ParentLink Live
Welcome to ParentLink Live! This audio presentation combines the influences of church leaders and parents to help parents win at home. Each month a different aspect of how to keep and maintain influence in your child’s life is introduced. The audio provides a strategy and a “to do” list to follow at home with your child.
January:
You, as parents, have 3,000 hours to spend with your child this year, while church leaders will spend about 40 hours with your son or daughter during the year. Parents have incredible influence on their children’s lives, more than TV, friends, or church. Consider these five parenting values as you enter the New Year: Imagine the end, fight for the heart, make it personal, create a rhythm, and widen the circle. Throughout the year, each ParentLink Live message will explore one of these values.
February:
Understanding “why” we raise our kids impacts “how” we do it. By beginning with an end in mind, parents can be intentional about investing in their children in ways that have eternal significance. Pray about who your son or daughter is going to be when he or she is 20 years old. What does he/she look like spiritually? Is he/she passionate about Christ? Where is his/her life headed? Imagine the end, the adult your child will become,as you raise your child.
March:
When children are young, they follow their parents automatically. Moms and dads have access to a young child's heart simply because of their position as parents. However, as children grow older they discover freedom; they discover that they have a choice about who they love, who they follow, who they listen to, and who they admire. Parents must fight for the heart so that when their positional influence wanes, they still have relational influence in the lives of their kids.
April:
We listen most to the people we love the most. This is true for our children as well. Fight for the heart!
May:
If you hope to pass on faith to your children, it has to be in you before it’s in them. Make it personal!
June:
If you don’t have a rhythm at home that intentionally engages faith and character, then faith and character won’t be part of your home. Create a rhythm!
July:
God created us for community. The greatest commandment is about love for God and relationship with others. Even if you have a vibrant family life, your child was made to connect with others. Widen the circle!
August:
You bring who you are to everything you do. Imagine the end – who do I want my child to become?
September:
Jesus kept His heart amazingly open . . . to pain, to betrayers, to God. And as a result, He lived the most powerful life imaginable. His heart was fully open – fully alive, and God used it. Fight for the heart – the open heart that fuels dreams, risks, loves, and imagines – the heart that God created.
October:
When your faith is personal it becomes real to you, and when it becomes real, you become passionate. And when it’s real to you and you’re passionate about it, your kids see that. They realize that faith is not something distant, remote, or disinterested, but something real and powerful that may have the same kind of claim on them as it does on you. Make it personal!
November:
To what extent is meaningful time with and dialogue about our faith part of our daily rhythm? To what extent is it routine to open the Bible, to pray, to talk, to question? Talk to church leaders about resources that will help establish a rhythm in your home every week that helps make God a part of your everyday faith. Create a rhythm – a routine establishes the framework for life.
December:
Will you invest the time to ensure your child is getting the kind of influences a church partner can provide? Three ways a parent can partner with a church:
• Resources the church provides for parents to use at home.
• Peers that are running in a healthy direction – kids need other kids in their lives who are making wise choices.
• Another adult voice (a group leader) in a child’s life saying the same thing parents say.
Widen the circle – spend time in the right direction.