Family Ministry at River City

05/03/2022

“As young adult children relinquish their need for hands-on parenting and take up responsibility for their own lives, there is a mirrored relinquishment for which we, as their loving parents, usually need plenty of grace.”

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/mother-yourself-out-of-a-job?fbclid=IwAR2OhwIcXEaByC2si8tniQcPz3HFYqIIGlK67oYkvJiP2kIE03iPV1W678c

For years, our children need us, depend on us, can’t live without us. And then, one day, they launch out on their own. How can mothers learn to love and respect our increasingly independent children?

04/26/2022

“ I could never wear any motivational mom gear because I am not or a by any measure. I don’t say this just because I know I should, but because I feel my own insufficiency deeply and the weighty task of caring for these souls to be increasingly heavy.”

In the third trimester of my fourth full-term pregnancy, my doctor joked about how I was a “pro.” But the truth was I didn’t feel much more prepared for the baby than I had felt seven years earlier and pregnant with my first. If anything, three kids deep, I felt less sufficient for the task. [...

04/19/2022

“I want my kids to understand that there are hard things people are going to say about Christianity. It starts by being explicit about those things. The ideal is that they’ve already heard some of the hardest things they could hear about their faith before they run into them elsewhere.”

We need to be intentional about catechizing our kids with what is truly good, truly beautiful, truly life-changing, and life-saving, and God-glorifying.

04/12/2022

As I read The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, I couldn’t help but think about how our ministry efforts should endeavor to form kids into the identity for which they’ve been created, rather than allowing them to embrace a de-formed identity of their own emotionally-driven creation. Our youth ministries should foster a lifestyle of faithfully following Jesus while denying oneself (Mark 8:34–37) by emphasizing biblical truth through thoughtful ministry practices.

Have our youth ministries been complicit in expressive individualism’s cancerous spread within the body of Christ?

04/05/2022

What are the seemingly mundane tasks in your family life that you have seen bearing gospel fruit in your child’s life, your life, or both?

If life happens in the ordinary, is it not crucial to help shape our kids’ ordinary? Running errands is prime training ground for discipleship.

03/29/2022

“Hannah’s story does teach us, however, that God loves to put gifts in open hands. He delights when a mother, welling up with maternal affection, wells up still more with desire for Christ and his kingdom.”

Many of the greatest victories and advances God has worked in history have been answers to a mother’s persistent prayers.

03/22/2022

“… the average young Christian spends upwards of 40–50 hours per week looking at screens and social media. They’re on TikTok almost constantly. And it’s forming them powerfully.”

Parents, pastors, and youth workers: these five questions can help the young Christians in your life make wiser entertainment choices.

03/15/2022

We asked our Rooted writers to share how they are caring for lonely teenagers in the ongoing effects of COVID-19.

Be comforted in knowing that your job is not to “fix” the loneliness, but to usher children toward their Savior, the ultimate healer.

03/08/2022

We must allow our kids to see us broken over evil and suffering, so they know there’s another way than callous acceptance of it.

Children need help to process the events unfolding in Ukraine. Justin Earley offers advice to parents looking to shepherd kids through the brutal realities of war.

03/02/2022

“Don’t give up on fatherhood just because perfection seems continually out of reach.”

Fathers, your children will fall short of your expectations. And you will fall short of your own. Don’t let imperfection keep you from loving well.

02/28/2022

This list represents ten articles we believe will encourage and equip you as you parent your kids.

02/15/2022

"Yet, even as a Christian parent, I can live out of “bad fear”—a fear that drives me to my own control and self-reliance instead of reliance on the Lord."

Laying our child’s needs at God's feet reminds us of our limitations, releasing us from feeling like we have to play god in our child’s life.