When Family and Ministry Collide | Part 5
In this final part of their five-point series on family and ministry, Global Impact Partners Josh and Brenda Lei Casey conclude with a message of real hope to parents and families.
Redemptive parenting > performance parenting.
Perfect kids and perfect families do not exist. They are an illusion pushed upon us to make us try harder to produce something that is not possible, only to leave us exhausted and frustrated for never measuring up. Instead, we need to understand that the plan was always redemption, accept our brokenness, and celebrate God’s grace.
In Genesis 2-5, we see a picture of the first family. The first husband, the first wife… and they blew it. Then they had kids, and one of them murders the other one… This is how the family unit started. Sin entered the world and contaminated everything in it.
Yet God’s word tells us that before the foundation of the world, the lamb of God was slain. This means God’s plan “A” for the world He created was not perfection through sinful humans - it was always redemption of sinful humans. Plan “A” was Jesus. Plan “A” was the Cross. Plan “A” was the resurrection.
As parents seeking to help our kids learn to love God and love people, we find so much comfort in this. We know our weakness. We know we can’t parent perfectly. We know we need Jesus to redeem our parenting.
Instead of running from our failures or pretending like they don’t exist on social media, we can celebrate the Gospel in our lives and allow grace to overflow in how we parent our kids as well.
All we have apart from Christ is a pair of empty hands. We need to stay dependent and reliant on Him. This sort of mindset overflows into our parenting and ministry, and it positions us to be used of God as individuals and as a family. This type of parenting reflects the Gospel and builds into our children a proper ministry mindset for generations to come.