During the First World War 3/4million children were left fatherless.
In my opinion; the church in the UK today now has an epidemic lack of relevant, passionate role models for young lads (and girls). This is one reason why there is such a huge gap in the 18-30 age range in the church. One of the characteristics of God is to be father. Father is a HUGE word. There is so much to it. The Psalms, and elsewhere refer to God as a "Father to the Fatherless." Not only must we come to terms with the ways in which we have been neglected by our fathers; in love - not bitterness, recognising in grace all the great things about our fathers and not being the first to throw the stone at them for their sins and weaknesses - there is no place for condemnation amongst us who are also weak in so many areas... but we must also use our life experience - pain and all - as part of our SHAPE (S.H.A.P.E - Spritual gifts. Heart. Abilities. Personality. Experiences) to create a new, fantastic, Post Modern... form of fathering - both to our own flesh and blood but also to all the orphans in our church and outside our church.
I had a weird experience when i was about 15 or 16. I was at a Bible week with my family. These bible weeks tended to do me a lot of good. Anyway, on the last night the youthwork venue finished and i wandered over to the adult venue where the 'party' was still going on. I found my family and to cut a story shorter, i ended up praying with my dad and one of my brothers. the other brother no longer went to church. As we prayed I had a disctinct feeling that God was my real father and that my dad was about to cut me loose. Well that was a prophetic feeling; a moment later my dad said he felt that God was now our real father and that in a way he was handing us over to him. We were all crying. I still don't understand that moment. I don't know if it was a good moment, a God moment or a bad moment.
What does POST MODERN fathering look like?
Well Modern fathering - in Christian terms - was about instructing your child... providing them with information - the gospel; forms of acceptable behaviour and so on. Understanding of scriptures such as "teach a child in the way he must go and he will not depart from it" was to do with prescriptive knowledge and teaching them patterns of belief and faith and action. Think of it as handing them a tablet of stone with rules and information about Christianity on it.
Post Modern models I would suggest, would be more like giving the child a blank tablet of stone and a chisel and asking them to write the rules and information themselves by observing you, your friends, and researching by reading and trying it out. Modern was about giving ANSWERS - Post Modern is about giving TOOLS...
In my opinion; the church in the UK today now has an epidemic lack of relevant, passionate role models for young lads (and girls). This is one reason why there is such a huge gap in the 18-30 age range in the church. One of the characteristics of God is to be father. Father is a HUGE word. There is so much to it. The Psalms, and elsewhere refer to God as a "Father to the Fatherless." Not only must we come to terms with the ways in which we have been neglected by our fathers; in love - not bitterness, recognising in grace all the great things about our fathers and not being the first to throw the stone at them for their sins and weaknesses - there is no place for condemnation amongst us who are also weak in so many areas... but we must also use our life experience - pain and all - as part of our SHAPE (S.H.A.P.E - Spritual gifts. Heart. Abilities. Personality. Experiences) to create a new, fantastic, Post Modern... form of fathering - both to our own flesh and blood but also to all the orphans in our church and outside our church.
I had a weird experience when i was about 15 or 16. I was at a Bible week with my family. These bible weeks tended to do me a lot of good. Anyway, on the last night the youthwork venue finished and i wandered over to the adult venue where the 'party' was still going on. I found my family and to cut a story shorter, i ended up praying with my dad and one of my brothers. the other brother no longer went to church. As we prayed I had a disctinct feeling that God was my real father and that my dad was about to cut me loose. Well that was a prophetic feeling; a moment later my dad said he felt that God was now our real father and that in a way he was handing us over to him. We were all crying. I still don't understand that moment. I don't know if it was a good moment, a God moment or a bad moment.
What does POST MODERN fathering look like?
Well Modern fathering - in Christian terms - was about instructing your child... providing them with information - the gospel; forms of acceptable behaviour and so on. Understanding of scriptures such as "teach a child in the way he must go and he will not depart from it" was to do with prescriptive knowledge and teaching them patterns of belief and faith and action. Think of it as handing them a tablet of stone with rules and information about Christianity on it.
Post Modern models I would suggest, would be more like giving the child a blank tablet of stone and a chisel and asking them to write the rules and information themselves by observing you, your friends, and researching by reading and trying it out. Modern was about giving ANSWERS - Post Modern is about giving TOOLS...
For me youthwork and Christian parenting is as much about passing on the stories as passing on the tools necessary to understand the stories themselves - if not more. The old adage that fits here is: Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; give him a net and he will feed his family for a lifetime. Is that not the way God brings us up? He gives us the tools to follow him and critique the world and grow in faith. I find he rarely tells me the answers but empowers me to discover them myself. He wants to go on the journey with me. Is that the kind of dad you had? Who would go on your spiritual journey with you? - Who would encourage you to develop skills to pursue God and maturity? - Who would help you process your feelings and direct you to the one who could help? What an awesome father that would be! And that is what we must be to those younger than us, so that there is not another gap in the church when the current teens get old enough to become disillutioned, leave and not look back.
Truth is, who knows what it feels like to be abandoned more than Jesus himself? Who, for three days was seperated from his only source of hope and encouragement, his only mentor and instructor. That is hell. So no wonder there is such a correlation between the health of our self-esteem and identity, the relationship we have with our earthly father, and the relationship we have with our heavenly father.
3 action points:
1. forgive your father.
2. Expand your capacity for understanding God by opening up your understanding of him as your very real father. This can if you accept it, lead to a healing in your relationship with your father.
3. Seek to be a father (or mother) to the fatherless - and healthily fathered - in the church. We are family.
Truth is, who knows what it feels like to be abandoned more than Jesus himself? Who, for three days was seperated from his only source of hope and encouragement, his only mentor and instructor. That is hell. So no wonder there is such a correlation between the health of our self-esteem and identity, the relationship we have with our earthly father, and the relationship we have with our heavenly father.
3 action points:
1. forgive your father.
2. Expand your capacity for understanding God by opening up your understanding of him as your very real father. This can if you accept it, lead to a healing in your relationship with your father.
3. Seek to be a father (or mother) to the fatherless - and healthily fathered - in the church. We are family.
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