Foundations News - Week of 8/28/11

Foundations Class Members,

Hope everyone is having a great week.  Please review the following information for this week's update:

 

1.            We look forward to having Mark Averyt lead our class on Sunday, 9/4/11, as we complete our summer study on the book of Mark by reviewing Mark Chapter 16.

 

2.            The fall quarter will begin on Sunday, 9/11/11, which marks the beginning of service for a new Foundations Servant team.  We are grateful for the service of the 2010-2011 servant team.  Please visit the Foundations blog at http://covpresfoundations.blogspot.com for a listing of the 2011-2012 servant team, a link to the updated class directory, and more.  More information will follow as this new team comes on line.

 

3.            Please consider placing an individual pre-order for the new book by Fixed Point Foundation's Larry Taunton entitled, "The Grace Effect".  For more information, visit the Fixed Point website at www.fixed-point.org

 

4.            Prayer Pager information for Lee and Jennifer Sheppard and family:  Kristin & Cannon Prickett (who used to attend Covenant) lost their 9 month old child to SIDS almost a year ago.  As a result, they have started (through their foundation and Double Oak Community Church) a "prayer pager      ministry."  As Kristin writes, "Prayer pagers provide a tangible way to communicate God's love to those experiencing difficult circumstances.  Pager recipients will know when they have been prayed for when their pager number is called.  It is our hope that they will feel the presence of our Savior, who                'is close to those who are brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.' (Psalm 34:18)"  This past week, she delivered a prayer pager to Jennifer and Lee Sheppard.  Over the coming months, please pray for Jennifer and Lee and Mary Graham and then call their pager number: 334-705-             9214.  At the dial tone, dial 111# and then hang up.  This will cause the pager to vibrate letting them know someone has prayed for them.  (It does not show your phone number).  

5.            The Foundations class has responsibility for coffee distribution on the top two floors of Sunday School classes (our floor and the one below) during the month of September.  If you are willing to assist with this, please contact Kerry Leasure at kerryleasure@gmail.com

6.            See below for Covenant Chronicles from our Pastor of Discipleship, Danny Giffen:

It is truly humbling as a pastor to serve the Lord's Supper to His people—reminding those in the pews that their worthiness is a result of Jesus Christ's work through the Holy Spirit not their own merit or lack thereof.  As we came forward to the the Table this past Sunday it was truly beautiful to see tears rolling down men's and women's faces as they received the bread and the wine.  What a picture of the gospel.  I pray that you were encouraged this past Sunday in the gospel.  God's faithfulness to Covenant Presbyterian has not wavered—in fact one could almost say, it was made more clear.  Thanks be to God!

 

We want to remind you that you received in the mail our sermon series "Riding with Jesus" which walks through the entire fall up to Advent.  Use this as a devotional piece, to take notes, to meditate on the Scriptures that we will be walking through.  Also, you may use the weekly bulletin to catalogue the preaching and prayers.  

 

What's Ahead

 

1.  Wednesday Nights! - join the church each Wednesday night this fall.  Music Clubs & Jubilate at 5 p.m., Dinner with Ingram's Café at 5:30 in the Fellowship Hall.  Youth, Children and Chancel Choir begin at 6:30.  Wed Worship also begins at 6:30 p.m.  The Ten Commandments: A Fence is Not Enough is our series this Fall.  Come and worship with us.  The full band led by Bobby Key and Fred Rogan on steel guitar are leading us.  TJ Wolters will teach on the 1st Commandent  Communion Served each week.

 

2.  Pastor's Lunch Study – Beginning Wednesday, Sept. 7th, Danny Giffen will be leading a book study, Surprised by Grace.  This study is open to men and women with lunch provided in room E206.  It is a short 8 week study.  Books are $13 each and can be picked up prior to the study or on the 1st week.

 

3.  New Ministry – Young Adults Ministry – If you are interested in being part of a new young adult ministry, please join us Thursday, Sept. 15th at Bill & Martha Boyd's home.  Dinner and fellowship included.  For more information contact Lucy Anderson landerson@covpres.com

 

4.  Parenting 101 -  Dr. Gordon Bals is hosting a parenting seminar on Sept. 25, Oct. 2 & Oct. 9th in the Fellowship Hall from 5-7 p.m.  Childcare is provided for 5 and under and dinner for $5/each.  The focus will be gospel based parenting primarily focusing on parents with younger children.  

 

5.  An Evening to Celebrate – join us Sept. 29th at THE Club, to honor Bill & Cyndie Hay.  You should have received an invitation in the mail.  Contact Rhonda rkimbrough@covpres.com to RSVP.

 

Theology 101

 

 

DANIEL DARLING

Do Not Neglect the Holy Spirit in Parenting

“You have nothing to worry about with your kids,” she told me one day, “because you’re doing everything right.” These words from a pastor’s wife were meant to encourage but actually provoked more questions than answers. The women was well-meaning. She was saying there was no earthly way our kids could fail because my wife and I had been raised so well, we are grounded so deeply in our faith, and we subscribe to the “right” parenting techniques.

It was a lot of pressure. Our first daughter, Grace, had just turned 1. By all accounts we were doing a credible job. She was a good kid. The parental prophecy from our friend was often repeated in that first year of parenting. Dan and Angela are such great parents, aren’t they?

Fast forward two years and everything changed. Grace was in the throes of rebellion. Terrible 2s turned into terrible 3s. Even though our parenting paradigm had not changed, and we were subscribing to all of those same “right” methods, the same well-meaning women pulled my wife aside and issued an apocalyptic warning about Grace. If we didn’t “get her under control,” she’d end up profligate child. Then she named some infamous rebels we both knew well. Others told us that Grace was “going to end up in jail if we didn’t do something, that she was “one of the worst kids we’ve seen.” So in a matter of a few years we moved from parenting savants to parenting dunces.

In the years since, we’ve moved on. Looking back, that early criticism, while hurtful and often misguided, had elements of truth we adopted. We’ve matured and discovered additional techniques that have helped Grace grow into a delightful, radiant 6-year old girl.

While the advice we were given may be extreme and not normative for most parents, it does fit with a child-training paradigm that often seems more man-centered than Spirit-led.

Train Up a Child

If you were to survey evangelical parents and ask them to quote their foundational child-raising Scripture, the answer would likely be Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

This verse has become the basis for Christian parenting because we’ve been told, for generations now, that it is both a promise and a command. We think it’s a promise because it seems to guarantee success. The formula is rather simple: Do things God’s way and your kids will turn out right.

It’s also assumed to be a command. If your kids don’t turn out right, you must have disobeyed Scripture at some point. This has to be the case, because Scripture doesn’t lie, right?

Here’s the problem with this interpretation. It’s neither biblically accurate nor helpful. Worse yet, it has led to all kinds of unnecessary guilt on the part of Christian parents and perhaps led them to adopt a man-centered, results-oriented system for raising children.

Proverbs 22:6 is great wisdom. It’s in the inspired canon of Scripture. Still, the basic principles for biblical interpretation tell us to consider the genre. The proverbs are the best collection of wisdom anywhere in the world. They are thoughts from the Almighty on how to live and glorify God in the most practical areas of life. Ultimately they point us to Jesus Christ, the only one who perfectly illustrated the wise life. He is the wisdom of God personified (1 Cor. 1:24, 30; Col. 2:3).

While Proverbs are wisdom, they are not promises. Consider other well-known proverbs, such as Proverbs 15:1, which reminds us that a “gentle answer” turns away anger. This is generally true, but not always. I imagine that if I take my gentle answer to the gritty urban streets near where I live, my gentle answer might stir up wrath. Or consider Proverbs 17:17, which says a “friend loves at all times.” Generally speaking, you can count on your friends to love at all times. But then there are times when a friend betrays. Consider David’s words in Psalm 41:9: “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.”

You could easily point out quite a few other instances where Proverbs taken as promises fall short of expectations. Which bring us back to Proverbs 22:6. To interpret this as biblical wisdom is, well, wise. Generally speaking, if you follow biblical parenting and discipleship models in the Scriptures, you’ll raise children who turn out well. But as a promise, this verse falls woefully short.

If Proverbs 22:6 were a promise (and by extension) a command, you have serious theological problems. God often referred to himself as the “parent” of the nation of Israel (Ex. 4:22-23; Jer. 3:19). And yet, you don’t have to be a Bible scholar to observe that Israel was a most rebellious child. Was God, therefore, a bad parent? Was Jesus a bad “parent” because Judas, one of his disciples, rejected him?

This illustrates the folly of such a formula-driven application of Proverbs 22:6. It reduces the Scriptures to a sanctified formula, a more spiritual-sounding version of Dr. Phil. This man-centeredness eliminates the only agent for human change: the Holy Spirit.

Enter the Holy Spirit

A better parenting paradigm is faithfulness-driven rather than results-led. Our role as parents is not to “produce” children who exhibit certain behavior criteria, but to be mere instruments in the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work in the heart of our children. We highly value and adhere to the wisdom of Proverbs, Deuteronomy, Hebrews, and other child-training passages in the Scriptures and realize only God transforms the hearts of our children.

Our first priority then becomes salvation, so the regenerating work of the Spirit can begin, both making the parenting job easier and also pointing toward lasting change. We look for signs of inner heart change rather than focusing primarily on external conformity.

I’ve seen this at work in my daughter, Grace. We believe she came to faith in Christ at the age of 5, not simply because she mouthed the “right words” in Awana or Sunday school, but because we have begun to witness the fruit of the Spirit’s work in her life. We often see this after she rebels. She has often approached us, many hours and even days after receiving discipline, and has expressed genuine remorse. We’ve also seen an increased hunger for spiritual content and recognition of theological ideas such as salvation, regeneration, and other aspects of the gospel message.

Recognition of the Holy Spirit’s pre-eminent role in changing hearts reshapes our parenting priorities. Removing the unnecessary weight of producing results helps us see our kids, not as a reflection of who we are, but as a unique creation in the image of the Creator. Instead of pushing our kids to abide by our standards as a way of conforming and producing their own righteousness, we might offer the disciplined life as gracious obedience to the Spirit, who empowers them to live the life of Christ.

Daniel Darling is the senior pastor of Gages Lake Bible Church and the author of several books, including his latest, iFaith, Connecting to God in the 21st Century. He regularly blogshere. Daniel and his wife, Angela, have three children and live in the northwest suburbs of Chicago.