PART FOUR: Journal

Further Resources

Further Resources: Continuing the Parenting Journey

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or set foot on the path of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the Law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding its fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither, and who prospers in all he does.

Christ’s work, both in the church and in the hearts of Christians, often [goes] backward, that it may go the better forward. As seed rots in the ground in the winter time, but after comes better up, and the harder the winter the more flourishing the spring, so we learn to stand by falls, and get strength by weakness discovered … we take deeper root by shaking; and, as torches flame brighter by moving, thus it pleaseth Christ, out of his freedom, in this manner to maintain his government in us.

This is not the end of your spiritual journey. While your completion of this rite of passage represents a major milestone in your life development and faith formation, it is not the termination of your journey. Inasmuch as you have grown theologically, overcome challenges, and celebrated with the church community, crossing this threshold is also meant to prepare you for the next seasons of life and faith. As such, you should take the habits and practices developed in this process and seek “to excel more and more” (1 Thessalonians 4:10). God wants you to maintain a life of submission to him, through moments of joy and seasons of difficulty. The following pages provide an initial set of resources for your own continued development and maturity. Use them to assist you and your church community in your ongoing pilgrimage of the Christian life, “for from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.” (Romans 11:36).

Bibliography

The following sources serve as a works cited for this study and also as a reading list for your exploration. Consider reading some of these works to enrich your understanding and deepen your wisdom for parenting work.

Bibliography

• Alexander, James W. Thoughts on Family-Worship. Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1847.
• Chrysostom, John. “An Address on Vainglory and the Right Way for Parents to Bring up Their Children.” In Christianity and Pagan Culture in the Later Roman Empire; Together with an English Translation of John Chrysostom’s Address on Vainglory and the Right Way for Parents to Bring up Their Children, translated by M. L. W. Laistner. Cornell University Press, 1967.
• Luther, Martin. Luther on Education in the Christian Home and School. Edited by P. E. Kretzmann. The Lutheran Literary Board, 1940.
• Mather, Cotton. A Family Well-Ordered. B. Green and J. Allen, 1699.
• Milton, John. Milton’s Tractate on Education. Cambridge University Press, 1890.
• Phillips, Samuel. The Christian Home. G. and F. Bill, 1860.
• Poythress, Vern S. “How I Helped My Boys to Become Christian Men.” The Works of John Frame and Vern Poythress, 1999.
• Ryle, J. C. How Should a Child Be Trained? Mennonite Publishing House, 1844.
• Spring, Gardiner. Hints to Parents: A Sermon on the Religious Education of Children. Jonathan Leavitt, 1833.
• Spurgeon, Charles. Come, Ye Children: A Sermon Addressed to Sunday School. Alabaster and Passmore, 1856.

Proposed Schedule

The following schedule is provided to help you think about a potential family camp experience. Feel free to adjust the schedule to suit the needs of your family and church community.

Proposed Schedule

Reflective Excerpts

The following excerpts are samples of profound thinking about family, parenting, and children. Read them prayerfully. Consider memorizing portions of them. Share them with friends to foster meaningful dialogue.

The Children’s Hour

Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,
That is known as the Children’s Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret
O’er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!

The Familie

What doth this noise of thoughts within my heart,
As if they had a part?
What do these loud complaints and pulling fears,
As if there were no rules or eares?

But, Lord, the house and familie are thine,
Though some of them repine.
Turn out these wranglers, which defile thy seat:
For where thou dwellest all is neat.

First Peace and Silence all disputes controll,
Then Order plaies the soul;
And giving all things their set forms and houres,
Makes of wilde woods sweet walks and bowres.

Humble Obedience neare the doore doth stand,
Expecting a command:
Then whom in waiting nothing seems more slow,
Nothing more quick when she doth go.

Joyes oft are there, and griefs as oft as joyes;
But griefs without a noise:
Yet speak they louder then distemper’d fears.
What is so shrill as silent tears?

This is thy house, with these it doth abound:
And where these are not found,
Perhaps thou com’st sometimes, and for a day;
But not to make a constant stay.

Blest Is the Home Where Jesus Is

Blest is the home where Jesus is
A welcome and a constant guest,—
Where His great Love to all is known,—
His saving Name by each confessed.

To all the families Thou hast framed,
Lord, let Thy grace be multiplied;
Parents and offspring fill with love
To Him who for our sins has died.

Thou Friend of children, blessed Lord,
Bestow on little ones Thy care,
And teach them how to live to Thee,
And in Thy great salvation share.

On all our homes let favor rest;
Let love and virtue there abound;
May true obedience to Thy Word,
And peace, and honor, there be found.

May all the homes on earth, dear Lord,
Fountains of blessing prove to be,—
Copies of that blest home above,
Where ransomed souls Thy glory see.

My Mother’s Prayer

I never can forget the day
I heard my mother kindly say,
“You’re leaving now my tender care;
Remember, child, your mother’s prayer.”

Whene’er I think of her so dear,
I feel her angel spirit near;
A voice comes floating on the air,
Reminding me of mother’s prayer.

I never can forget the voice
That always made my heart rejoice;
Though I have wandered God knows where,
Still I remember mother’s prayer.

Though years have gone, I can’t forget
Those words of love—I hear them yet;
I see her by the old arm chair,
My mother dear, in humble prayer.

I never can forget the hour
I felt the Savior’s cleansing power;
My sin and guilt He canceled there,
'Twas there He answered mother’s prayer.
Oh, praise the Lord for saving grace!
We’ll meet up yonder face to face,
The home above together share,
In answer to my mother’s prayer.
Amen.

Tell Them They Live Every Moment on God

We should describe him [God] as not only the greatest, but the best of beings. We should teach them to know him by the most encouraging name of the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, and forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin. We should represent him as the universal, kind, indulgent parent, who loves his creatures, and by all proper methods provides for their happiness. And we should particularly represent his goodness to them, with what more than parental tenderness he watched round their cradles; with what compassion he heard their feeble cries, before their infant thoughts could form themselves into prayer: We should tell them that they live every moment on God; and that all our affection for them is no more than he puts into our hearts; and all our power to help them is no more than he lodges in our hands. We should also solemnly remind them that in a very little while their spirits are to return to this God; that as he is now always with them and knows every thing they do, or speak, or think, so he will bring every work into judgment, and make them forever happy or miserable, as they on the whole are found obedient or rebellious. And here the most lively and pathetic descriptions, which the scriptures give us of Heaven and of Hell, should be laid before them, and urged on their consideration.

The Stream Not Rise Higher Than the Fountain

The example of a father is acknowledged to be all-important. The stream must not be expected to rise higher than the fountain. The Christian householder will feel himself constrained to say: I am leading my family in solemn addresses to God; what manner of man should I be! how wise, holy, and exemplary! This undoubtedly has been, in cases innumerable, the direct operation of Family-Worship on the father. As we know that worldly men, and inconsistent professors, are deterred from performing this duty by the consciousness of a discrepance between their life and any acts of devotion, so humble Christians are led by the same comparison to be more circumspect, and to order their ways in such a manner as may edify their dependants. There cannot be too many motives to a holy life, nor too many safeguards to parental example. Establish the worship of God in any house, and you erect around it a new barrier against the irruption of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Introduced to a World

Very young children … require to be taught not so much anything as everything. Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren’t. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist. Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment (even when freed from modern rules and hours, and exercised more spontaneously by a more protected person) is in itself too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world. But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes, and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function—is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.

Act Not the Tyrant

The elements of good family government are strength, justice, discrimination, uniformity, and love. Act not the tyrant, yet be master or mistress of your own house. In your superior years, place, experience, and vigour, God has given you all that is necessary for making your government strong. Let it be a government, and not mere counsel. But let its provisions and administration be just. A child can feel injustice as soon and as keenly as a man. Impose no impossible tasks. Take into account all the weaknesses of childhood. In governing your children, make a difference, not from partiality, but from a proper estimate of their various capacities, years, dispositions, and temptations. The varieties of character even in the same family are often surprising. Yet be uniform. Be not lax to-day and rigid tomorrow. Have settled principles, and let your children know them. Yet beware of making too many laws; they will not only ensnare your children, but destroy your government. Children may be governed too much. Do not expect perfection. In all you do, be guided by enlightened and pure affection. Never chide nor correct in passion. If you cannot rule your own spirit, you may break the spirit of your child, but you cannot establish a wholesome government over him …. With reproof God has united the rod: when it is necessary, use it. It commonly is necessary in cases of wilful and deliberate disobedience … Never use the rod to gratify a feeling of anger, nor without being sure that it is deserved …. Family government is always a failure when it does not secure prompt obedience and sincere affection from the child to the parent …. Parents should be agreed in the government of their children. If they do not support each other’s authority, it must fall.

Consider What Your Children Are Capable Of

Consider what your children are now capable of, even in the days of their childhood. They are capable of receiving impressions now which may abide upon them while they live; they are turned as clay to the seal, and now is the time to apply to them the seal of the living God. They are capable of honoring God now, if they be well taught; and by their joining, as they can, in religious services with so much reverence and application as their age will admit, God is honored, and you in them present to him living sacrifices, holy and acceptable. The Hosannas even of children well taught will be the perfection of praise, and highly pleasing to the Lord Jesus. Consider what your children are designed for, we hope, in this world; they must be a seed to serve the Lord, which shall be accounted to him for a generation. They are to bear up the name of Christ in their day, and into their hands must be transmitted that good thing which is committed to us. They are to be praising God on earth when we are praising him in heaven. Let them then be brought up accordingly, that they may answer the end of their birth and being. They are designed for the service of their generation, and to do good in their day. Consider especially what they are designed for in another world: they are made for eternity. Every child you have has a precious and immortal soul that must be for ever either in heaven or hell, according as it is prepared in this present state; and, perhaps, it must remove to that world of spirits very shortly: and will it not be very mournful, if, through your carelessness and neglect, your children should learn the ways of sin, and perish eternally in those ways? Give them warning, that, if possible, you may deliver their souls; at least that you may deliver your own, and may not bring their curse and God’s too, their blood and your own too, upon your heads.

Big-Souled, Large-Hearted Men or Women

Christian children mainly need to be taught the doctrine, precept, and life of the gospel: they require to have Divine truth put before them clearly and forcibly. Why should the higher doctrines, the doctrines of grace, be kept back from them? … If there be any doctrine too difficult for a child, it is rather the fault of the teacher’s conception of it than of the child’s power to receive it, provided that child be really converted to God. It is ours to make doctrine simple; this is to be a main part of our work. Teach the little ones the whole truth and nothing but the truth; for instruction is the great want of the child’s nature … Children in grace have to grow, rising to greater capacity in knowing, being, doing, and feeling, and to greater power from God; therefore above all things they must be fed. They must be well fed or instructed, because they are in danger of having their cravings perversely satisfied with error. Youth is susceptible to evil doctrine. Whether we teach young Christians truth or not, the devil will be sure to teach them error. They will hear of it somehow, even if they are watched by the most careful guardians. The only way to keep chaff out of the child’s little measure is to fill it brimful with good wheat … Blessed is he who can so speak as to be understood by a child! Blessed is that godly woman who … so adapts herself to girlish modes of thought that the truth from her heart streams into the children’s hearts without let or hindrance .… Take a child-convert and teach him well, and as early piety often becomes eminent piety, and that eminent piety may have a stretch of years before it in which God may be glorified and others may be blessed, such work is profitable in a high degree. It is also most beneficial work to ourselves. It exercises our humility and helps to keep us lowly and meek. It also trains our patience; let those who doubt this try it … If you want big-souled, large-hearted men or women, look for them among those who are much engaged among the young, bearing with their follies, and sympathising with their weaknesses for Jesus’ sake.

Youth Is Wild, and Requires Many Governors

Hear this, ye fathers, bring your children up with great care ‘in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.’ (Eph. 6:4.) Youth is wild, and requires many governors, teachers, directors, attendants, and tutors; and after all these, it is a happiness if it be restrained. For as a horse not broken in, or a wild beast untamed, such is youth. But if from the beginning, from the earliest age, we fix it in good rules, much pains will not be required afterwards; for good habits formed will be to them as a law.