Pure Church

The more I think about the cultural questions surrounding Christmas the proper/improper celebrations and traditions of Christmas and their impact upon children, the clearer it is to me that the Christmas season becomes this intense time of parental shepherding. So much is happening with such volume that if ever parents were to be on their post, alert, watchful, theological, experiential, visionary, discerning, and able to teach it's definitely during Christmas. We must shepherd the hearts of our children all year long, but especially during Christmas.

So, I want to plug the audio and video from the Shepherding a Child's Heart conference with Dr. Tedd Tripp held out at Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Here's a listing of the sessions:

Session 1: The Call to Formative Instruction
Session 2: Giving Kids a Vision for God's Glory
Session 3: Helping Kids Understand Authority
Session 4: Helping Kids Understand the Heart
Session 5: Overview of Corrective Discipline

We use the video of Shepherding a Child's Heart in our parenting Sunday school class to good spiritual effect in the lives of folks who participate. We can't parent in as God-honoring, Christ-loving, and eternally-focused a way as we might otherwise if we don't think about parenting and apply biblical wisdom. That's an obvious point, but it's so often lost on me. Here's praying all of those tasked with raising a godly offspring for the Lord (Mal. 2:15) would think biblically, prayerfully, carefully, and joyfully about aiming the arrows in our quivers.