This Week in Faith 9-27-19

If You Want Your Kids to Own Their Faith, Teach Them to Think Critically About Their Faith

This is such an important concept- we don’t want to just tell our kids what to believe but help help them to think carefully about their faith so they learn to articulate why they believe. I like the way he talks about the types of conversations to have with our kids: “watch for belief-statements, ask why-questions, and model right-thinking.” Teaching our kids how to think is an important skill that, without it, will leave them unprepared every time they leave the house. If you are interested in this more, I read a great book called “How to Think” by Alan Jacobs that goes deeper into this idea.

Click here to read the article by Tim Barnett.

Three Lenses Every Parent Needs

This article is written by the guy who wrote the middle school small group books that we are using on Wednesday nights. So, if you have a middle schooler coming on Wednesday nights, the last part of this article about the three lenses will give you an idea of what we are talking about if you haven’t looked at the book already. We spent the first few weeks talking about these three lenses and the rest of the book will now look at different relationships with God and other people through these lenses. The first part of this article also has some helpful insights on parenting in general.

Click here to read the article by Champ Thornton.

What to Do When Your Child Has Thoughts of Suicide

I pray that I will never have to go through this with my kids, and that you won’t either. But the reality is that if you are going through this with your child, you’re not alone. And I also know that the statistics would say that there is a good chance one of my kids will deal with thoughts of suicide at some point in their lives. So, while I won’t ever fully be prepared for that moment, I want to do everything I can to know what to say and how to respond in order to best help my child. There are some important things in this article to help you be prepared: what you can say, what you need to do, and what you need to do for yourself so you have the strength to walk with your child down this difficult road. So never feel like you are alone in this. As a church family, we acknowledge that we live in a painfully broken world so God has given us each other to support, encourage, and walk with each other through the hardest moments and seasons of life. Our hope is that the more deeply we understand and believe the gospel, the more we can continue to cultivate an honest, open and empathetic environment where this continues to happen more and more.

Click here to read the article by Kelly Rosati.

PODCAST: Dr. Tom Hines: Choosing and Trusting Your Pediatrician

This is a good interview that provides a pediatrician’s perspective on what to look for, what to expect, and how to partner well with your pediatrician for the good of your kids, at all ages.

Click here to listen tot he interview at The Apollos Project.