

Christian parents also have a responsibility to be training their child at home, not just leaving that responsibility to the teachers at church. It is important to share your faith with your children, so that when they leave the influence of your homes, they will have formed a habit — that of taking time daily to talk to God in prayer and meditating on His Word. You are the Christian leaders of your household, and you need to train your child well so that they may become the Christian leader of their own home when the time comes.

We all have an awesome responsibility — and a great privilege — to deliver God’s message to the next generations, to make sure that the great circle God began when He sent his treasured Son to us as a little babe at Bethlehem is unbroken. And when I say all, I mean all. Just because your kids may be up and out of the house, does not mean that your “job is done.” Some of my fondest memories are of older folks spending time with me:my grandma teaching me how to make a latch hook rug, my Sunday School teacher that was such an awesome story teller, our church piano player that I turned pages for while the choir sang, our elderly pastor that came out during youth group to play volleyball with us, and that one older lady from church that was the only person (other than my mom) that could get me to stop crying as a colicky infant (that one is a fond memory of my mom’s, I don’t remember it at all, but my mom loved coming to church Sunday morning to pass me off to that lady so her arms could get a rest!).

There are so many ways to touch the lives of our kids- teach a class at church, be a helper in a class, get involved with the nursery, volunteer at AWANA or VBS, give some individual time and attention to a child that you know in the community, teach the girls how to bake or sew, teach the boys how to chop woodor shoot a basket, etc. I don’t know what you specifically could do to touch the life of a child, but whatever it is– do it! Invest in the future now by “training up a child in the way he should go.”

Cassa Wing

Children’s Ministry Director

Northern Peaks Christian Fellowship