As an Eldership & Pastoral Team we fast and pray in the month of September seeking God for His purposes for the next year. As we sought the Lord we felt God put on our hearts “Kingdom Parenting”.
“Kingdom Parenting” is not restricted to the idea of raising your own physical children – parenting is raising the people whom God has put around us to be all that He has called them to be. Paul refers to Timothy as “my true son in the faith” (1 Timothy 1:2), there is no blood relationship – but Paul was truly a father to him.
The parenting we are focusing on is best shown through the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the greatest parent that this world has ever seen, yet he had NO physical children of His own. Yet, as a parent, the disciples (children) he raised changed the world as we know it. Jesus did not surround Himself with scholars and the highly educated to create the ultimate executive team that would one day lead the future church. NO! Jesus raised disciples of all walks of life and taught and showed them what it meant to know and love (have relationship) God the Father, Jesus the Son, and eventually the Holy Spirit. This was the foundation to the disciples’ lives whose example and ways shaped the entire world.
Parenting has much to do with life skill, but in Jesus’ life, His main focus was raising mature sons (huios), engaging the things that would last for eternity (prayer, fruit of the Spirit, good works, serving the poor, etc.).
There is a popular saying that the Lord impressed on Andrew’s heart that I felt was for the Lifespring family:
“Feed a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime”
became
“Feed a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he feeds his family for generations to come”
In order to teach a man to fish, one must be willing to actually feed a man first. I believe God tested us in 2022. Would we feed others? Through the water wells, through the food bank, through Ukraine – we gave out more than $115,000 above and beyond our regular giving to Mission Organizations and Missionaries. I believe we have been found faithful to “Feed a man a fish and he eats for a day”, but God is challenging us to now, “teach a man to fish and he feeds his family for generations to come”.
As a leadership team we will fast & pray for 2023 (in January 2023). Would you be willing to join us? We will fast and pray to enter 2023 asking God for His will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. We will desperately seek and ask God for His purposes to succeed in our personal lives and this church family. Success in the wrong area is failure. A fast is a gift to the king, give what is worthy of the King!
The focus of this year’s fast will be to make a maximum effort to memorize the main memory verse for the year:
Deuteronomy 6:5-9
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Let us start off the year right and write His words in our hearts.