02-02-11 - Spiritual Parenting
- Details
- Category: Authors
- Published: Monday, 31 January 2011 12:34
"Spiritual Parenting" by Michelle Anthony stands out amongst the crowd of Christian books by grounding parenting in discipleship. Who did God create your child to be? Tune in to hear Brock's interview with Michelle Anthony author of "Spiritual Parenting" on this week's 9:00am Wednesday Bookmark, brought to you by Salem Storehouse!
20% off! Call 613-727-0203 to reserve your copy or visit Salem Storehouse (1558 Merivale Rd, 839 Shefford Rd or 315 Lisgar St) Offer only valid for one week from the interview date.
Instead of focusing parental energy on sin management, Anthony urges parents to share their lives transformed by the gospel. "The goal of spiritual parenting is that our children would learn to hear and know God's voice, desire to obey it, and obey it in the power of God's Spirit, not their own strength."
With a goal of passing down a vibrant faith, Anthony describes environments and values that we should consciously cultivate in parenting: storytelling, identity, faith community, service, out of the comfort zone, responsibility, course correction, love and respect, knowing, and modeling. Each chapter is encouraging. Though Anthony may not be coming from a covenantal perspective, her ideas and examples are compelling and easy to comport to a reformed theology of children.
As twenty-first century Christians reconsider how to do church, the way we raise children in the faith must be part of that conversation. Anthony's book is a good start for parents to consider some of the fundamental concerns of raising children who share an authentic and transformational faith. It also serves as a necessary reminder that parents are responsible for the spiritual formation of their children, and how they live is much more important to that development than anything that happens for an hour or two a week.
It is a temptation for parents to look for someone to tell them just what to do, and this book is not structured to feed that. Anthony encourages parents to know their children, embrace the way God made them, and parent them as individuals. Without a formula to follow, parents are better reminded of their eternal focus. "What is our job then? The joy of parenting can be spent on cultivating environments for our children's faith to grow, teaching them how to cultivate a love relationship with Jesus as we cultivate our own, living our lives authentically in front of them so that they become eyewitnesses to our own transformation. "
