Family Friday Links 2.19.16

Elizabeth Turnage on her blog shared a story to talk about What Parenting by Grace Might Look Like.  Turnage shares a particular time when she became angry when her family prepared to go on a missions trip. She processed through what caused her anger. Turnage says, " So I had to ask — what made me so angry? Almost always behind my anger, I discover one of two things, or both: 1.desire for control or 2. fear. I’m pretty sure both were operative here. When we are parenting out of fear or desire for control, there’s a good chance we’ve shifted our trust — from God to ourselves." 

Derrick Lynch writes on For The Church blog about how pastoring is similar to parenting. He encourages pastors to lead their congregations to maturity. Derrick writes, "As in parenting, not every pastoral effort will be met with success.  Church members, like children, are willful.  The prodigal may walk away.  When that happens, we join the Father and pray for their return to His house.  We will ache with their Father over their absence. It won’t be easy. It will be heartbreaking."

For The Church was on a roll this week with another good post entitled Comfort for Parents of Unconverted Children. Here Jim Elliff encourage parents who are concerned about their child's salvation. Elliff says, "All Christian parents wish that God would show us something to do to secure our child’s salvation, and then “we’ll do it with all our might” because we love our child so much. Yet, God has not made salvation the effect of somebody else’s faith; our son or daughter must come to Christ on his or her own. John shows us that all Christians are born into God’s family “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, [that is, somebody else’s will] but of God.” (John 1:13)"

National Public Radio had an interesting interview with Erika Christakis on her new book The Importance of Being Little. Author Corey Turner writes Christakis book is, "an impassioned plea for educators and parents to put down the worksheets and flash cards, ditch the tired craft projects (yes, you, Thanksgiving Handprint Turkey) and exotic vocabulary lessons, and double-down on one, simple word: Play." Is play an important part of your family's life? 

Nick Batzig at Christward Collective writes on The Blessing of Teaching Children. Here Nick writes, "We tend to look down on the call to work personally with the children in the church because it is, at times, more challenging to keep their attention, and almost all the time lacks the prestige and praise of men after which we so often sinfully seek." Hope this is an encouragement to those of you are investing in the lives of children in your church. 

Share in the comments some of the links you have been reading this week.