Spiritual Parenting - 8

REVIVING SPIRITUAL PARENTING (3)

Now that we have identified and examined some of the spiritual stages of growth and maturation, we can get to where the rubber meets the road. A parent raising healthy and growing children not only 1.) knows what level each of the children are under their care are at, 2.) has a good idea of where they would like each of their children to be next, but they also are preparing actions to help them get from where they are now to where they pray they will be next.

So, the next step in the spiritual parenting coaching process is asking ourselves, what tools do we have in our "ministry tool belt" to engage those under our care at each level in deeper growth? A good first step with is simply listing as many "ministry tools" as we can think of. Here are some examples:
-Daily CO2 (2 people, two practices, as close to daily as possible) -Weekly CO3 or CO4 (same two practices, but in person on a weekly basis together) -Through-the-Bible basics Bible study -Spiritual formation discipleship Bible study -Prayer meeting -Book club -Care call (by phone) -House call -personality test and training -coaching session -outreach group -service project -spiritual gifting test & training -teaching on a specific topic -leadership powow -Dinner meeting

Those are just a few - all of those things listed above could be considered tools in our ministry "tool belt". They are useful in building believers of all kinds up into spiritually mature saints of God. The next question - how & when do we use those tools? Let's try matching some of them up with 3 different main stages of spiritual growth - new believer, developing Christian, maturing saint:
New Believer:
-Weekly CO3 or CO4 -Through-the-Bible basics Bible study -teaching on a specific topic (such as baptism, or salvation in general) -Dinner meeting -House call

Developing Christian:
-Spiritual formation discipleship Bible study -Prayer meeting -Daily CO2 -teaching on a specific topic (such as sanctification, and spiritual warfare) -Care call

Maturing Saint:
-leadership powow -personality test and training -coaching session -outreach group -Book club -spiritual gifting test & training

So these are a few potential tools which we as spiritual parents - charged with the spiritual nurturing, teaching, and equipping of the saints under our care - have at our disposal. We now have some idea of what type of actions, activities, teachings, etc, that we can use to help those under our influence grow and develop into further spiritual health and maturity.

Getting Practical- Make a list (such as above) of all the tools you know of that might be useful for the growing of saints. Then try to match each one with appropriate levels of spiritual growth that they might best be used during.