When I was home for Christmas my sister and I and two of our close friends drove down to Redding, CA to go to Bethel Church to hear Bill Johnson preach; a man that I just fully love and admire. I listen weekly to their podcasts and have grown so much in the last year because of it. Everything they teach is new and revelatory. Danny Silk is the Family Life pastor at Bethel and recently wrote the book Loving Our Kids on Purpose. I read it in maybe 2 days. Not only has it completely changed how we parent our children, but it took me on a road of discovering the true heart of God towards His children. If "every family in heaven and on earth derives its name from the Father" then I need to have the right understanding of how God fathers. And up until this point, I didn't. I thought I did, but really in my heart, I had no idea. Danny teaches that the Kingdom of Heaven is not an external government. That Jesus didn't come to sit on throne and establish an external government. He came to usher us into a right relationship with an internal God who loves us, who is not freaked out by our mistakes, and who has a solution that really works. When we train our children to obey by presenting an external threat, we handicap their understanding of how the Kingdom of Heaven works.
I want the bottom line of my parenting to always be a heart-connection. I want my children to see Jesus in me, not a warped view of how God relates to them and loves them. I want to empower them, like the Holy Spirit does, to make good choices, and to love them through the inevitable wrong ones. I want to love like Jesus. If you're looking to be empowered as a parent, and to see God in a new perspective, I highly recommend this book. And really all things "Bethel" :)
Danny does a beautiful job at "introducing paradigms, perceptions, skills and ideas that will help parents reduce fear by eliminating the tool of punishment and strengthening the hearts of their children to fulfill their destiny."
"One of the primary ways that we show honor to one another is by sharing power and control in our relationships. When we help our children practice using power from the time they are little, they become powerful people who are not afraid of the forces outside them. They learn to think and solve problems. They learn to draw from the power within them, the power of the Holy Spirit, to direct their lives toward their goals in life. They become skilled at wielding decisions." Pg. 65, 'Letting our kids fail'.
3 comments:
Whoa, Judes! I just got off the phone with my sister-in-law and we had this exact conversation! I had no idea there was a book about it--thanks for the insight.
On another note, do you create your own banner and backdrop? Or is it available through your blog service? Just curious ...
I have been wondering what to read next. This might be just it. Many thanks for sharing your thoughts on this book. I had seen it on your shelf but had never heard of it. Very cool.
Finished the book in 3 days. Sent another copy to a good friend to go through it with me...only I already finished it and she hasn't gotten my package yet :-) Thank you.
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