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What does authenticity look like?
How is your connection with God? Sometimes we can go a long time without evaluating how we are growing in our own relationship with Jesus. But when we stop and think about this regularly it can help us to display an authentic faith to those around us – and when parents do this it will encourage their children as they learn what living with God can look like.
Do you encourage the parents and carers in your church that they don’t have to be perfect? If they are struggling at the moment, they could share that with their kids – explaining that there are times when it is hard. Or perhaps you could help your congregation reflect on how they best connect with God. Do they love to spend time quietly reflecting on him? Perhaps they love to sing out in worship or enjoy being outdoors in creation? Maybe it’s reading the scriptures and allowing God to speak through them.
Children need an authentic window into what life with God looks like, not a false one. So be encouraging to the parents you serve and help them value being real over trying to have it all together, all of the time. And encourage your leaders to be honest too – it could be a big boost to those who need to know that the Christian life is hard for everyone at times.
“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
We’re praying for you this month as you connect with God and hope that you’ll have opportunities to encourage parents and carers to share with their children what connecting with God looks like.
Becky and the Kitchen Table Project team
Resource: Sacred Pathways
In his book Sacred Pathways, author Gary Thomas describes the wonderful variety of ways in which we relate to God according to our different personalities.
There are also online quizzes that you can do to discover more about how you connect with God best. This one from Focus on the Family could help get you started:
Finding your place
It may seem simple, but having a specific place, or moment in your day which is set apart for your time with God, could make all the difference in your relationship with him.
Do you have a specific chair, room or walk that could become ‘your place’? Maybe it’s a particular time of day, in your car, by the coffee machine in work, or in the shower after a long day.
We all know how precious time is to us as parents. It doesn’t need to be a full half an hour, it may only be three minutes between meetings, or five minutes in the car after the school run. You may just find they become some of the most life-giving minutes of your day!
Idea: Family time
The church is full of wonderfully unique individuals who connect with God in a variety of ways! What could you do as leaders to facilitate opportunities for your church to connect with God in different ways?
- Could you bring some creativity into your messages and have people make or write something to take away with them?
- Could you have the children learn a dance to go with one or two of your worship songs?
- Could you offer a moment or two of silence, to allow those who connect with God through contemplation to experience more of him?
- Maybe you could even arrange a church gathering outside when the weather gets warmer, for those who love to worship God through creation?
Please send us your stories of inspiring faith at home – good and bad – we know it’s a rollercoaster! We’d love to include them in our emails and on the blog.
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