Parenting and God Our Parent

Today was an exciting day in the church.  We had a “full house” many of whom were not Christians but had come as friends of Paul and Carla for the Infant Dedication service for Grace, which was part of the service.  Also a sizable group of Carla’s family and friends were from a Salvation Army background. It was a challenge for those of us planning the service (Ally, Bob, Paul and myself) to think how to approach worship, prayers and teaching.

We took the theme of “Parenting” and Bob, Ally and myself gave different perspectives before Paul finished with a quite a moving talk which included quite a bit of his own testimony.

Bob asked how much of what we are is “nature” – ie passed on through our genes – and how much is “nurture” – ie the product of our upbringing and social influences on us.  It seems that the old genes are responsible for quite a lot.  Yet Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about being “born again” – receiving a new nature?

After we’d watched a brief video clip from “Matilda”  (Illustrating an oppressive and unequal approach to parenting) I shared some material from the Positive Parenting course which we have been teaching in Kazakhstan.  We looked at three pictures of sheep – one closely hemmed in by a pen: one with no boundaries at all, lost in the hills: and one in a safe field with a gate which was ajar.  We called these controlling, permissive and assertive styles of parenting (respectively) and saw how the assertive form is the one likely to produce adults who are confident, respectful and able to take initiative.  We thought about how important it is to recognise what style of parenting was used on us, since that’s going to be our default model for parenting to our own kids!

But what about God as a Parent?  Jesus says to address God as “Abba” (daddy) Father.  Is he controlling, permissive or assertive?  And what about our style of church?  Does it reflect freedom, confidence, etc?  I reckon that the reasons many people reject God and church is precisely because they perceive them as controlling, restrictive and unreasonable.  Much of society would consider itself to have outgrown the outraged God of much Christianity.

And can we break the mould of our received parenting and do a better job with our own kids?  Well perhaps we can: partly through thinking things through and coming to a new place of understanding: and partly by committing and disciplining ourselves to the task.  But is this enough? It’s really our inbuilt emotional experience of parenting that constitutes the “mould” we’re trying to break.  Isn’t this where our personal (“mystical”) experience of God comes in?  The Holy Spirit “joins himself to our spirit to declare that we are God’s children….”  The Spirit gives us a new inner perspective which loosens the grip of the old experiences. Pretty good, eh?

Ally spoke to us about the heavy responsibility he felt at the time they had their dedication service for Bethany.  We are in fact to model God to our children.  If I’m a bad father then the word “father” will be tarnished in the minds of my children and they won’t respond positively to it.

Paul spoke to us about how Jesus came to us as “God in sandals”, declaring a kingdom of healing and restoration.  He shared how God had helped him face anger in his own life and had released him through the ministry of prayer – and laughter!  This was what had first made him want to take God seriously: though the Christian life is an ongoing journey of trusting God.

There were some meaningful conversations with our friends and visitors over lunch and some good contacts were made.  Everyone we spoke to was impressed with the service.

Can we build on this??