How we train our children can have an effect for the next four generations. We must ask ourselves, are we training our children to love their church, to love its people, to love the Word, and to communicate what they know. If they don't then there is no way that they are going to be able to communicate it to their families.If our children learn these things while they are young they will be a step ahead of our generation who has grown up not really understanding our place in the church and how it should effect every part of our lives.
I have often thought and prayed for my daughters adult life but have not really thought about it in relation to the church. Is there going to be another generation of my family involved in the life of our church? In a very real way we are all training the church body of the future. Will they understand the Means of Grace? That God actually feeds us spiritually through the preaching of the Word and the Sacraments. I look forward to the day when our grandchildren are excited to come to church, even on Sunday nights because they are hungry to be fed.
QUESTION: Where is the church told to look for its leaders?
ANSWER: The church is instructed to look for its leaders in the first institution, the family.
1 Peter 5:1-3 1So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: 2 shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; 3 not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.
We may or may not be raising our children to be pastors but we are training boys and girls to be men and women who fear the Lord and lead their families to do the same.
