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March/April 2004

Margaret Bernhart, M.A., LMHC
Executive Director

2004 Parenting Conference

"Parenting turned upside down."

"Dropped jawed-stunning."

"The gospel changes everything that we've been told
about raising kids."

These were just a few comments I heard describing Dr. Dan Allender's How Children Raise Parents conference, hosted by RMI on January 24, 2004. Six local churches came together to help financially underwrite this community event in order to bring Dr. Allender's significant and vital message to Tallahassee. We would like to thank Agape Life Fellowship, Four Oaks Community Church, Killearn United Methodist Church, St. John's Episcopal Church, Vineyard Christian Fellowship, and Wildwood Presbyterian Church for their commitment, generosity and involvement. I would also like to personally thank Keith and Karen Gibbons who co-labor with me for their diligence and sacrifice, plus each volunteer who went beyond the call of duty to make this a very special conference. Bringing this calabur of national speaker to Tallahassee would not have been possible without the support of these churches and volunteers.

I got a number of emails from individuals who attended the conference. One came from the associate pastor of Wildwood Presbyterian church. I've asked Rev. Ed Hague, Pastor of Adult Discipleship, to expand his thoughts and share them with our readers.

An Honest and Hopeful Parent
by Rev. Ed Hague

Reformed
Rule-Bound Parent

If there is to be hope for both
my children and myself,
I must admit I am a failure as a parent.

This was the message I took away from the How Children Raise Parents conference sponsored by Reconciliation Ministries. I went to this conference because, while I have made much progress, I continue to have a nagging inability to love my children well. This failure has made me easy prey to the latest fad or formula that comes along. Straightforward steps, proven techniques and guaranteed results all entice me with the promise, "Do this and God will bless."

At this conference, Dr. Dan Allender offered no such things. Instead, he had the audacity to say the trouble we have with our children is designed by God to expose the true condition of our hearts as parents--a condition we are naturally committed to hiding from them. In my case, I discovered that behind my firm guidance with my daughters came the goal of correct behavior. The ugly truth is that they were more of a problem to be solved than children to be loved and known. So I taught them to obey me, but I did not pursue their hearts with my love. God confronted me several years ago when I envisioned them saying at my funeral, "Dad? He sure did manage us well." I wept at this being my legacy for their lives.

My daughters are well behaved, and I am glad for this grace. Behind their behavior, I have struggled with a quiet arrogance in what their performance does for me as their father. They make me look good and I so much want others to be impressed. As a pastor, it has been tempting to polish their behavior so that my reputation can shine in the resulting reflection. "Perform and Pretend," has been my motto. If my children perform, I can then pretend that I am doing a good job in raising them. And I am, if their outward behavior is all that matters.

The ugliness that I don't want others to see comes when my daughters don't perform up to my expectations. At the seminar, Dr.Allender talked about authoritarian households that are rigid and rule-bound. He described these homes as full of "quiet screaming." This description was like a bullet piercing my heart. I have always prided myself on not shouting or losing control of my emotions, especially around my children. Yet reflecting upon my heart with regard to my daughters I often hear "quiet screaming." "Do not expose me!" I demand. "Do not crucify my reputation idol!" I whisper with angry fury. In retrospect, they were asking, "Will I still be loved if I do?"

Ironically, in the blindness of parenting out of my pride, I have missed my own story and my own heart. "You cannot grow your children's stories unless you let them grow yours," Allender explained. He then asked, "What are the things you care about most that cause your children to wonder if the gospel is true?" How disruptive this question is to my heart! Through it I see that my goal of raising godly children who are well-behaved examples of good parenting has kept me from addressing my own brokenness and sin. In disrupting their depravity, I have refused to allow my children to disrupt mine. As a result, they have not seen the gospel change my heart.

I am thrilled that God's grace is changing this. In brokenness, I am finding the strength to move towards my children's hearts and not simply focus on modifying their behavior. In the process, they are being used of God to call forth intimacy, compassion and courage from me. Things I never knew I had to give are now becoming the very things that are knitting our hearts together. My wife has encouraged me for years to enter our children's hearts through questions instead of offering solutions or instructions. In learning to do this, both their hearts and mine are being exposed as needy and then deeply loved by Christ.

Allender says that the only good parent is a parent who knows they need Jesus Christ - His death and resurrection, and the forgiveness of God every day. As I embrace Christ as the great need of my heart, my children's hearts are becoming more precious to me. God is writing a good story with their lives-a story I have not had eyes to see. As I give them room to risk and fail, I am giving my own heart that same room. Together we are drinking deeply from the love of our Savior.

What will my legacy be? Will it be that of a rigid, performance-based father who forces his children to be "good Christian kids" that others admire? I am now full of hope for a different story-that of the disruptive love of God using my children to awaken me to the needs of my own heart. I yearn for a story of me becoming an honest, humble and hopeful father that loves his daughters deeply and shows them every day why the gospel of Jesus Christ means everything to him.

The Naming of Our Children and Ourselves
by Karen Gibbons, MS, LMHC

Karen Gibbons,
MS, LMHC

The title of Dan Allender's latest book, How Children Raise Parents intrigued me the first time I saw it. If you missed attending the seminar, it would be well worth purchasing the book. Reading it and experiencing the seminar have opened my eyes to seeing how raising children affects both the parent and child in ways that I never considered. As a mother of five, I have constant demands of my time and energy. When I'm at my worst I am impatient with my children's constant questions and need for my intervention. When I'm at my best, it's a delight engaging with all of my children's special and unique personalities amidst the chaotic and mundane. Indeed I believe this is what mothers are called to offer their children, but now I see how God uses all of these interactions and my mistakes to shape their character and mine. If you are a parent, undoubtedly, you have washed innumerable loads of laundry, filled and emptied oceans of bath water, and cooked truckloads of meals. With the exhaustion of each day, it is often easy to fail to realize a consistent pattern of interactions coming from my kids. According to Dr. Allender, they are always asking two core questions, "Do you love me?" and "Can I get my own way?" How we answer these two questions determines what kind of home we offer to our children, but more importantly, what they will know of God and how they will live out their lives. As a parent, I am to try to answer both questions simultaneously. As I offer tenderness and strength, I will see manifested in my children the unique qualities that God has placed in each one. Themes will emerge as I watch them deal with frustration, pain, pleasure and success. As a parent I am to dialogue with my children naming those themes, burdens, and natural skills and talents. I'm to invite them to see their strengths, and engage with them over their weaknesses. A child cannot name these things themselves. If we fail in this area, our children will be left to flounder in an internal sea of emptiness and confusion--becoming adults inclined toward legalism and pretense. With little understanding of their particular bent, they will be hindered from knowing their specific calling, and unable to dream for their own lives. Dr. Allender's biblical principles have refreshed and refined the goals of my own parenting style. I am called to live an honest, open life before my children, knowing my own uniqueness and encouraging them in theirs, while dialoguing about both our fallen natures. By God's design we will learn together about one another and God. That is an extravagant love, indeed.

You may purchase the book How Children Raise Parents through this website. Go to Bookstore, click on the Amazon.com button. A portion of the proceeds of the sale of books goes to RMI. You also may be interested in purchasing some of Dr. Dan Allender's other books: The Wounded Heart, Bold Love, The Cry of the Soul, Intimate Allies, Bold Purpose and The Healing Path.