Family
The gift of family is one of the great treasures we receive from God. Accordingly, we are called to love and nurture the family we have. We serve and obey our parents, and we love our siblings. Those joined in marriage are called to live and die for each other and for their children, if they are blessed with them. Despite being so great a gift, family life isn’t always easy.
Below, you’ll find useful sources that span the needs of family life, from issues within the home to the joys and struggles of raising children.
Free Resources
Ten Things Your Teen Won’t Tell You
One of the most difficult tasks facing parents today is keeping the lines of communication open with their adolescent children. No longer “children” in the narrow sense of the word and not quite adults either, adolescents are often a mystery to their parents (as well as to themselves).
Ten Things Toddlers Wish They Could Tell You
Tips for helping your young child or grandchild grow spiritually, socially and emotionally.
Ten Things Toddlers Wish They Could Tell You
Three Worldviews Parents Need to Confront
A review of common contemporary challenges to a Christian worldview along with takeaways for parents seeking to confront them.
The Meaning of the Presence of Children
“It is my aim here to explore the venture of parenthood … from within the perspective of Christian faith — which has, after all, been one of the principal sources of our culture’s formation on this question, but which … may help to point us in the direction of a true humanism.”
How to Talk With Your Children
The first duty of love is to listen. When we really listen to a child, our compassion helps us sense the youngster’s needs, anxieties, joys and sorrows as if they were our own.
Holy Mashed Banana Gunk!
Raising children is holy and blessed work.
Birth Plans
As America’s birth rate wanes, our societal fixation on the gestational trimesters, infant milestones and childhood “firsts” increases exponentially.
A Mother’s Prayer
Monica never quit praying for her son. God’s answer overwhelmed her.
All Those Glowing Rectangles
Screens make it hard for us to concentrate on real people and experiences, they disrupt our natural rhythms of rest, and they can be disruptive in other ways. Technology is a blessing when used carefully.
Adoption Advocacy in the LCMS
In 1996, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s Commission on Theology and Church Relations addressed adoption in the context of practices such as artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization. While the gift of procreation is a profound and beautiful testimony to the blessedness of marriage and reveals one of marriage’s most fundamental purposes, marital goodness is not limited by procreation. Where procreation is not possible, many couples choose to adopt a child into their family and, regardless of intention, also reflect the divine love that leads God to adopt us as His own (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:5).
Embracing Adoption
God builds families and gives the blessing of children through birth and also through adoption. When we embrace the opportunity of adoption, we follow in the heart of God. The church, as the family of God, can support adoptive families and become extensions of God’s mercy.
A Letter to My Birthmother
“I am writing this letter to thank and encourage all the birthmothers who may read it. … You made the right choice, and I thank God ...