My advice to you, Dear Daughter, is to choose a family ministry when your children are very small and work, serving the Lord together, at this ministry throughout their childhoods.
Ask the Lord's help in determining where He wants you to serve and bear in mind advice from those who know you about what your gifts and callings are. Then, commit the work to the Lord and follow.
You may have a heart for the homeless and make it your family's mission to provide for them. Maybe you and your husband love to work with children? Perhaps your family ministry is to run children's outreach events together.
It's important to pick something in which your children can be included. Often, churches call parents to important evening meetings, which involve leaving children behind with baby-sitters. This never seemed right to me. Such work can never be as important as your primary ministry - to your children. Families don't need to separate in order to serve God. In fact, when they work together as a team, they demonstrate God's faithfulness to them, as a family, in a unique way.
We chose music, since my husband was a musician and I had been, long ago, a singer. We invested in music for the children, paying for lessons, giving thought and time to their musical development, encouraging a love of musical worship, going to worship music training events and conferences together as a family, eventually serving together on Sunday mornings and at outreach concerts in the evening in our own band, Life-Songs.
Of course, there will be times when the children resist a little; perhaps your teens will need to express themselves in some other way, outside the family ministry. That's okay. The skills and compassion you have helped them develop will be used by God elsewhere.
Ask the Lord's help in determining where He wants you to serve and bear in mind advice from those who know you about what your gifts and callings are. Then, commit the work to the Lord and follow.
You may have a heart for the homeless and make it your family's mission to provide for them. Maybe you and your husband love to work with children? Perhaps your family ministry is to run children's outreach events together.
It's important to pick something in which your children can be included. Often, churches call parents to important evening meetings, which involve leaving children behind with baby-sitters. This never seemed right to me. Such work can never be as important as your primary ministry - to your children. Families don't need to separate in order to serve God. In fact, when they work together as a team, they demonstrate God's faithfulness to them, as a family, in a unique way.
We chose music, since my husband was a musician and I had been, long ago, a singer. We invested in music for the children, paying for lessons, giving thought and time to their musical development, encouraging a love of musical worship, going to worship music training events and conferences together as a family, eventually serving together on Sunday mornings and at outreach concerts in the evening in our own band, Life-Songs.
Of course, there will be times when the children resist a little; perhaps your teens will need to express themselves in some other way, outside the family ministry. That's okay. The skills and compassion you have helped them develop will be used by God elsewhere.
It's starts like this.
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| Janna, my granddaughter, with her instruments, joining in a family music session. |
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| Team Stewart leading worship on a Sunday morning. |
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