In this episode we talk about why it’s important to teach the Old Testament to children with Dr. Kaz Hayashi, who is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Bethel Seminary (St. Paul, MN) and Shelley Henning, who is the Co-founder and CEO of GrowFamily, which provides family resources for parents and church leaders, the Children’s Ministry Catalyst for the Reformed Church in America, and one of our recent graduates at Bethel Seminary in our Children’s...
Alt txt: Image of our guest, Vinh Nguyen, and one of our hosts: Dr. John Anthony Dunne. In this episode we are joined by Vinh Nguyen to talk about parenting children with Down syndrome. Vinh is a PhD student at McMaster Divinity College, and has served as a pastor in different capacities for over ten years. He is married with three children, one of whom is his daughter, Alli, who has Down syndrome. At the...
The Huffington Post recently published an article thanking the parents of young children for bringing their kids to church because of all that it teaches us about being part of the Body of Christ. I couldn’t agree more. Specifically, I think of all the things the children in our church have taught me about the Eucharist. When you take the Eucharist surrounded by children, you experience theological truths in the flesh. You see them brought...
Allow me to introduce myself. First and foremost, I’m a sinner saved by grace. I’m a husband and a father. I’ve been a youth leader, Sunday school teacher, deacon and elder. I served in the Air Force for thirty years. I was a three-sport letterman in high school, played college football, and played seven years of football overseas while in the Air Force. I like sports, action movies, being in control, and I would never...
My name is Donna, and I’d like to tell you about my son. Bryan is my second child, coming four years after his big brother, Jayson, and on his dad’s 31st birthday. He didn’t have a swollen and scrunched up face like some newborns, but was beautiful from the very beginning. His paternal grandfather was from Mexico and his maternal grandmother was from Ireland, and he has the features and temperaments of both cultures. As...
It’s Friday, 11:20 a.m. and I am so frustrated with my little charge, Giuliana. I just picked her up from school and we are driving back to the house when she asks me what we’re going to do when we get home. I tell her that she can play while I finish up a few chores. “Can I watch TV?” she inquires immediately, and I say no. Because too much TV isn’t good for her....
There has seeped into the church culture a “new normal” with regard to children “growing up Christian.” I say “new normal” because I can only imagine it has not been this way in past generations of believers. Nothing in Scripture seems to support the idea that children growing up in a Christian home will “graduate from God when the graduate from high school” and return after they are married with children of their own. That...
In a recent staff meeting, the children’s ministries director told us that a family was “leaving our church for another place where their children could connect.” The presenting complaint was that the pre-teen and teenaged children could not understand the Sunday sermons. Therefore, they had a find a church where the preaching on Sunday suited their teen children. Being the elder who does the majority of preaching, I’ll leave the quality of my sermons and...
It’s time to make a significant difference in our homes; specifically with regard to the spiritual formation of our children. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, my wife and I are becoming expert empty-nesters. I believe we have a way to go before hitting the “veteran” level. But right now, we have adjusted to the quiet and the freedom. Our daughters have been on their own for a number of years. One is married...
I don’t actually have a problem with Santa Claus. In fact, I enjoy the general holiday cheer, even if it isn’t specifically Christian. I’m fine with songs like ‘Santa Claus is Coming To Town,’ ‘Frosty the Snow Man,’ ‘Silver Bells,’ etc… Its all good fun. But of course, I appreciate the Christmas songs that contain robust theology even more. Taken as a whole, I simply enjoy anything that is associated with the month of December...
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