What's Orange and Tastes Like an Orange?

An Orange. And the church, of course. Well, perhaps the church doesn't taste like an orange unless you choose fruit over doughnuts in the coffee break or it's a Christingle service. But one thing is for sure: The church should look orange. I'm not talking about a congregation of Oompa Loopmas...

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I'm talking about a balance of love and light. Y e l l o w represents the light from the church and r e d represents the love from the church. Orange is a mixture of these two colours. The church should look orange. "Two combined influences make a greater impact than just one influence. Church and family on the same page." In the same way that light and love combined makes a greater influence, so does the combination of church and family. Where the church helps to influence whilst the family can influence even more during everyday life. Here are some claims: 1. "Nothing is more important than a person's relationship with God" 2. "No one has more potential to influence a child's relationship with God than the parent" - This is about an "every day faith kind of concept" not just "a Christian on a Sunday morning" 3. "No one has more potential to influence the parent than the church"
Here are some figures: 86% of parents believe they are responsible for their spiritual development of their child. This figure included secular parents. Over 90% of all parents believe that they have responsibility for their child's moral beliefs. 1 of 5 parents said the church did anything to help them be parents. Wow. Take a moment to begin to process the potential you can unlock by investing some time into the parents too. Willy Wonka Condescending memes are known for being really condescending...

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There's an element of truth in the thought that what parents teach children about their spirituality and their relationship with Jesus will stick with them for a life time. I don't like the term 'religion' but I can appreciate the value that time investment from parents can really shape a child's spiritual development. So, as a church, how are we helping parents? How are we helping them to be more involved and engaged in the child's spiritual relationship? When we engage with a child on a Sunday morning and send them home with a craft that the parent/guardian can talk about with them, we are helping God-centred conversations to go on at home. When we pray with the children on a Sunday morning, and ask them if they need prayer for anything, we are encouraging them to ask for help from a leader, or a parent/guardian, in the form of prayer. These examples are just small ripples in comparison to the big waves of impact that we could make if we invested some of our time into the parents, who in turn have 3000 hours a year to invest into their own children. IMPACT

How To Cover Your Child in Prayer

"If you determine to circle your children in prayer, you will shape their destinies... your prayers will live on in their lives long after you die" - Matt Batterson. Read the full article here. So prayer is one weapon that we can encourage parents to use to shape the spiritual lives of their child. Prayer with the child is important too. It sends a reminder to the children to do this with their children as they get older. "The churches potential to help the child dramatically increases when you help the parent" The majority of parents do not spend any time during the week teaching spiritually. God gave this responsibility to parents as something for them to do. They have the skills. "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" - Proverbs 22:6 "Make the things I'm commanding you today part of who you are. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you're sitting together at home and when you're walking together down the road. Make them the last thing you talk about before you go to bed and the first thing you talk about the next morning."  - Deuteronomy 6:6-7 "... so that God's people may be up to the task ahead and have all they need to accomplish every good work." - 2 Timothy 3:17 Get every parent to do something more than what they're already doing. Look at parents through a different filter: 1) They want a plan/system that will help them know how to pass on the information to their children 2) Give them models for these plans 3) They want to know what they can do right now, today, tomorrow. What's next? So, we need to, as church leaders: Help parents to know that they are qualified.  Parents wouldn't disregard their child's need for help on homework because they've not got a teaching qualification. They wouldn't stop helping the children take their medication because they're not a doctor. Church can help them to feel qualified.  Believe that they are spiritual leaders to their children. If the church believes that they can be spiritual leaders to their kids then they will start to believe it too. Invest time into helping parents with plans and ideas. The more suggestions we give, and help we provide the parents with, the more equipped they will feel to be a spiritual leader to their child. This has thrown a few ideas into the mix for me which I'm still processing. Ideas about a parent-child Sunday where each child group meets in a different room but with their parents present so that we can learn together about being spiritual at home. It's important for parents to see their child on a Sunday morning and vice-versa. So that both the parent and the child can be open about their own spirituality and, therefore, begin to support each other at home. It's not until I was much older that my mum and I began having conversations about spiritual things that I remembered because I came home and asked big questions. Perhaps if my mum had been encouraged more when I was younger we would have drawn alongside each other spiritually at an earlier time.  One way that this 'drawing closer spiritually' could be done is a simple addition to a normal routine. When a child creates something, such as a painting or sculpture, to ask the child what they think God is saying to them through that picture. To explore together what message of encouragement it holds.

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Podcast Information: OrangeBlogs - Orange Leaders 40.3000 Amy xo