Course 1:
To train parents and grandparents to recognize their challenging callings as ministers in their own family.
Sessions
This session probes how important the ministries of parents and grandparents is to our society and to our churches. It wonders why there is not more emphasis on this. It reveals how family leaders no longer have the influence they once had on their children and that this has left young people much more vulnerable to evildoers.
This session reveals the competition parents and grandparents have. Other people are targeting their offspring just as wolves target their prey. Some of the wolves are revealed here to help us see the varied dangers they put young people in. Family leaders must take seriously the threat this poses for their loved ones.
To discover the necessary wise skills God has provided so their offspring can be equipped to avoid being entrapped, addicted and/or harmed or broken down.
- Recognizing how important we parents and grandparents are in meeting the many needs a child has in getting through all that child’s growing up years.
- To ask ourselves to courageously confront the challenges both we and our offspring face as we live in this world.
- To point out what we have discovered in God’s word that helps us deal with life’s realities and pass that on to our offspring.
As with the first generations of the Christian church, it takes time to grasp the full potential of what a congregation has within it. The important role of what lay members are about can easily get lost. Therefore the letter to the Ephesians sheds new light on two things. First, the job of church leaders to train the lay people for their important but often overlooked ministries in the home and in the workplace. Secondly, by intentionally equipping these lay people for their specific assignments from God, the congregation will find itself having a stronger team and good work being carried out even leading to the next generation.
- To clarify Biblical teachings on what God wants a parent and grandparent to be about.
- To identify Bible passages which spell this out.
- To help family leaders see the importance of what they are or could be doing as instruments of impacting future generations.
The core of what happens in the lives of children and the life of a congregation is based on what is going on between husbands and wives. Therefore this lesson seeks to define in a more pronounced Christian way what is involved in healthy marriage relationships.
We need Christian fathers to realize how important they are, what they provide and what their challenges are. It is vital that this often overlooked emphasis on the leadership God has them give needs to be addressed and discussed. Fathers make a big difference, positive or negative.
The role of a Christian mother for her family is often taken for granted or underestimated. This sessions seeks to bring truth to bear on what a mother’s value for her family actually is. God has given us mothers for a reason.
This session asserts that children have a ministry of their own. What is involved when it is commanded that children are to obey and honor their parent(s). When they come to see how the Gospel and God’s promise is connected to that. Also, what they bring to a family.
What God expects of grandparents is often overlooked or minimized. This session seeks to declare what it is grandparents are to provide in passing on the faith, in being there for their grandchildren and in so doing impact future generations.
In this session we recognize three truths. Our children and grandchildren are really valuable 1. To us, 2. To Jesus and 3. Though taxing and challenging, whatever we can pass on and do with our offspring becomes what God in love wants to bring to them through us.