For the past eight weeks, the church has been hosting a parenting seminar. Created and offered by the National Center for Biblical Parenting, the video series is entitled Parenting is Heart Work.
I was first introduced to the NCBP at a one-day seminar that Kindra, Willow, and I attended in Anch. It was fantastic, so we pursued offering it as a service and outreach to our community.
The material is excellent...like Ted Tripp's Shepherding a Child's Heart, only much more readable (I have tried at least three times to get through that book, and for some reason I always got bogged down in it), and similar to Ezzo's Growing Kids God's Way, only much more manageable (only 8 weeks of a 30 min. dvd w/ a book). Highly practical, non-technical, easy to apply immediately. Wonderful. The underlying them is that we have to reach our kids hearts, not just change their behavior, if any change is going to be lasting and valuable. We can't keep upping the ante on behavior modification, promising more and bigger and better if the kids will only do what we want them to do (well, it can and has been done, but the results aren't pretty)! All that does is breed selfishness.
The best part of the parent's seminar is that the kids have a complimentary class going on at the same time! While parents were learning, for example, how to create an effective instruction routine, the kids that night learned to "come when I'm called, give a response, and report back when I'm done w/
the job." Now that's a lesson that's fun to teach!
Overall, it was a huge success. Six families participated, three of which don't have a
church...so it was rewarding to fill a void in their lives, not to mention that that the dvd lessons very clearly outlined how to have a saving relationship w/ Jesus, all of the lessons were based out of Scripture, and the parallel continuously drawn of God as a Father who parents us from the heart.
One of the very cool things is that these moms (only two dads-Mark was leading the class and one other dad from our church) were seeing positive results in their family lives from applying biblical principles. It was definitely a God-thing, and it was so great to be reaching members of our community where they felt the need.
Top two pics: From the last class, creating a trail of footprints to the treasures (such as
having a good attitude, accepting no as an answer, settling their hearts, etc, that they learned each week). Third pic, Andrew and Clay tied up (ha-some parenting class, right?) pretending to be Paul and Silas (or was it Barnabas? What kind of pastor's wife am I, anyway...) tied up in prison but still being content and singing instead of complaining! Last pic, the crew of kids, sans two kids whose mom was sick the last night. Not an easy crew, but we had fun and they wrote God's Word on their hearts and found some great treasures for family living!
