Entries Tagged 'Character Development' ↓

A few months ago, Randy wrote an entry called, Praying the Scriptures for Your Children, which included a few suggested verses of Scripture to pray for children.

Another good resource for parents to incorporate into their prayers is an article from Christian Parenting Today called 40 Ways to Pray for Your Children. The article includes 40 topical prayers parents can use to pray for their children.

In our first few days with Ethan, we’ve talked openly about the struggle that taking Ethan from his foster family and bringing him into ours has been.

However, we want to be clear: we were never concerned about the long term. We’ve always believed that Ethan will adjust, in time. While in Korea, our concerns were mostly immediate — getting Ethan home by way of a very long trip.

It was painful to watch, at times. Occasionally, we’d ask ourselves, “How long can he go on like this?” At the time, we didn’t know the answer to that question.

We also know that while people, and perhaps especially children, are pretty resilient, the reality is, trauma leaves a lasting mark on people, even on babies who will someday not remember the events that caused the trauma.

So, our concern hasn’t been so much, “Will Ethan survive this and come to know we love him?” Our bigger concern is how do we need to respond so that this trauma does not have a lasting negative impact on Ethan, and even, how can we respond so that Ethan can actually become a stronger person as a result of this traumatic experience.

In fact, it’s probably an even more important concern for children than it is for adults. As an adult, I have a better chance of processing trauma that happens to me, but children may not be able to fully process what’s happened to them. The adults around children must respond, and help them respond, in ways that minimize the damage caused by the trauma. If done well, the trauma can actually make them *more* resilient! (BTW, this was the thinking behind our Shaping a High AQ Culture a while back.)

Actually, this is a concern we all should have about the things we go through. None of us can completely control what happens to us, we only get to choose how we respond, and how we respond matters!

I think I am going wrap up this discussion of the kind of culture we want to shape in our home with this post. I’m sure there are parts I’ve missed but I think what I’ve written so far is more than enough to get us started!

“Everything we have is a gift from God. Everything.” (Sweet)

Shaping a Trustee Culture. In a trustee culture, people see themselves as having been entrusted with gifts and resources from God to be used in ways that honor God and further God’s work in the world. IOW, our stuff is not really our stuff, it is a gift from God to be used wisely.

Good stewardship has always been important to us. We’ve written about Teaching Good Money Management and Our Best Money Practices.

Leonard Sweet talks about trusteeship in his book, SoulSalsa …

God owns everything: the cattle, the car, the IRA, the TIAA-CREF. You and I own nothing. Not even ourselves. … We prove our nonownership when we die. You can’t take it with you because it isn’t yours to begin with.

Shaping a trustee culture will require us to be good trustees (or stewards) ourselves. Then we will need to teach Ethan to view himself as a trustee — someone blessed by God to use his God-given resources in ways that honor God.

Well, as I said, this will wrap up a look at the kind of culture we want to shape in our home. Previously, I wrote about shaping a God-centered culture, a learning culture, a high AQ culture, a leadership culture, and a servant culture.

This series has given us an opportunity to be intentional about the kind of culture we want to shape, but now it’s time to put it into to practice with Ethan!

Christ-followers are servants!

We want to raise Ethan in a culture where serving God and others is part of the DNA. A culture where serving God/others is part of the DNA is a culture which says …

It’s not about me!

Rick Warren begins his book, The Purpose-Driven Life, with the words, “It’s not about you.”

“We want to raise Ethan in a culture where serving God and others is part of the DNA.”

We all come into the world, it seems, thinking everything revolves around us. And it first, maybe it does. In fact, for the first 8+ weeks of our time with Ethan, we will both be on parental leave. During this time, we will very much be focused on Ethan! And we can hardly wait!

But as Ethan grows, we want his world to expand beyond himself. It’s an unhealthy attitude for any of us to have that believes, “it’s all about me.”

To help instill a servant culture in our home, we will need to find ways, as a family, to serve — God, each other, others in our church family, and others in the world.

A servant’s heart is a surrendered heart. Jesus demonstrated total surrender like no one else. Perhaps it was because Jesus was reared in a home with a servant culture. He had a mother and father who showed him what surrendered lives look like. As a young (betrothed) wife, Mary was approached by an angel with a mind-boggling opportunity to raise God’s Son. (See Luke 1.26-38.)

Mary, more than a little confused, tried to figure out what it meant. In end, she demonstrated total surrender, saying …

I am the Lord’s servant! Let it happen as you have said.

Now, that’s the kind of attitude we want to help Ethan develop! Of course, that means *we* will need to model that kind of surrender. IOW, shaping a servant culture, a culture where serving God/others is part of the DNA, comes with a pretty big price tag!

This is the fifth part in a series of reflections on the kind of culture we want to create in our home, especially for Ethan. Previously, we’ve written about shaping a Leadership Culture, a God-centered culture, a learning culture, and a high AQ culture. I have a couple other ideas on my list. I’ll try to write about those in the next few days as we prepare to bring Ethan home.

One of the things I look forward to as a parent is raising Ethan in the context of a leadership culture. Leadership is important to us; we’re both leaders. While we don’t yet know what gifts God has given him (and others God may develop in him in the future), we certainly want to provide an atmosphere where God can grow him to be a leader in whatever areas he discovers his giftedness.

In the Scriptures, particularly with the leaders in the Old Testament, there are so many examples of children following in the footsteps of their parents. Often when the parent was a bad leader, the child was also a bad leader, and vice versa. There were exceptions, of course, but they seem to be few and far between. The challenge for us is to provide the best environment we can so that Ethan will be an effective, godly leader.

Role Models
Everybody needs good role models. As parents, we’ll automatically be role models for Ethan, and that will include modeling leadership. We’ll also ensure that he is exposed to other good leaders so that he can learn from them, too. Having good role models is essential for learning leadership!

Opportunities to Lead
Learning leadership from others is necessary, but it’s not enough. You can’t develop leadership without actually leading. IOW, leadership skills are best developed on the job, putting them into practice. That means we’ll need to give Ethan opportunities to lead as he grows and matures (although we’re not exactly sure what that will look like yet).

Again, we don’t know what God has in store for Ethan, but everyone, regardless of giftedness, can benefit from a strong leadership culture. Everyone leads in some capacity — in school, in the workplace, as a parent, or any number of other contexts. May God help us to take our task of providing a leadership culture for Ethan to heart!

Well, this is part of a series of posts written in preparation for bringing Ethan home. Previously, we’ve written about shaping a God-centered culture, a learning culture, and a high AQ culture.

Shaping culture. That’s what we’ve been thinking about lately as we prepare to bring Ethan home in a few weeks. So far, we’ve talked about shaping a God-centered culture and a learning culture. Next up, we want to shape a high AQ culture.

Behind this idea of a high AQ culture is an excellent book, Adversity Quotient: Turning Obstacles into Opportunities, by Paul Stoltz, who suggests that one’s AQ is more important than one’s IQ. “AQ is a measure of how you respond to adversity.” (Paul Stoltz)

While IQ measures one’s intelligence, AQ measures how one handles adversity. AQ is about resilience, how you react when things don’t go your way.

Stoltz says there are 3 kinds of people …

1. Quitters simply quit climbing at some point along the journey.
2. Campers may start out okay, but somewhere along the way, they get tired and take a much-needed break (which we all need from time to time). However, they enjoy resting and camping out so much that they decide to stay right where they are. They decide they’ve gone far enough.
3. Climbers keep climbing no matter what obstacles get in their way, no matter what kinds of temptations or distractions come along. Sure, they take regular breaks and camp out from time to time, but their camp is a temporary location, not a permanent residence. Their eyes are on the destination, and they keep climbing!

While Paul Stoltz wrote Adversity Quotient in the 1990s, the concept of AQ is nothing new. The Apostle Paul (and others in Scripture) talked about (and modeled) the importance of high AQ centuries ago …

Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. (James 1.2-4)

Paul also wrote, “Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!” (Philippians 4.4; see also 1 Thessalonians 5.16).

The basic idea is that no matter what you’re going through — when you feel out of control — you still get to choose your response. Scripture, life’s manual for living a God-honoring life, is full of examples of people who handled adversity well (as well as examples of people who didn’t) that we can learn from.

We want to cultivate a high AQ environment so that our child will have a AQ. We want to raise a climber, a person who’s resilient and keeps pursuing God’s plan no matter what.

Shaping a high AQ culture is going to be challenging, but the stakes are pretty high. In order to shape a high AQ culture in our home we must teach and model how to handle adversity. We’ll have to be aware of how we react to things (what we say, how we act, what we do afterward, etc.) because our little one will be watching!

Of course, we’ll never have perfect AQs. We’ll mess up at times, but we hope to do our best, with God’s help. We believe the quality — and the impact — of his Ethan’s life depends greatly on his AQ!

Regular readers of our blog will know that we are thinking a lot about parenting these days as we prepare to bring Ethan home from Korea. Part of our thinking recently has been about how best to pray for him — now and in the years to come!

Randy recently posted several prayers for the journey. These will be good, especially down the road as Ethan begins to make more decisions for himself. “Praying the scriptures is a powerful way to pray!”

We’ve just begun to gather some scriptures that we want to incorporate into our prayers for Ethan. Here’s what we’ve collected so far …

For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs. (Zephaniah 3.17)

Ephesians 6.1-4 offers some valuable praying material. Here, Paul admonishes children, “obey your parents,” and “honor your father and mother,” noting that “this is the first commandment with a promise: If you honor your father and mother, ‘things will go well for you, and you will have a long life on the earth.’” But Paul also cautions parents, “do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord.” Good stuff to pray.

I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance. I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 1.16-20

When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3.14-21)

A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm. Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God’s righteousness. For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared. In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil. Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere. (Ephesians 6.10-18)

Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault. All glory to him who alone is God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord. All glory, majesty, power, and authority are his before all time, and in the present, and beyond all time! Amen. (Jude 1.24-25)

Well, this should get us started. We believe that praying the scriptures is a powerful way to pray. If praying the scriptures is unfamiliar to you, here’s an example …

O God, we give you all the glory, for who you who and for all you have blessed us with. Thank you so much for blessing us with Ethan. God, you are able to keep Ethan from falling away. We trust, O God, that you will bring him with great joy into your glorious presence without a single fault. All glory to you, who alone are God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord. All glory, majesty, power, and authority are yours before all time, and in the present, and beyond all time! Amen.

The idea is simply to incorporate the language of scripture into your prayers. In some cases you can use the actual language; other times, you may need to change it into the form of a prayer.

Some resources we found online (although we know little about them) that look like they might be worth checking out if you’d like more resources: Praying the Scriptures for Your Children (2001) and Praying the Scriptures for Your Teenager: Discover How to Pray God’s Will for Their Lives (2007), both by Jodie Berndt.

Also check out Kevin Martineau’s recent piece on praying for our children.

What do you pray when you pray for your children? What Scriptures do you pray for them? Feel free to share in the comments section.

As you can imagine, we’re preparing to bring home our (first) child from Korea in early 2008 (sometime around February, possibly). In addition to practical things like getting a crib ready, we’re also thinking about the kind of environment, or culture, that we want to create in which to raise a child. “… one of our jobs as parents is to create … a culture where our child can grow and develop into a strong person who honors God.”

We’ve written a couple things along these lines before, including Parenting as Character Building 1.0 and 2.0.

We believe one of our jobs as parents is to create a certain kind of culture, a culture where our child can grow and develop into a Christ-following person who honors God. We’ll post some thoughts on various aspects of the kind environment we want to create, starting with Deuteronomy 6.4-9, which talks about shaping culture in the home …

Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up (Deuteronomy 6.7).

Shaping a God-centered culture. Our top priority as Christ-following parents is to create an environment where God is at the center of life. God is not simply a part of our lives or something that we add to the mix. God is our life.

Some of the ways we’ll try to keep God at the center include prayer, reading and internalizing Scripture, and by engaging in spiritual conversations, including the act of “doing theology” together as a family. Doing theology together simply means discussing life from a biblical perspective. Doing so, we believe, will help our child develop a biblical worldview (i.e. viewing life, and engaging in life, through the lens of the Scriptures).

BTW, it’s fun to think about parenting because parenting is simply one form of leadership. Much of what we’re thinking about is very much informed by what we’ve learned about leadership. Therefore, a lot of what we write in these posts may be applied to other areas of leadership as well.

Have any advice for us? How have you shaped a God-centered culture in your home?

I wrote about parenting as character building a couple days ago. Since then I’ve reflected more on this and I’ve been thinking about the work of character building as the work of shaping a heart.

The backdrop for this idea is Reggie McNeal’s book, A Work of Heart: Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders. God’s work in people is a “work of heart.” A leader’s job is also a work of heart. And a parent’s job is a work of heart as well. The primary responsibility of parents is to develop the character of their children!

The Scriptures challenge parents (Proverbs 22.6):

Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.

Parents must do their best to shape the heart(s) of their child(ren). David was a man whose heart was shaped well. God said about David:

I have found David … a man after my own heart.

There are no guarantees in life. Even after you’ve done all the heart-shaping work you can do (and no one does it perfectly), still the child must choose his/her own path. The possibilities are a bit scary, but they’re also exciting!

Thankfully, parents are not alone in this heart-shaping work. This work is ultimately God’s work. On that note, Deuteronomy 6.4-9 offers some great advice for parents!

We plan to do some more thinking, especially on the core practices of this heart-shaping work (perhaps starting with the core practices in Deuteronomy 6). In the meantime, what practices have you found helpful in shaping your child’s heart/character?

As we’ve talked with many people over the last year about our adoption process, we’ve received two primary responses: 1) excitement about the prospect of an addition to our family, and 2) certainty that our lives are going to be turned upside down.

Well, with our adoption process nearing the end, much of our attention now turns toward preparing for parenthood. As we do so, we are committed to developing strong character in the little person God entrusts us with. Parenting is heart-shaping work!

I’m sure one of our most important challenges will be maintaining this focus on character building. With all of the distractions available today (media, sports, music, hobbies, etc., none of which are bad in and of themselves, necessarily, and all of which can be part of character building), we hope to do our best to keep the main thing (i.e. building strong character) the main thing.

Parenting is a form of leadership. Whereas a primary responsibility of Christ-following leaders is building Christ-like character in others, parents are also entrusted with the responsibility of developing character in their child/children. We trust that God will help us to build strong character in Baby Willis (yes, we’re still working on a new name!).

We’re beginning to collect helpful online parenting resources at our del.icio.us online bookmarks page (we especially like the stuff in the quirky rules article).

If you have a good resource to suggest, or if you have some personal advice you’ve learned along the way, we’d love to hear from you in the comments section!

[Click here to read Parenting as Character Building 2.0]