Authority

October 12, 2016 by Michelle Leave a Comment

Teaching My Children to Pray for our Leaders

Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. 1 Timothy 2:1-2

Sometimes crises motivate us to take action that we’ve been neglecting.

In my case, talking and writing about praying for our leaders showed me that if I want to do more than a quick “God bless the leaders and help them to be nice to me,” I needed to gather more information. First, I needed to learn who my leaders WERE.

How can I find the names of our legislators?

In the USA, once you learn your legislators’ names, you can look up their individual websites for information. Here is a place to start.

This is where I entered my address to find all our legislators in Virginia. It returned a list with links to their official pages.

I also found this Virginia resource. There is a lot of information specific to Virginia, but the links page is excellent and has many educational resources applicable for any state in the US.

What information did I want?

After I wrote all their names on a document, I found and copied their official website address under each name.

I also copied the birthdays of each leader onto a document when I found it. I’d like to send a birthday letter from me and our children and let them know that we are praying for them especially on that day. Some people didn’t have any personal information on their official webpages; so I looked up their wikipedia pages.

I found their biographies, and looked for information I could paste into my document that would help me and my children have something to talk about (e.g., interests or professional background; policies they are passionate about. Even if I disagree with a politician’s approach to solving a problem, I’m guessing that we may be quite compatible on recognizing that a problem exists.)

I signed up for email updates from each individual office. It doesn’t matter if I agree with my legislator’s positions. If I’m going to pray, knowing what they’re passionate about or trying to accomplish will help me pray better.

Some of the websites have forms where we can schedule an appointment to meet our legislators. Again, if we can put a face to the person we are praying for, I think it would be helpful.

I’m going to print out my page and laminate it. Since I want it printed out, I should put a picture on my document next to each name also. Maybe I’ll make it look beautiful. In any case, I’d like to have it on hand so we can pray regularly for the people God has placed in our lives.

I didn’t look up city government, although perhaps that will be the next thing to research. I also haven’t yet compiled this information for our president and the presidential candidates, but I will.

How are you praying for your rulers and authorities in your lives? How are you helping your children do so? Praying for these people will remind our children where we place our trust and hope. It’s one thing to say that we are trusting God, it’s another thing to actually do it!

January 22, 2016 by Michelle 1 Comment

Disagreeing with Other Christian Parents

Read the Thought Experiment first, if you haven’t already!

I’ve been thinking about Romans 14 this week. It’s easy to miss concrete specific instruction while we wrestle with the big picture. (I’ve heard many discussions over the years about who actually is the weaker brother, and what differences we can apply to this passage. These are important discussions, but not the one I’m having now.)

Today I want to think about the small instructions in this passage, without worrying about whether I’m the weaker brother or the stronger brother. I think Paul gives us some baseline instructions even while we sort out the big questions. (Is this a sin issue; should I confront or warn my sister; etc.)

Welcome each other. (don’t avoid each other, don’t quarrel)
Do not despise your brother. (v. 3)
Do not pass judgment. (Not passing judgment has to do with acknowledging that God is the ultimate authority. It doesn’t mean “don’t disagree with” a brother or sister.) (v. 3-4)
Be fully convinced. Have strong opinions! ( v. 5)
Act intentionally for God’s glory. Think about why we do what we do, and how our actions affect others. v. 6-9
I do not have to confront every problem (or sin) I see in my brother! (v. 10-12)
Know your culture and what your actions communicate to your brothers and sisters in Christ.
Your relationships should be characterized by diversity, righteousness, peace, joy, and edification (“mutual upbuilding”).

As Christians, we deliberately welcome people who think differently. We need not be afraid of holding our opinions with confidence, so long as we are humbly seeking to love God and our Christian brothers and sisters biblically. (This passage isn’t talking about how unsaved people are reacting to my choices.) We pursue peace, but we also know why we do what we do, and are especially wanting to connect God’s Word with our actions (biblical wisdom!). We don’t have to apologize or be embarrassed if our choices are different than our neighbors. We can disagree without passing judgment. We shouldn’t be suspicious that others are judging us, just because they think we’re wrong!

It also means that I can pursue Christian friendships without feeling the need to “confront” or discuss our differences all the time. We’re not “overlooking sin” when we don’t confront everything in our sister’s life that we find a problem. On the other hand, discussing differences is great fun when we love and respect each other’s desire to please God and neighbor. I grow when I hear about why you are making the choices you are making. We need to develop a Christian cultural norm that is not suspicious of diversity.

I like how Eugene Peterson says, “So tend to your knitting. You’ve got your hands full just taking care of your own life before God.“

November 20, 2015 by Michelle 2 Comments

Nurturing Leadership

As my boy grows older, I’ve been watching him with an eye to developing his ability to lead (a family, in particular, but also in other areas of life as well). I’m encouraging my daughters in leadership as well, but with a different emphasis (They may not lead a family, but they will certainly have opportunities to exercise leadership as adults.) I want all of my children to be bold for Christ: to act with grace and truth even if nobody else is choosing right.

What does it look like to have a child learning how to lead?

Bossy. Trying to lead in everything, down to the smallest detail. Siblings don’t typically appreciate this approach, and we end up with some significant conflict!
Confusing the need to confront a brother, with correcting every time my brother sins. (I struggle with this problem as well: knowing what to overlook. I’ve also had some significant discussions from siblings who don’t understand why I’m overlooking a sin of another sibling.)
Misunderstanding the limits of authority. Do we have the authority to correct our brothers?
Misunderstanding the nature of leadership. One conversation with my daughter after a group activity with several families: My daughter commented that one new child had a “leader personality.” When I asked what she meant, she said, “She likes to tell people what to do. She likes to plan how people play.” Then she commented that she wasn’t a leader, because she doesn’t like to tell people what to do. This observation led to a short discussion on leadership styles. Not every leader likes to “tell people what to do.”
Laziness: Telling siblings or friends what to do so they can take it easy.
Always needing to choose the activity. Having difficulty following another leader.
Over teaching. Making every question for help into a lengthy lecture.

Many of these behaviors reflect a misunderstanding of one’s responsibility to one’s neighbor. Some are simply immature efforts to do good. Others a sinful manifestations of a desire to lead that need to be corrected.

My tendency is to stop all of these behaviors instead of encouraging and redirecting them. I want to acknowledge the many times that the motives of my children are to do good, even if they’re ineffective or counterproductive! I’ve been deliberately identifying some of these behaviors with leadership terminology: authority, leadership, delegating, following, and so on.

I also want to think about behaviors that are annoying to me (and need correction) with an eye of grace. We learn to lead by trying and failing and trying and succeeding. Sometimes I just need to overlook the awkwardness of learning a new skill. I’m learning the skill of cultivating leaders. I learn by trying and failing and trying and succeeding. I’m praying for grace as I work to this end.

till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; ¹⁴that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, ¹⁵but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— ¹⁶from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. Ephesians 4:13-16

I also love this picture of an immature Joshua coming to tattle on someone, and Moses’ response:

But two men had remained in the camp: the name of one was Eldad, and the name of the other Medad. And the Spirit rested upon them. Now they were among those listed, but who had not gone out to the tabernacle; yet they prophesied in the camp. ²⁷And a young man ran and told Moses, and said, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”

²⁸So Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, one of his choice men, answered and said, “Moses my lord, forbid them!”

²⁹Then Moses said to him, “Are you zealous for my sake? Oh, that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!” ³⁰And Moses returned to the camp, he and the elders of Israel. Numbers 11:26-30

One more, interesting that at times, Paul recognized that he was at unable to convince someone of a particular opinion. He left it in God’s hands.

Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Philippians 3:15

March 15, 2006 by Lee Leave a Comment

“Because I Said So!”

David (33 months) has started asking “why?” when I ask him to do something. Now, I am very sensitive to the need of children to understand why. I grew up in a home where why questions were not seen as rebellious, and I fully appreciate the rarity of this atmosphere in an independent fundamentalist family.

At the same time, David has not fully grasped that he is not in charge of our family. He still informs me that he is going to pray for breakfast. He answers “I don’t want to” when asked to do something unpleasant, and believes this is a valid response that should always be honored.

So, we have been having authority discussions: We all obey God. Daddy answers to God for our family; mommy answers to Daddy; David and Bethel answer to Mommy when Daddy is gone, and Daddy when he is home.

I’ve already considered that I should wait for him to obey before telling him why, but I believe he needs to get the authority structure down first. Thus, I don’t mind saying, “Because I said so”
to his query. But last week, when he asked this question, I surprised myself when I answered, “Because God tells you to obey your parents.” This statement establishes another authority structure. I like it. Maybe it’s better than “I told you so.” I’ll have to think about that.