We at FBC Leamington, want to PARTNER WITH PARENTS; we want you to know that if God has called you here to be part of His family at FBC that we are committed in doing all we can to help one another in being faithful & diligent.  We want to come along side of our parents and encourage and guide them in their understanding of what God instructs in His word.  Our volunteers are committed to providing the best child care in our infant and preschool rooms so that parents can engage in our service and be spiritually fed.  We have other volunteers that work passionately with our junior and senior youth being positive role models as they help them discover all they can be in Christ. Our Sunday school teachers are exceptional and forward thinking in their creativity.  Weekly they help the children from JK through grades 6 dig deep into God’s word and apply it their life.  It is a privilege for us to partner with parents.

Deut. 6:1-9 "Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the LORD your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it, so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the LORD your God, to keep all His statutes...you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." 

These verses are often considered to be some of the most significant in the book of Deuteronomy.  They instruct us not just to respect and obey God, but to love God completely.  Even today the Jewish culture throughout the world refers to these verses as the SHEMA…their confession of faith.

Verse 5 begins with the instruction to love God will all our heart, soul and strength.  Loving God with our soul involves our mind, will and spirit.  We consider the Lord with our mind, we decide to love Him with our will, and our spirit is our God given capacity to know Him.  According to scripture we are to love God with all our strength.  This means loving God by showing that He deserves priority in our physical strength, possessions and finances.  When our children or those around us see the spiritual related to the physical it’s a visual demonstration of integrity.  They see that what we believe influences what we do.

In verse 6 we are told that the commandments we are given are to be set upon our hearts.  We can’t expect to pass anything on to our children that they haven’t first seen in us.  The commandments need to have taken residence in our hearts.  God’s word needs to be familiar to us, not a foreigner in our lives, and parents are to love God themselves and take His word to heart.

Verse 7 tells us to empress them on our children.  This is a critical phase, calling for training in the home.  Often we expect our Sunday school to be the primary source of spiritual development for our children, but God makes it clear it is the role of the parents. The task of “teaching children” was and is the responsibility of the home, not some institution or a combined effort of a group of professionals.  The teaching is to be deliberate.  The Hebrew term “teach” suggests repeating, telling over and over again, and modeling a consistent message.  Also in verse 7 we are told to talk about them when we sit at home, when we walk along the road, when we lie down and when we get up.  Basically, we are to weave God’s values and words into the natural rhythm of the day.  Consider the impact we can have on our children if we set the mood for the day by including thoughts about God.  Well known author Charles Swindoll says, “home is indeed where life makes up its mind.  It is there, with fellow family members, we hammer out our convictions on the anvil of relationships.  It is there we cultivate the valuable things in life, like attitudes, memories, beliefs and most of all character.”  We need to give God thanks today, for His help in using our home to develop these, all important, essentials.

Another verse in scripture that encourages parents to be active in training their children is Proverbs 22:6…train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it.  Training up God’s children means directing them to a faith and life in Christ; it means giving a child moral guidance and teaching them to submit to God and His laws.  One hour a week at church cannot possibly undo what friends, family and culture can do.  Training involves much more that some parents are willing to give yet some give more attention to training a family pet, and we all know that children require much more positive attention than pets.

The scriptures in Deuteronomy and Proverbs are clear on the importance of parents teaching and role modeling the values and commandments of loving God completely and living for Him.  We see children as a blessing from God, a heritage, a reward.  They’re God’s gifts and blessing entrusted to parents.  All of us are in the process of passing on a heritage; we don’t have a choice about it.  It’s happening during the everydayness of life.  A heritage can be described as the emotional, spiritual and social legacy passed from parent to child; good or bad.  Our heritage consists of these 3 components bound together in one chord.  Solomon talks about the strength of 3 strands in Ecclesiastes, that they are not so easily broken. 

• Emotional Legacy – that enduring sense of security & emotional stability nurtured in an environment of safety and love.
• Spiritual Legacy – is the process whereby parents model and reinforce the unseen realities of the spiritual life.
• Social Legacy – is giving a child the insight and strong social skills to develop healthy, stable relationships.