Parenting as Ritual and Reality + Should I Join CREC church?

Parenting is done best in the daily walk, not in the ideal. If we hide the struggle while pursuing the ideal, we will die in the pursuit.

I receive lots of questions on parenting in other venues. Part of it is that I wrote a small book on it several years ago, have spoken on the subject, and do pastoral counseling, and partly because it is a conversation I have with lots of parents on a regular basis. It is also because I am in the middle of the battle with five kids ranging from 8 to 17. There is much learning happening in our household as well. Everything is fresh and applicable and, in certain seasons, smellable.

Whatever wisdom I offer may stem from the incalculable amount of hours I have spent reading on parenting over the last 20 years and, hopefully and primarily, from a heavy dose of biblical wisdom. But as we all know, the entire process is a flurry of unexpectedness. Parenting is not formulaic; it is relational adjustments momentarily and momentously. Parenting is the art of adjusting well to changing circumstances.

As a member of the hated patriarch, I support a healthy dose of rituals that shape a home. Some things ought to be consistent, like a Curry mid-court three-pointer. Family worship should happen consistently, but not rigidly like a Puritan songbook. Table dinners together should happen as frequently as possible. Still, none of these things are Gospel necessities. We are not saved by food or singing, but by faith alone. Faith manifests itself in food, singing, Bible reading, and table fellowship, but those are not the final ingredients of justification. Of course, my entire public writing history is a history of encouraging those endeavors as unto the Lord, but I hope I have not treated them as a self-help manual.