Good Monday Morning, My Dear Friends,
When Imagine Church gathers for worship this Sunday, May 17, we will observe Graduate Recognition Sunday and honor the largest group of high school graduates in our church’s history when twenty-four young people will be recognized. Among the honorees will be Tyra’s and my son Joshua, and Justin and Jennifer Tankersley’s daughter Kate, along with others like Tabbi DiDonato, Lexi Galeota, James Gilkeson and Shayla Linck, who have been part of the Imagine Church family since the very beginning.
When we were putting together the building blocks that would become Imagine Church, one of the things that guided us was the knowledge that our children primarily begin to view God through the lens of their relationship with their parents. When Tyra Jones was first putting together the plan for Imagine Kids, she wanted to combine the two primary influences of the family and the church in the spiritual development of our boys and girls, because she recognized that no one has more potential to impact and influence our children toward God than their parents.
We celebrate that when we baptize or dedicate children here. In every instance, we celebrate not just the newfound walk of faith of our children and young people, but also the role of the parents in leading them to this profound moment when faith takes hold in their young lives and they surrender their lives to Jesus Christ.
Our desire is to be the kind of church where parents are involved in the spiritual growth process of their children. I’m reminded of this verse from the book of Proverbs, “Start children off the way they should go, and even when they are old, they will not turn away from it” (Proverbs 22:6). It didn’t say, “When they are teenagers,” but “when they are old, they will not turn away from it.”
Here’s what you can count on: During those times when your kids are struggling with their faith, help them see why your faith is important to you. Answer the questions you can, continue to pray for them, and then give them some space, too. In the process of that, our kids have a way of figuring out in the end, that all the stuff they learned when they were kids, and what they saw in you, all of that is really true.
Jacob in the Old Testament said to his son Joseph, “The blessings of a father” — and we could add a mother, or grandmother, or grandfather — “are stronger than the blessings of the ancient mountains” (Genesis 49:26).
What blessings will you give to a child?
Bruce Jones, Pastor
Imagine Church
