Cookie Cutters

Tis the season for baking. I love when my friends whip up pumpkin pies, peanut brittle, and chocolate covered anything. Even kids love to help bake holiday goodies. A favorite is the sugar cookie. Not only are they easy to make and tasty to eat, they can be fun to decorate. At Christmas time there’s a host of shapes such as, reindeer, snowmen, angels, and Christmas trees to make decorating fun. The colorful icing makes each cookie stand apart from the rest, but you know underneath, it’s still a yummy sugar cookie! I love using cookie cutters because you can pop out dozens of uniformly shaped reindeer in only a few minutes! If only raising kids were that easy! But the truth is, you can’t raise kids as easily as you can cut cookies!

We are all born with different and unique personalities. Unlike cookie cutter sugar cookies, people are all different underneath the icing. God created us each uniquely to accomplish the array of works he created for us to do. It stands to follow that not everyone, including our kids, will enjoy everything we enjoy, exactly the same way we enjoy it. That includes the way we worship God and grow in our faith.

Last week Nick gave us an awesome reminder that kids will mimic what they see parents modelling.  (See his blog, Supermodels). Even though the focus of his blog was on generosity, his overarching point was that kids watch everything we do. You, the Pastoring Parent, know that. That’s why many of you make church attendance a priority. You talk about Jesus when you get up in the morning, when you go to bed at night, when you sit at the table, and when you walk along the road. But sometimes, no matter how well you model religious disciplines, you find your kids do not display a happy heart nor do they joyfully attend church with you each week. In fact, some weeks the ride to church is so miserable you wonder if it’s worth the effort. So what do you do with the child who does not share your desire to attend church activities no matter how you try to convince them they need to go…. with a happy heart? Do you force them? Well yes, and no. (Like kids, there are no cookie cutter answers!)

When kids are young, they need the guidance and the consistency of seeing your values lived out. Bringing them to church each week sets a standard and an expectation that God is important and has priority in your life. But as your kids get older, they begin to become independent. It’s part of growing up. You could force them to attend church with you each week as long as they live under your roof but once they move out, you might just see them skip church all together in silent rebellion to the years of “forced” attendance. The role that God gave you is to pastor your kids and lead them into a lifelong relationship with Him, not to force your kids into religious practices that do not lead them to Christ. So if you have a child who doesn’t like to attend mid-week bible studies, or sing in corporate worship, etc.. don’t despair, just change your focus!

I recently read an article about a pastor’s wife whose son was not a fan of corporate church. As the church body sang each week, the young boy would stand next to her with that face that told everyone he was not happy to be there. He put up such a fuss about going to the midweek program that the tension created havoc with the whole family. Because her husband was one of the pastor’s, they had an expectation that their child would be involved in everything and with a good attitude. Unfortunately, the son saw things differently. Instead of being embarrassed by his behavior, these parents took a step back, assessed his personality, and discovered he wasn’t being obstinate on purpose, he was wired an introvert. Though they insisted he continue to join them in church services each Sunday, they did change their expectations for participating in other church activities.

One, they gave him a choice between attending the midweek program or doing a home bible study with mom one on one. He chose the one on one. While the siblings were dropped off at church for Awana, he stayed home and they picked a book or a study to do together. Notice that he wasn’t given permission to sit at home and play video games. His choice was limited to how he wanted to pursue his relationship with Christ. Another change was instead of forcing their son to participate in the annual kids Christmas play (which dad was in charge of) they let him pick a serve project. He chose to serve food at a homeless shelter. As parents, they were called to guide their son’s love for Christ. Giving him some say in what that looked like made him engage and take responsibility for his personal growth. A trait, I dare say, will serve him well as he matures into a young adult.

So, find out what makes your child tick. Remember, God created us all uniquely, not with an Adam and Eve cookie cutter set. We are not all the same on the inside. That’s what makes us each wonderfully made. So encourage your child to grow in his faith according to his unique make-up.

Now, to answer my earlier question, Yes, we should bring our kids to church each week to corporately worship with the body of believers. However, if your child begins to become resistant to church and is no longer growing in his faith, don’t freak out! Hope is not lost; just calmly reassess the situation.

First, find out if there is a reason your child doesn’t want to attend. Is there a person who they don’t get along with or a situation that creates anxiety? People drama happens everywhere. If it’s one particular person, help your child to reconcile with that person. If your child is an introvert, he probably won’t be too excited about the awkward social time while 50 kids are milling about waiting for church to start or while waiting for their parents to be done with church. Talk to your child about what is creating anxiety and then help him determine appropriate options.

Next, determine if the activities you want your child to engage in help grow his faith, or are you trying to force a round peg into a square hole? My son really disliked loud music when he was young, so worship time at church did absolutely nothing for him. We made a deal, he could sit out in the lobby until the music ended, but then he needed to get into service. On the other hand, we have parents who know their kids love to sing so they take them into Big Church to encourage their love of music before bringing them back to join the rest of the class for Bible time.

Remember, Pastoring Parent, we are tasked with leading our kids into a life-long relationship with Christ. To do that, we have to model our desire to grow our faith and do the will of Christ. We also need to put down the worry of producing cookie cutter kids who look and act like everyone else, and begin to attend to the unique inward needs of our children.

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10

Praying for you this week!

Serving Him,

Dawn Kuhl

dawnk@fbclovis.com