BEING PLANTED IN THE LOCAL CHURCH
When somebody says to us, “You did such a great job with your girls,” or “Your girls are so amazing,” everything inside my head goes back to every single mistake that we made. But the best thing that we ever did was planting our family into the local church. There is nothing more powerful than to make your family, a part of God’s family. When you do that, then there’s strength built. Not just in your home, but around your home too.
RAISING CHILDREN IN CHURCH
One thing that I loved about raising our girls in church was that the church agreed with the things we said, because they came from God’s Word. The things that they were learning at church in their Sunday school classes, we agreed with. And our children weren’t always perfect even though I like to tell everybody that they were, but honestly, they had some behaviors at different times. So when their Sunday school teacher would say, “Can you come help with this?” Or “Did you know that this was going on?” We got to join in with them and become a team.
A few weeks ago, my husband and I talked about the heated discussions that can happen on the way to church. Well, our children were not buffered from that, they were in the backseat. So they got to see all of that. But what they also saw was us apologizing to them and asking God for forgiveness before we ever walked into church. They saw that our relationship with God was more important than putting on a front in front of people. So they got to see everything, and it didn’t happen all the time. But because we were consistent in being planted in the local church, that’s more of what they remembered than the other times that we had a difficult time getting to the local church.
We agreed with the lessons taught at church. I remember, when Samantha said, “We learned that church is our Father’s House and if we see trash, we need to pick up at church.” It was months and months, of not being able to leave the church without her running all over the place picking up all the trash. But we didn’t say, “Come on Samantha, get in the car, we gotta go.” Instead we said, “Wow, you got it. Good job!” Even though we were thinking, “We’ve got to get out. We had other things to do. But we wanted to encourage her to do what her teachers told her to do. In the end, she respected our Father’s House.
DAILY DEVOTION
They got to see that what they heard from church, they also got to see in our home. I’m an early riser. So they woke up to me saying prayers and talking to God out loud. When they were a little bit older, they both wanted to come in and “shuggle” we called it, in my lap while I read God’s Word out loud to them. That was important. So when they went to church, and they heard that it was important to have devoted time to God, then they were already seeing that modeled from our home.
TEACHING THEM GRACE
Learning about grace was so important for our children so that they could walk in grace when they made mistakes. Samantha would have consequences that lasted sometimes days. And Chris would pick her up and put her in his lap. And he would say, “Samantha, I want you to know what God’s grace is and I want you to feel what that feels like.” And he would take away the remainder of her consequence so that she would understand what grace felt like from her daddy, so that when she needed grace from her Heavenly Father that she was going to be able to go to Him and ask Him for that. They’d pray for joy after he released the rest of her consequences.
THE HOUSE OF GOD
Tabby is our oldest child and Tabitha is our child with Down’s Syndrome. And she went to a special room and it was called Jordan’s room. At Jordans room, she got to learn the same lessons that the rest of the kids were learning in children’s church only it was at a slower pace or in a modified way. So instead of just putting her there and leaving and doing our own thing, we were on a rotating schedule to volunteer in that room. We wanted her to know that we wanted to be there too. So we got to know all of her friends and they got to know us. So why is that important? Why is it important that we’re volunteering in their Sunday school classrooms, or that we allow them to pick up trash for 15 minutes on the parking lot? It’s showing them that the House of God is important. And being planted in the house of God is being planted into an extended family, past our own family, and around the people of God. We wanted them to have a community. So that was important to them in their minds. And then when they became born again, believers, then that became not just important to their hearts, but it’s a place that they ran to, that they longed to be at was in the House of God.
When the kids were little, we went to church on Sunday morning, Sunday night, Monday night, Living Free Wednesday night church and anytime that there was an outreach. So all the different outreached that we served at, our children served alongside us. They never got pushed to the side. Sometimes they were asleep and we were breaking down the tables and putting things up after Living Free, but they were raised falling asleep in the House of God and not at a babysitters while we were serving. They were right alongside us. And we had even taken a break from Living Free for a year whenever they were young. And we thought we’d try a different ministry in the church. We loved it, but our hearts were in Living Free. So we went back, and it was going to be another added night. When we went back, we asked the girls, “How’d you like it? Was it good?”And Sam said, “Oh, so good. Can we start coming again?” That was her answer to us that she loved being there. Tabby missed it when we had taken that break. So they were used to being planted in the House of God.
BEING PLANTED
When I talk about all of these things, it’s almost like “Well, yeah, that’s easy for you, Deb.” All that people have ever known around here me to be is a Christian woman, raising my kids in a Christian home, married to a Godly man. But we were not that way at one time. It’s why we love and minister to families that are overcoming addiction. If a child is always used to destruction, difficulty, and unsafe environments, and they get planted into a place that edifies their soul, even though they don’t quite understand all of it, they feel it. When it’s their time for God to call their name, which he will one day, then they’re able to hear that because they’re in a safe place and the static has been removed that was keeping them from hearing His voice.
Many times we hear families, we say “Hey, we haven’t seen you in church while.” “I know my kids going through this thing… and, I’m not gonna put the teachers through it at church. And so we’re just keeping them at home.” My answer to that is go in the classroom with your child and bring that child into the House of God. Take them down when there’s prayer for the sick, because it’s not just praying for the sick it’s praying for any kind of difficulty. We took our children down to the front and had them prayed over more times than I can count for behaviors alone. And for when they got sick too, but definitely for behaviors because we wanted them to know that this is where you run when you’re having a hard time.
When our families come to us. They literally have no good support. Typically, they have no good support. So when they are planted in the local church, their roots grow deep. They’re in a life group. They’re involved in Living Free, they’re serving in all of those areas, they’re making relationships. So they’re planted and rooted down. They’re established in the Lord, but also in the safe environment of the church. So when the storms come, not if, but when those storms come, then they’re not feeling unstable and wanting to go back to something to help them ease their pain or takeaway their fears. They’re going to turn to relationships that are safe in the House of God. They’re going to take good advice from the pulpit when the Holy Spirit looks right at them during a service and that’s the safety of being planted in the local church.